how to REALLY save energy this winter

This thread is dedicated to normal people in a normal house.  No wofati.  No rocket mass heater.

Take a look at http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/heating.html

(and when you visit a really good site, I encourage you to click on the ads - it's like voting with your clicks for quality stuff)

Focus on the part of the article that talks about heating only those rooms, or parts of the rooms that you are using. 

An interesting bit was where you have a heat pad for your feet.  I wonder that if you are working at a desk and your feet are warmed if maybe your whole body will feel much warmer.  i know that I keep a portable heater at my feet and then set the house thermostat at 50.  I feel plenty warm.

good article..might I add that our wood boiler that heats 3 buildings with one wood boiler is also great..and it does use the forced air ducts so uses a fan, but we also use our ceiling fans..to keep the warm are down off the ceiling where we need it..

i close off our closets..esp the one that i use to store produce in like potatoes onions apples, etc...that closet when closed off stays about 50 degrees..it is on an outside house wall..and that is good for our produce..

we also used the sun traps by enclosing our front porch with plexi and regular glass and our back porch with plexi and glass as well..that keeps our house warmer when we open and close doors..and also when the front porch heats up in the winter we can use the solar advantage from it.

caulk and insulation are very important..

oh an dour boiler buildinig also is about 50 degrees out there too..with the furnace in it..so we can use that area to do some outside activities that would be too messy to do in the house..it is much warmer than being all the way outside and dry.

great thread

Quote:Windows

Caulk the edges of windows and install weather stripping.
Close blinds and curtains at night.

Tack clear plastic sheeting over the windows on the outside of the house with a staple gun.
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This is the only info given to the worst heat loss area of ALL homes.
We should focus on trying to match our wall and ceiling insulation to cover the windows.
What about covering the lower3/4 and use the upper part for light?

I'd say learn to knit really warm socks !



As Paul says when your feet are toasty you really do feel more comfortable. 

woodman wrote:
Quote:Windows

Caulk the edges of windows and install weather stripping.
Close blinds and curtains at night.

Tack clear plastic sheeting over the windows on the outside of the house with a staple gun.
----------------------------------------------------------------


This is the only info given to the worst heat loss area of ALL homes.
We should focus on trying to match our wall and ceiling insulation to cover the windows.
What about covering the lower3/4 and use the upper part for light?

One of the concepts I learned from the rocket mass heater workshops:  do you really want to live in a ziplock bag?

"do you really want to live in a zip loc bag"....NOPE...don't

I guess this is something I would like to ..... experience more.  Something where the house is a bit leaky (so, there is good air exchange) and yet toasty warm and efficient.  And this is an area that I'm still a little confused/concerned. 

So I guess the focus would be to heat the objects in the room more, but have less focus on heating the air in the room.

It's also not too difficult to build an air-to-air heat exchanger. 

I can't find it today, but there's a how-to online for a system with two fans, one blowing room air onto an accordion-pleated piece of aluminum foil on its way outside, the other one blowing outside air onto the other surface on the way into the building.  If it's set up correctly, it recovers a huge amount of heat.

I live in a large old house in an area where it gets cold in the winter.  This house has inadequate insulation.  Period.  I'm debating with myself on how to best remedy that.

In the meantime, I find I've applied many of the ideas mentioned here by:

1)  Closing off more than 2/3 of the house and heating only the kitchen, dining room, one bedroom and one bath.
2)  Although I don't have a RMH yet, I do have a wood burning cookstove.  Firebox is about 8" x 8" x 20", so I need to feed the fire with smallish wood and burn fairly hot fires.  After it warms up a bit, I slide the direct box-to-chimney vent closed forcing the exhaust over the top of the oven, down the side, and across the bottom before entering the chimney.  This helps extract heat and store it in the mass of cast iron and steel plus makes it so I can bake bread.
3)  I have three of those oil-filled radiator heaters that plug into the wall.  One is under my worktable and keeps ME warm even when the heated part of the house is below 60.  One is in the bedroom and I turn it on in the late evening to about 60.  The third is in the unheated bath to keep pipes from freezing when the temp goes below zero F.  I only turn them on when I need them, but in the deepest winter (-20F!!) they'll all be in use simultaneously.

