[Greenbuilding] [BULK] night insulation for windows savings

[Lawrence Lile]

I've made them two ways - paint a piece of R-max on the non-foil side,
or buy window curtain kits from Warm Window company
http://www.warmcompany.com/

R-max foil faced insulation paints up real nice, depending on what brand
you have it may look just like the wall. They really do disappear,
depending on how you treat the edges. 

The window quilts are dramatically more expensive and time consuming,
and depending on your skill as a seamstress/seamster, may or may not
look any better.  Mine didn't come out that great.  They can potentially
look marvelous if you are good at that sort of thing. 

I found two ways to do a good magnetic seal.  The most obvious way is to
get 1" wide magnetic strips (don't buy the 1/2" ones from Warm company -
they fall off the wall.  Get 1" wide ones from Michael's crafts or
online) and put them on the edges around the window, and on whatever you
are using as an insulator.  I had to nail them at 12" intervals to get
them to stay up - far less than ideal! 

A slick way of doing this works if you have sheetrock returns around
your windows.  This is typical in newer, thick walled buildings but rare
in older buildings.  A sheetrock return will usually have a metal edge
strip at the corner of the sheetrock around the edge of the window.  You
can use a high power magnet to stick to this.  Go back to Michael's
crafts and get a pack of four high strength magnet buttons.  A minimum
of four, and ideally 8 or 10 can be buried inside a piece of foam for a
totally invisible, and tight, magnetic seal.  I'll be putting up a
webpage soon to describe this process.  


In other windows you can use a force fit method.  I line the edges of
the foam with duct tape, paint it to match the wall, and force fit it
between the trim.  This requires very accurate cutting for a good seal,
is less than ideal, eventually leaking more and more.  I use this method
mostly on North windows that get sealed up and left that way all winter.
Leave a little tag of duct tape sticking out so you can pull it out.
Duct tape sounds crude, but if you do it neatly and paint it to match
the wall it isn't too bad.  If you need something nicer, warm window
quilts are the way to go IMHO.  


An issue we need to think through is, none of these materials are very
fireproof.  Warm company is coming out with a fire resistant quilt
material, but they've sold a lot that isn't.  Foam panels are not fire
resistant, and state that you need sheetrock between them and a living
space.  I have been ignoring this, but keeping any heat sources away
from the window.  

Lawrence Lile, PE, LEED AP
Project Solutions Engineering

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Ross
MacLeod
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 10:25 AM
To: greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
Subject: [BULK] [Greenbuilding] night insulation for windows savings
Importance: Low

Does anyone have a favourate windows insulation product / solution  (to
work
with existing and various size windows) that performs well and is
convenient, attractive and of reasonable cost?