How to stop cold drafts coming through a sliding glass door
Poorly sealed or misaligned sliding doors let in freezing air that turns an entire room into an icebox, leaving noticeable gaps even when the door appears closed. This draft makes it impossible to keep the space warm without blocking off adjoining doorways or constantly fighting with faulty hardware.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
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How to stop cold drafts coming through a sliding glass door
- 1Covering doorways with curtains to keep adjacent rooms warmDid this help you?
- 2Hanging thermal or blackout drapes to trap cold airDid this help you?
- 3Using door snakes or draft excluders at the base of the doorDid this help you?
- 4Applying plastic wrapping or bubble wrap over the glassDid this help you?
- 5Sealing gaps with spray foam or weatherproofing tapeDid this help you?
- 6shimming the bottom and middle hingeDid this help you?
- 7Using double roller catchesDid this help you?
- 8Installing magnet closures or friction catchesDid this help you?
- 9Applying weather sealsDid this help you?
- 10Using a cup hook and eyeletDid this help you?
- 11Applying a fridge or freezer door lockDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I live in the northeast and it’s getting cold. The rest of the house heats totally fine but this room is a complete icebox. It has this sliding door which was recently installed and a door that leads to an attached garage.”source ↗
“This sliding door, the floor in front of it is ice cold. This whole room connects to the kitchen through a normal doorway, no door. If I cover that doorway with a curtain then, in the morning, the kitchen/first floor feels unbelievably warmer than that room.”source ↗
“Also this is a fairly new door but the contractor is to come back soon because we regularly struggle to close it. When sliding it either closes nice and flush or it slams almost shut leaving a 1/4” gap”source ↗
“You can see light coming inside on the bottom left corner and the piece I installed is weeks earlier on the ground (It didn’t work light was still coming in) dogs knocked it loose.”source ↗
“Is there a way to keep the top of this door closed that will look at least OK (it’s in a bedroom)?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Temporary fix for a draft under a bent door
- 2How to insulate a drafty floor over a basement or porch
- 4how to keep cold air out of mesh windows
- 4How to stop heat loss through an attic hatch or open carport
- 2How to heat a cold bathroom without adding a new electrical line
- 3Why can I hear everything through my apartment door?