Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Drafty Windows

Our home is now hermetically sealed. With plastic. Now don't go thinking we've gone all white trash. Tanya showed me the error of my thinking years ago when she showed me her electric bill compared to ours all because she put plastic on her windows in the winter.

Tanya taught me that it's not my fault that old windows get drafty and to not be too proud to do something about an issue that is making money fly, figuratively, out the window. Drafty windows happens to everyone, just like what all women feel (bubbles) when they go potty. It happens to everyone but nobody talks about it.

I really have no idea why I feel the way I do/did with putting plastic over the windows. I guess it's from seeing other peoples houses from the outside with shiny tin foil covering their windows. (And really, what does tin foil do??? If it's just to block light, then black-out curtains can be purchases at Wal-Mart for less than 16 boxes of tin foil. Weirdos.)

So mostly what I'm trying to say is if it's drafty, feel free to fix it. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. You can't even see that the windows are covered. And it's so nice to sit and not feel a cold breeze on your neck while knitting.

Some things I would like to point out:
1. Don't wait until it's 19˚ (again) before putting up the plastic. The hot air from the hair dryer has to work so much harder to shrink wrap the plastic. It takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r.

2. It's super fun to chase out the wrinkles with the dryer.

3. Sweep the floor before unwrapping the plastic or you'll end up with furries on the inside of the windows. Ewww, gross.

4. Something else, but I can't remember.

5. Buy the size for sliding/patio doors and cut to size. It's cheaper that way.

6. Start sticking at the top, do the sides and then the bottom. Trim after you shrink wrap. Thanks Tanya for that little tip. So much easier than the way I would have done it.

7. Try to make the plastic as neat as possible, but not tight, just wrinkle-ish free-ish. The hair dryer will tighten everything up.

1 comment:

Brightfield Farm said...

Another Tip from Tanya: you can carefully pull the plastic off and fold it up and save it for next year. I put the plastic for the room's windows in a big envelope and store it int he room it's ending up in.
and again...i miss you