The house is so large that the great wood burning insert I have just cannot keep the volume of air warm when the temps stay below freezing for extended periods, even though I load it heavily with wood!  And I'm really interested in burning minimal wood. 

Although my electricity use goes up in the winter, it's not been excessive using these techniques.  And I'm able to stay comfortably warm (I really dislike being cold!)  Next year, RMH!! 

Bill

well like on a day like today when the sun is shining but it is cold outside..the sun heats up my front porch (that is 8 x 10 and glassed in..but far from airtight)..

i open the door to the house and the heated "solar" porch air comes flowing in..it is leaky..so we get fresh air as well as warm air inside..

at night when the sun goes down it takes about an hour or two and then we have to close off the porch to keep the heated air iniside the house..but we do enjoy the fresh air exchange.

our wood boiler heats the rest of our house and Joel's and his garage..and when the boiler is going we always have enough heat..so i don't mind opening a window a crack to get in a bit of fresh air..moving through the house..in the winter..

we have occasionally opened all our outside doors in the winter when a good fire is going..to get an exchange of air..for just a few minutes..doesn't take long to heat back up as the walls and furniture are warm.

I put bubble wrap over all my upstairs windows, which was the coldest part of the house. Now it's the warmest. This is with almost no heat on, and it gets a little solar gain during the day when the sun is shining. The windows were well caulked and are all double pane and that helps a lot. When I have a wood fire going in the Mama Bear Fisher stove, I always cook on it and heat water for tea. I leave my big pressure cooker full of water on the stove overnight, with pebbles under it so it doesn't get too hot and too high a pressure, and it acts as a small heat sink when the fire goes out. Having a lot of mass, like a big stone hearth under and behind the wood stove helps hold the heat too. I keep a fairly large, flat rock on the stove and wrap it in a towel at night an put it under my feet when I'm using the computer, or at the foot of the bed on very cold nights, under the blankets to pre-heat the bed, then take it out before retiring.

We all know now that rocket mass stoves are the most efficient, but we also have to work with what we've got until we can change it. I think the biggest expense any of us have, is heating the house.

The humidity is lower in winter so I get out the clothes drying racks and use those for drying clothes indoors. If I put them near the wood stove, the clothes are dry in about an hour.

I also dress for cold. I wear a hat and double layers and warm socks in the house. I sleep with a hat on and lots of comforters on the bed. Then I don't care if the house is cold. One thing we have to do in winter is to make sure the air we are breathing is reasonably warm. This is even more important for people with asthma or COPD as they can have a life threatening episode if the lungs are too stressed. Keep a scarf over the face and breath through it (use natural fibers like wool or alpaca), to pre warm it so you don't get too chilled, in extreme cold. If the house is cold when you are sleeping, pull up a flannel sheet or light blanket over your head and make a tunnel to breath. Don't worry, you won't suffocate, our bodies have an automatic response to low oxygen and it will wake you up (except in the case of carbon monoxide which actually just puts you to sleep). When we acclimate to the cold this way, we don't feel it so intensely when we go outside into more cold.

I saw a technique where you build a solar collector out of wood, paint it black, and lay it on the ground and run a section up into the bottom of a window (slightly open to allow for it) and into the house. You have to really insulate around the window where it comes in so there are no cold air leaks. It brings in a lot of warm air. The window has to be secured so no one can open it from the outside. The person explaining it to me said it will more than adequately heat a whole room. I think the top was polycarbonate or plexiglas.

On my boat (good solid drafts all over) I have been comfortable in the 55-60F. range; that will vary with the person. It's more efficient to heat water and put that heat _inside you_ than to try to heat the whole place. Sitting still (computer work) gets me cold quickly so that requires lots of tea or a foot warmer.

