Hatrack River Forum: Cutting costs (mayfly?)

This is topic Cutting costs (mayfly?) in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by DaisyMae (Member # 9722) on :

So I'm wondering, what are some good ways (that won't cost me too much) to better insulate my windows? I can feel that we're getting a lot of cold coming through. This is our first winter in this home and the first I've had to deal with this. Are there fairly simple solutions that I'm just not aware of?

Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :

Here's a pretty good article:
http://www.urbanoptions.org/resources/guides/weatherizationGuide/weatherizationGuideAir.php

We have rope caulk and window plastic up. It has helped a lot in keeping the house warm.

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :

http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/15436

Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :

I always put up plastic sheeting at about the same time as the landlord turns on the heat. There's a couple brands available, 3M is the only name I can think of from the top of my head but the other one I see all the time here is in green packaging. Might be Duck but I'm not certain on that.

Comes with doublesided tape that you put up around your windowframe and then you lay the plastic on top of that. Not too tight, because then you hit it with your hair dryer to essentially shrink it to window size and taut. I still get a bit of a draft because I have one window with a crack in the framing that the landlord hasn't fixed yet, but this does help a lot.

A package large enough to cover 5 standard room windows (the roughly 48x60 size) generally runs me about $8-10. There are also packages sized for patio doors and oversized picture windows.

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :

Be careful about preserving escape routes. It's easy to claw through, but it does take some time. You could mount a box cutter on string near the proper windows to ease some worries with that.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

IKEA sells some very heavy curtains that we put up in the baby's room and were able to insulate it pretty well with just that (it's an apartment, we can't do very much.)

Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :

Those plastic sheets are great! I would've frozen to death one winter without them. They are fairly cheap too.

Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :

Plastic sheeting for me, too. I'm opposed to the draft.

Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :

I thought this thread was going to be about cutting costs in a company office. I was going to recommend firing Milton Wadams.