[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: Smart house designs

[Robert Waldrop]

Someone in an earlier message in this thread 
mentioned the flammability issue with rigid board 
insulation.  Because of flammability issues, our 
"first thought" window shutter was a wood frame 
that, with weather stripping, fit snugly inside a 
window, with 1/4 inch plywood on each side, and 
one sheet of the "pink stuff" rigid board 
insulation inside.  Two handles on the interior 
side to put it in and out.  We used that for 3 
years and still have it around somewhere.  It 
worked fine, wasn't tedious to put in and out of 
the window, looked nice (or rather, it did until 
someone who was living here covered it with decals 
that proved hard to remove), but we wanted more 
insulation than one piece of 1/2 inch board 
insulation would give us.

That shutter was for a single window, but most of 
the windows in our house are two windows side by 
side in a single window well (our house is a 1929 
Craftsman bungalow), so they need a larger "box". 
That proved tedious to put in and out because it 
was heavier.  So we put hinges on the top and 
tried that.  When it was open (hooked to the 
ceiling) it gave kind of a cabana look to the 
living room, but over time it warped or shifted 
and wouldn't fit snugly, so it got dismantled and 
used for other things.  Also, a second problem was 
that the way the windows are situated, in the 
rooms with north and west, or north and east, 
windows, only one of them could be fixed with a 
top mounted hinged shutter because of problems 
having both of them open at the same time. We 
thought about "accordian" shutters that would be 
hinged on the sides, which is probably the best 
choice but we think that is beyond our 
cabinet-making abilities.  But I sometimes wonder 
because of the flammability issue, if we should 
practice that skill until we get good enough at it 
to make wooden shutters with the rigid insulation 
inside that would be hinged on the side and open 
and fold.

Bob Waldrop, OKC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Donelson" 
<abetterbuilder at frontiernet.net>
To: "Lawrence Lile" <LLile at projsolco.com>; "Robert 
Waldrop" <bwaldrop at cox.net>; 
<greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 9:03 PM
Subject: RE: [Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: Smart 
house designs


>
>
>
> Robert sez:
> We have been experimenting with
> indoor shutters.
>
>  I had considered tight-fit panels that go 
> inside the window, but rejected
> that idea because we have sheetrock returns 
> around the windows,
>
>
>
> --Lawrence
>
>
>
> If you get a pretty efficient ( say R-4) 
> shutter, you may cause condensation
> on your glass and frames, which could play havoc 
> with your sheetrock
> returns.
>
> Bruce Donelson
> A BEtter builder