At night after 2am it tries to get down to 45 or so indoors. Since I'm in bed that usually isn't a problem and when it is I just put on my sleeping cap and keep my nose under the blankies - or just keep my whole head under. Using a thin (1") foam "mattress pad" under the sheets helps keep the heat between the blankets and not in the mattress. When using foam like this, don't make up the bed with the covers completely covering the mattress - leave the covers folded well back off the sheets at least two or three hours to air the bedding and let the body moisture dry. A couple cats help heat the bed and seal small blanket drafts. When outside temps drop below 45 I use a heating pad at the foot of the bed; old ones don't have the enforced timed shut-off most new ones have now. I get a better "seal" for my cocoon when I _don't_ tuck the bedding in at the foot - this allows me to lift up my legs and swing the hanging bedding under my feet; then a twitch right and left brings that part of the bedding in tight. You learn to maintain the cocoon automatically through the night; there are "issues" when you have a large partner but it still works well. Cats just self adjust as needed.

I do find that heating the bed area just before I'm supposed to arise encourages good timely behavior.

But beware the oil filled heaters. Even good brands seem to have problems with marginally designed thermostats and switches. When using the heater at max (eg. both switches ON and 'stat set high so it runs constantly) don't leave it alone until you have watched it in operation all day for several days. The plastic controls can heat up over time and melt, letting the wires short out and possible starting a fire. It's usually preceded by a distinct smell of unhappily hot plastic. Very exciting and annoying.

Rufus

Hi all, good thread...

everyone should be aware of this great work

www.builditsolar.com

not a company, but a clearinghouse for renewable energy, most of it DIY - from kid's projects to sunspaces (see the latest blog entry with DATA) to homeade panels etc.

Andor

Paul, I just watched that video and info on personal heating you posted at the bottom of one of the threads I was reading. It sounds like a good idea to use the personal heaters, heated mouse, etc, but when I clicked to read about the products, they did NOT have good reviews. So it seems more development us needed to really make use of those kinds of products.

I keep a heat pad at the foot of my desk and if i turn it on i get hot. generally only turn it on for short time

Joel Hollingsworth wrote:It's also not too difficult to build an air-to-air heat exchanger. 

I can't find it today, but there's a how-to online for a system with two fans, one blowing room air onto an accordion-pleated piece of aluminum foil on its way outside, the other one blowing outside air onto the other surface on the way into the building.  If it's set up correctly, it recovers a huge amount of heat.

please tell me more! I am a DIY kind of guy, and a whole house heat recovery ventilation system costs about £2000 here. would like to do it, but maybe for about half that!

-------------------------------------------------------
okay, I have been looking at a load of resources for this- pretty interesting. the heat exchangers are actually quite easy to build, it's a question of whether you really save any money after buying the fans and controller, and whether it will last as long as a commercial unit. seems like the sub-$500 american ones are quite a bit smaller than the ones I have seen; something tells me that to be worth adopting this as a strategy and making all the air-tightness improvements you need a really high efficiency, like 80% plus.

Count the cost of your BTU's. Electricity BTU's are expensive. Unless you are trying to heat your house with Unleaded Gasoline, then setting stuff on fire (wood, gas, coal, etc,) is probably always going to be cheaper per BTU than electricity. Small spot heating with electricity like has been described is only cheaper because you are producing tiny amounts of BTU's and making them count.

Something that saved me some money and kept my home feeling cozier too was using bubble wrap cut to friction fit in the windows and basically supporting it with a bit of scotch tape. On warm days it was easily pulled back and the windows opened for fresh air. I will be reusing it this year . I also found some bed comforters I really liked on sale for $30 and the thickness of them hung as drapes was very insulating for the windows as well. This winter I will have about a 6' by 24 ' foot cooler storage area insulated off from the furnace heated portion of my basement and used for canned goods and other storage that can be cool adjacent to the exterior access door. It will be one layer basically buffering the exterior from the interior . My exterior north side of my house has no windows and enough overhang that I am considering stacking hay bales off the ground on pallets outside under the eave in a single layer as an additional barrier insulating that wall . It can be fed off to the animals as springs gentler temperatures approach. I have not tried that idea but it holds a lot of appeal . Also inside my barn I can arrange hay stacked in the perimeter two stalls to help insulate the middle two stalls making it warmer for my rabbits and chickens if I need to move them inside for a cold snap . Warm and dry animals consume less feed too keep their body heat up.

