Seven foot windows - how I keep the cold out
by Luke Hasseker
(Bremen Indiana)
We're renting a hundred-year-old clapboard house in a small town in northern Indiana. The ceilings are probably ten feet high and the downstairs windows are seven feet high, three feet wide, with no storms. Last year (we moved in last December) we spent a fortune on gas and the place was still really drafty.
I'd seen those ads for the plastic you put on windows and then shrink wrap with a blow dryer, but the kits were all for 3x5 windows which doesn't help us much. In September I talked to a guy at the local hardware about it and he said you could get a roll of the plastic, and rolls of the double sided tape separately, on special order.
I ordered them - just picked it all up last week. The rolls come in 3' or 4' widths and are something like 50 feet long. I got two 3 foot rolls and several rolls of the tape, for under $70. It was enough to do all eight downstairs windows as well as the bedroom windows upstairs, with maybe half a roll left over. Best thing is you can't even tell the plastic is up there - once I blow dried it (or is it 'blew dry it'!?) it was clear and just a little shiny.
Last week the temperature dipped a fair bit in the evenings and we were much more comfortable. I've even noticed it's quieter - I think before we must have been hearing the wind slipping through the drafts around the windows. Not any more.
The only problem is when you open or close the front door, the plastic bulges out a bit for a few seconds. That's when you notice it. But it soon goes back to normal.
The fellow at the hardware store told me how to carefully peel the plastic off the tape at the end of the heating season, fold up the plastic and store it. You need new tape the next time round, but apparently if you're careful you can save most or all of the plastic for next year. The creases won't matter because of course the blow dryer takes all the wrinkles out.
It would be nice if my landlord would take out all these old windows and replace them with something energy efficient but that's sure not likely to happen soon, so at least this way I'm cutting back on my heating costs without spending a fortune of renter's money on renovations!
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