Ok, with all this winter weather I’ve been inspired to tell you my window insulation secret. If you have $25 and a couple of hours, you can save an average of $30ish per month. (Maybe more depending on your situation.)
St. Louis is a beautiful city with lots of old time charm where the apartments do not lack in the oldness category. My windows are about as useful as a sheet hanging over a hole in the wall.
That being said, I decided to put some extra insulation over them as to decrease the amount of money I give to Ameren UE each month. They make enough money without my extra crappy-insulated-window-dollars.
Now here’s the trick. You need to go shopping at a store that sells paint supplies and buy a roll of plastic. (I bought mine from Walmart for about $20.) You can use duct tape, nails or a combonation of the two for hanging.
I actually took my blinds all the way down before putting up the plastic. I measured the windows then cut the plastic a few of inches longer than the windows. When I hung the plastic up, I used duct tape at the very top of the window to hold it up like a curtain. (This is a great option if you don’t want to un-install your plastic during the good weather.)
Oh yeah, and make sure you double the plastic up before hanging. It works even better if you have two layers.
The plastic kind of acts like an inner curtain to the blinds. I put some small nails near the top of the plastic to secure it a little better.
The next thing I need to do is put up my drapes to really insulate these babies! It’s on my to-do-list for 2011.
Did you do anything different to insulate your old windows?
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