Melba, Thank You for all the great ideas, especially the bubble wrap idea

I have a couple to add

1) cold feet: cayanne pepper on the soles with warm socks; this helped keep me warm during the "winter of no heat"
2) fan at the foot of the stairs if two story; we heat our two story uninsulated farm house with one gas heater on the first floor. The fan brings the warm air to the second level, oh, and leave your bedroom doors open
3) pre heat your bed with an electric blanket; I'm going to try this this winter and turn the blanket off before bedtime to avoid unwanted EMF

I found this little space heater idea while cruising the net. It's made with terracotta pots, metal nuts and bolts, and a a candle. I will have to try it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGgHvq4iLa4

paul wheaton wrote:I guess this is something I would like to ..... experience more.  Something where the house is a bit leaky (so, there is good air exchange) and yet toasty warm and efficient.  And this is an area that I'm still a little confused/concerned. 

So I guess the focus would be to heat the objects in the room more, but have less focus on heating the air in the room.

My brother installed insulation for years. He said there's danger in sealing up a house too much. They would seal the house but add air exchangers (to recover some heat) and install a bathroom fan that ran all the time. The idea is to vent moisture safely. And by safely, I mean that it doesn't enter walls and insulation, cooling and condensing where it's a problem. Instead, moist air is dumped out the vent, where it is harmless. That's the theory, at least.

We let the house hang out at 60 but turn it up to 65 in the morning and a few hours in the evening. Works because we're mainly out of the house during the day.

Anyhoo, I've noticed that we're particularly sensitive to the cold in the mornings when it's dark and you don't really want to get out of bed. Also, during various adult activities, the cold can make the whole experience less enjoyable. Last year it occurred to me that a canopy bed would be a solution. I like the idea but haven't built it yet.

Just to bolster Paul's 'personal heating' experience ... 'science' is catching up with him : )
"....At the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown that devices that warm you up through the seat of your pants are much more efficient than heating air molecules and hoping they bump into a person before blowing away.
Earlier this year, one team of researchers at Berkeley figured out exactly where to place heating and cooling points in chairs to provide comfortable temperatures with about as much energy as it takes to power a compact fluorescent lightbulb. Just don’t expect to see them the next time you take your seat. “Unfortunately not many products are available commercially,” said Hui Zhang, one of those researchers. “This is a sad fact. .... "

https://grist.org/energy/the-heat-is-off-with-patio-heaters-banned-how-will-french-diners-stay-warm/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly&utm_content=the-heat-is-off-with-patio-heaters-banned-how-will-french-diners-stay-warm%3Futm_medium%3Demail

Since it’s now August and autumn is around the corner, I’d like to mention one of my fave energy conservation gizmos: a bed pig. It’s a stoneware jug with a screw-top & you fill it with hot water. Ideal for warming the bedsheets, but also perfect for setting your feet against while sitting in a chair. Not to mention, my bf has restless leg issues, and heat along the inside of the instep seems to help minimize symptoms.

I attached an image of ours to this post, but I’m not sure if it worked. There’s a decent selection on Etsy right now. The prices might seem high, but they’re all about 100 years old, so it kinda makes sense. I have found that the bed pig saves money & energy by increasing personal heating, and it can do it as long as there is a way to heat water (which means it works even when the power is out), so it was worth it for us to invest in 2 back when I had a corporate job.

A caution: I’d discuss proper packing for shipping if you order one - I received one that was in shards because the seller incorrectly assumed that it was solid enough to handle shipping without an interior box & padding. Considering that these are out of production, that was a crushing loss. I wonder too, if an enterprising potter could make money by resurrrecting this no-tech warmer?

