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How to stop letterbox flapping in wind & rain

The letter box on your front door might seem like an unassuming and largely unimportant part of your house, but it carries out rather an important role - particularly when it comes to the postman and your mail.

Whether you have a wooden or upvc door, having a letterbox is important, as, without one in place, your whole door looks incomplete, with all the wind and rain from outside being able to get in much more easily.

Noisy Letterboxes Can Be more than a Bit Scary at Night

But what happens when your door's letterbox starts banging in the wind? It can be quite scary when the cold wind is strong enough to blow letterbox flaps and bang them against your door.

Here we look at how to fix the problem, as well as cover other aspects like style. So, let's dive straight in, shall we?

What Causes Letterbox Banging?

It's important to say at this point that a fully-functioning letterbox will not end up banging against your front door. Typically speaking, it only really happens when some small piece of it has become broken.

Generally speaking, a letter plate will bang when:

• The spring has broken or fallen out

• A small piece of the letterbox has broken off

• The outer edges of the letter flap are no longer flush

When you go to inspect your offending letterbox, you should be able to see any damaged parts fairly quickly. It's at this point you'll understand whether it can be repaired or needs to be replaced with a new one.

Drawbacks of Having a Letter box That Bangs

While having a noisy letterbox might seem like a minor issue, it does have some more serious ramifications. They include:

• Loud Noise: if the wind gets up at nighttime, the noise made by an errant letterbox can be so loud. This can scare you, and your kids and most likely annoy your neighbours who'll also be wondering where the din keeps coming from.

• Heat Loss: another issue relates to the fact that having your letterbox open more often means you'll lose heat. With energy prices already being high and potentially rising again soon, you don't want the heat to just escape out of the door.

• Unsightliness - as we mentioned a little earlier, flapping letterboxes often mean that they're broken, which may detract from the style of other door hardware such as door numbers, handles, and locks.

So, can you fix flapping front door letterboxes?

Depending on what's actually happened to your letter box will determine exactly what kind of tape or screw fix you'll need to administer. However, here are a few ideas to think about.

• Put blu-tac on each corner - if you're after a quick way to stop the noise, then just a couple of pieces of blue-tac will do quite nicely. Stick a couple of pea-sized pieces on the inside edge and it will deaden the sound if it happens to hit the door.

  This is just a quick solution, however, as blu-tac is often not that secure, particularly when it's wet outside.

• Tape the letter flap down -

  

  our next solution involves simply putting some tape over the flap, so it can't move, even when buffeted by the wind. However, as you might imagine, this is another temporary solution, as it prevents post from being put through your door.

  It's a good solution in the middle of the night when you just want the sound to stop, but you'll need to come up with a more permanent solution when the sun comes up.

• Use magnets -

  

  Another idea with a bit more permanence is to put a small magnet or two on the edge of your letterbox frame, with a similar amount on the flap itself.

  This will mean that even if the spring is broken, post can still be put through the door with the magnets softening the action and creating silence.

• Installing a new letterbox - 

  

  there will be times, of course, when your letterbox becomes damaged beyond repair, leaving a gaping hole in your front doors.

  The good news is that replacing your letterbox and covering up this hole is easier than you might think. There are a dazzling amount of styles available too, with Antique Black Iron, Victorian brass, and Polished Chrome being just three of them.

Premium Letterbox Products From Hiatt Hardware

At Hiatt Hardware, we regularly create posts like this one to help our readers with their outside and inside door and wall hardware needs.

We offer a wide range of high-quality letterbox products in a wide range of styles that can be found at the Hiatt online store. Amongst our many products, you'll find specially-designed Stormguard products with a design that stops them from being noisy.

That's it from us this time around, so be sure to look out for future posts from the home of top-quality door hardware.