Plastic up the Windows

Winter is coming and your heat is going out the windows.  Every single home leaks heat out the windows and that is a fact of physics.  Cold migrates to heat and heat migrates to cold.  Even if you have top of the line insulated windows your home is still going to leak heat through every single window.  Why does this happen? Windows are an open box for heat to escape.  No installation of an energy saving window matters because the air space around the window is wide open.  But you can somewhat stop the relationship of heat going out and cold coming in and save you heating dollars.

Plastic and windows are good friends when it comes to winter heating bills.  Every home improvement store sells the plastic window insulation kits.  I happen to be a huge fan of putting plastic up over the windows. 

We have an apartment with floor to ceiling windows in the front.  There has always been a cold breeze that came through the windows even though they are tightly sealed windows for the most part.  You might ask yourself why you should put plastic up on your windows.  This is why.  Heat migrates to cold because that is science and physics.  Cold migrates to heat and this causes a reaction in the battle between hot and cold.  Cold usually wins and your heat goes out the window.  For the sake of a few dollars and a few hours of work you can save large amounts of money and enjoy your indoor heat more.

By simply putting up a plastic sheet over your windows you throw up an insulator to the heat in your home and the cold outside.  The two sides of hot and cold will still fight but there is a mediator that cancels all of their arguments for entry or exit out.  The air trapped behind the plastic warms all day long and that alone keeps your heated space from attracting to the cold windows long into the night. 

Do yourself a favor and try putting up some plastic on a few rooms that you know are cold even with the heat blasting.  Install the plastic outside of the frame of the indoor windows and woodwork.  It makes a huge difference.  An ounce of prevention for so little cost saves tons of money on your winter heating bill.

Stay warm my friends.

Papamoka

Plastic Up the Windows, Winter is Here

One of the biggest scams with replacement windows is the installation. You can buy a window that is supposed to save you half of your home heating and cooling costs but if they are installed half assed you get nothing. When the guys making $10 or $12 an hour to install the windows just install a window then they just install a window. Much of the savings is lost when the installers do not insulate or caulk around the outside of the jams around the new window and you might as well still have that old window in its place. All that technology in a top of the line new replacement window you just paid top dollar for is lost because a twenty cent piece of fiberglass insulation was not stuffed in the gaps of the frame by a guy or gal making $10 or $12 dollars an hour. The sales pitch was great, the end result sucks.

We rent, the house has all new double glass windows, I feel bad for the original owner of the house who probably paid a fortune for the full replacement of all the windows in a three family house. They got screwed! Every winter we have to throw plastic window wrapping over the inside of the windows to not only cover the windows but the trim around them inside the house. I fear the house is going to lift off at any moment because the sails of the plastic are always full in our double pain windows. How do you fly a three decker house? Is there even a flight school for this? Maybe the people that sell the plastic window insulation kits should cover this topic in the installation directions?

Anywho, the plastic is going up in this house and if you want to save some heating dollars then you need to throw some plastic up on your windows too. It isn’t hard to do. Every home improvement store carries the kits this time of year for all sized windows. We covered our three bay bedroom windows with a large oversized window kit. The temperature in the room rose by ten degrees or more with just the existing heating system.

It’s simple, it is inexpensive, and it saves you big bucks on your heating bill. You put the supplied double sided tape around the window trim on the wall, you pull the protecting layer off the double sided tape starting with the top edge and half way down on each side of the window, start at the top of the window with the plastic and fit it to the surrounding wall and frame of the window. Remove the rest of the protective barrier on tape as you snuggly fit it to the window. Press and seal the plastic and you did it! Done! Now all you have to do is wait for the energy savings in your home heating bill.

Frost King has a great product and I’m sure that your local home repair store has other great products that would achieve the same goal. Saving you money on your heating bill this winter is easy if you put the plastic up on the windows.

Papamoka