This is one of those counterintuitive things. I find that I burn much less wood in my fireplace than in the wood stove.  I suspect the reason is that the open flame is inviting and we sit closer to it.  We never have a roaring fire in it, just enough to warm us......and, of course, the psychological benefit of the open flame.

In my climate leaving rooms unheated is very unhealthy, winter is damp and not terribly cold, an unheated room gets very damp to the point of paper peeling off and mold growing in around half a winter. Turning the heat down in unused rooms is sensible but they should be warmed to 14C or so. Also remember that fridge freezer combos stop working around 9C and then you lose the contents of the freezer. so for us to keep warm in our climate.

Turn down unused rooms but not off
NEVER dry clothes in the house Damp houses are cold houses.
leave wet waterproofs in the porch if possible
Keep internal doors closed to avoid drafts, and find and block any other drafts, like under the front door or unused chimneys.
Hot water bottles are your friend.
A nice long blanket over your legs and wrapped round your feet works wonders. it also attracts cats/dogs which are self refilling hot water bottles.

Hi Skandi,

Good point.  We keep all our rooms at a minimum of 50f or 10c.

I've grown up in 1800's era built homes in the North East of the USA and find that they have their leaks. At many family members homes, in the cold months, you can find older blankets folded up in front of exterior doors to slow down air exchange at the base of doors.

How effective is it? I'm unsure to the degree but can notice a difference if the doors indeed are leaky. I couldn't quantify it.

We have baseboard water boiler based heat and found keeping interior doors closed allowed rooms to be warmed better than keeping everything opened up. I wish I had more control over the lines flowing because there is waste going to rooms such as the upstairs that are unoccupied. I'd imagine the heat from the first floor rising would keep it warm enough to prevent issues.

I live in the worst house in the world to heat...a sprawling, 3 story Victorian home on a river in Maine, so its big, drafty, cold and damp outside, and tough to heat inside. Still we manage.

Envision your house as being upside down and filled with water. Anywhere water would be leaking out you want to stop up. With this anaology you can easily figure out where you want to airproof air gaps keeping heat from getting out and letting cold air in.

Since I did not build this house and have no idea what is behind the walls, every time I do a room I strip it back to the studs and ensure all the insulation is good.

I pre-buy my heating oil for this house in the summer to get the lowest price per gallon and thus lock in at that low per gallon price.

I installed a door in the second floor hallway. Yep, this was for my two fighting cats to stay separated, but I found out it prevents a lot of heat from going up to the third floor.

We installed new baseboards. We were cold last year because our boiler was high end, but we could not get the heat out of it because our baseboards were lacking. We upgraded to high output baseboard that kicks out 1/3 more heat per linear feet of baseboard. By being able to heat a room, the boiler no longer runs, and runs, and runs in trying to keep up. You cant get much out of a high efficient boiler if you don't have baseboard enough to let that heat be dispersed.

Baseboards cannot let out heat if they are clogged with furniture. We dislike our winter furniture arrangement, but no couches or other furniture block our baseboards since we rearrange our house for winter heating.

We insulated our bulkhead. This keeps the heat in the basement and not from going out through the uninsulated bulkhead.

We run a dehumidifier in the basement to keep the basement area dry

We keep the house at a constant temperature. We found it used more heating oil to go up and down as our schedules dictated and now set it at 70 degrees and forget touching the thermostats. This allows the boiler to keep up with the cold instead of trying to heat up a very cold room.

We budget for heat. Just because heating oil is a seasonal cost paid once per year does not mean we do not take money out for it every paycheck (weekly, all year) to be ready for that one time yearly purchase. It also means budgeting renovations to include insulation.

If you can get by with less windows, do. The best window ever built has an R factor of 3. An insulated wall has an R factor of 22. That is pretty easy math.

We don't use plastic on our windows because many of our windows are stained glass windows, and we have got heating down costs to where they are pretty low anyway. If we did, we could vastly cut our heating consumption down by about a third.

