testing, testing

Today it was 19° and bright and sunny. Perfect weather for testing windows with and without insulation.

We have been researching how to stay warm, how to decrease usage of fuels to warm a living space and just how efficient windows can be.

Windows can be an enormous expense in a home. Glass is fragile, heavy, and when layered together with argon gas or something else that helps stop transfer of temperature they are a massive expense.

Our house was "updated" before we moved in. The windows were replaced. The new windows leak air and serve as a massive conduit of temperature transfer.

We tried insulated drapes. The air just went around them.

Homer has tried more drastic measures. A full sheet of solid insulation, an inch and a half thick, cut to just fit in the window.

Our vaguely scientific results are in. After a couple weeks of mostly below freezing temperatures day and night, the covered window is the clear winner.

The frozen bottle of water placed in front of the insulated window thawed out. We do remove the insulation during the day and replace at night.

The frozen bottle of water in front of the uninsulated window remained frozen.

Maybe those ineffective thermal drapes would look good wrapped around that insulation. Dress it up a bit and keep us from all our liquid parts freezing up.