The price of propane is skyrocketing! A natural gas pipeline blew up in Canada and every household and business in Minnesota (where I live) has been asked to lower thermostats to 60 degrees while temps. plummet tonight to -25 degrees below zero – we won’t even discuss wind chills! And thousands had no heat for a while. Natural gas prices are expected to hit all time highs, so might as well keep the thermostat set down.
The south is being hit by record breaking low temperatures and snow too! What to do to keep warm?
Well, here is a project I have been putting off and today decided to get around too. And you can duplicate a semblance of this with just a $1 emergency blanket to help keep heat in OR if you are in a part of the world where you are trying to keep cool, turn the blankets to the sun and reflect that heat to the outside.
I think all we need is pictures and you will get the idea. So besides closing off rooms with quilts and blankets to heat with space heaters where needed, putting on a shawl, and wearing warmer clothes, here we go.
Last year I bought a 25′ x 50″ roll of 2 mil Mylar for less than $30 and being rather lazy I just cut some and taped it over the windows for both a blackout (Bob works nights) and to keep the bedroom warmer. It worked great! Every window in the bedroom and adjoining bathroom and it stayed a toasty 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. It is shiny on the other side too, so it worked to keep the bedroom about 5 degrees cooler in the summer as well.
But I have to admit it doesn’t look so good from the outside. A couple of weeks ago I was rummaging around the garage and found some foamboard and dragged it up planning to attach the Mylar to it and paint the board white on the other side, and maybe add some flowers in a window box decoration at the bottom. Right now I’m not going to bother with looks, I want the heat conservation!
I have several misc. thicknesses leftover, this particular sheet is better than an inch thick. Cut with a serrated knife or score and snap. This is one of my, I don’t want to spend any money projects.
Add some on-hand caulk…
Mylar smoothed onto it…
Fits nicely into the window.
And you don’t even notice it on the inside!
Don’t worry if your shiny stuff isn’t perfectly cut on the foam board, in fact, you can let it come over an inch all around as you can seal the drafts out even more!
And yes, I know I need to get around to that window molding…!!!
Hope this helps someone!
Great ideas! It sounds like this Winter is hitting quite a few of us pretty hard! It makes you think about what the options would be in a SHTF situation? For some, this will be pretty close for an example, and should be a wake up call for most everyone else! It has certainly changed my perspective about my options!
The promise of Spring is always there! It can’t come soon enough this year though!
On a related note, there’s a shortage right now of heating oil and propane in the Ohio Valley. The unseasonably cold temperatures have led to increased sales, which is compounded by the fuel lines freezing at the terminals where they load the tankers. If the terminals are out of fuel or they can’t load the tankers, then those trucks can’t get the fuel to your local supplier. For those who are dependent on this for their heat, carefully monitor the contents of your tank, turn the heat down if you’re running low on fuel, and be prepared to wait 5-7 days for a delivery. There are a lot of people without heat right now who did not have an alternate source lined up.
Bev you’re solution looks very similar to what MrWE2 did for our pantry windows at the Roost. We stapled dark blue “flannel” into the window so it looks like a “curtain” from the outside. Then he used the silver bubble-wrap and sized it to fit the window, stapled it in. Then sized plywood to the window and slipped it in, screwing it into the wood so that it’s probably not going to be kicked out without a ton of noise! And yes, you can’t believe the reduction in heat loss. We don’t even heat in there (the vent’s covered by a storage shelf)and it’s just “cool”. A nice temp for the pantry. It’s going to be hard on wifey though to give up her sun light :-) MrWE2 can get the stuff ready if we need it, but I’ll be hanging on to my master bedroom windows and my picture window in the livingroom…at the Roost. We’ve already did away with most of the light on the 2 southern exposure windows of the kitchen & LR with solar boxes. Gotta have some of my sunshine! LOL
We REALLY need an article on those solar window boxes you talk about! :-D
Single Mom, the news just did a story here in central OH, and they are now saying up to two weeks for delivery for propane and heating oil. I’m glad we are ‘in town’ in our rural location!
I always do the plastic covering of our largest windows early on. We know the ‘usual’ wind directions and which parts of the house get the most wind. I like the plastic so I can take advantage of any sunny days to get some natural heat in the house. And we have extra blankets and sheets to cover in addition to some mighty heavy lined drapes on the two largest windows. And yes, right now, we have blankets over all the windows in the house!