Overall because of where I live and what I have for a house, I look at heating it as a constant battle. By making little changes every year, it is getting better and better here. I do have a wood/coal boiler I could install, and could put up plastic on the windows. We are getting close to being able to live 100% on the first floor with the renovations we have done. That might allow us to close off the 2nd and 3rd floor in the future because there is only me and my wife living here, but for now we are heating this 3500 square foot home for $3300 a year. That's nothing considering how much room we have, and how comfortable we are.

My best heating  hack is my usb powered heated vest im a farmer and work outside in freezing temps all winter the small amount of electricity  it takes to charge the battery lasts me all day and when i come in at night i can have the house at a lower temp and have vest on its low setting. Its kinda like pauls heated mat but for my whole torso lower power and with me wherever i go.

paul wheaton wrote:

Take a look at http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/heating.html

(and when you visit a really good site, I encourage you to click on the ads - it's like voting with your clicks for quality stuff)

I forgot about clicking on ads as a show of support.  Great reminder.

We too live in a big, sprawling older house with leaky windows and doors, and an underfloor area that is essentially open to outside. It's a pain to heat and through the winter we have our fire running pretty much 24/7.

IN our first few years in it we discovered that the big problem with running the household cooler was condensation and subsequent mould issues. We have settled on running the house consistently a couple fo degrees C warmer (18 to 20, vrs 16 to 18), and have a couple of dehumidifiers running 24/7 through the Autumn and winter until the air dries out enough. I'd love to be able to fix some of these issues, but the fabric of the building just isn't built for it, and we have plenty of firewood from the trees that fall on our property.

I think a lot of it depends on how "fashionable" you want to be.

Now as I said before, heating our home is not a struggle. But if it is a struggle for people, losing the concept of being fashionable will net them huge savings. Put blankets up between floors. The cost of shrink wrap for windows will save you loads of money. Using localized heat instead of a house-wide heat.

I watch these silly house buying shows and all these people say the same thing, "we love to entertain". That is not the right statement because they are not asking themselves the right question. "How often do you entertain?"

I won't lie, NO ONE comes to our house. I mean even our own daughters seldom come here. Since that is the case what does it matter if we tack blankets around the staircase to stop heat from going upstairs? And how often is that needed? Maybe it is all winter if money is tight, but that is also something you can do for just the really cold snaps to save money. And how hard is it to take down if someone does come to the house?

Home energy savings is really about getting real with ourselves.

If money is super tight, we must make the house super tight no matter how sad the house might look. Drastic times account for drastic measures. But if it is just your family that is living there, with few visitors, what does it matter if the kiddos have to slip between a blanket before going up the stairs? It doesn't look great, but being fashionable, and putting on airs is expensive.

Tina Nixon wrote:Since it’s now August and autumn is around the corner, I’d like to mention one of my fave energy conservation gizmos: a bed pig. It’s a stoneware jug with a screw-top & you fill it with hot water. Ideal for warming the bedsheets, but also perfect for setting your feet against while sitting in a chair.

I had a canine version of a bed pig for 12 years -- somehow a 80lb dog taking up the lion's share of a torture rack futon and three obligatory feline head, stomach and foot warmers

I kept the house at 57 •F / 14 C with a wood furnace and on grid hydroelectric powered baseboard heaters and thermostat to come on at the specified temperature , prevent water pipes freezing, and got used to a cooler house.

Winter arrives illusory later, but the best part is Spring comes sooner : once it's warmer outdoors than indoors, out you go!

Since the days of a canine bed pig, the spruce trees are now much taller and do a better job of cutting the wind.

20 years along, the electrical is safe upgraded, and I have upgraded the black. Joe (tar paper) on the outside with house wrap and siding, and the big patio door is permanently closed with 10 mil vapor barrier taped up with red house wrap tape, outside and inside, and the picture window on the incoming wind side now overlooks a small add-on on the balcony which is also vapor barrier wrapped. The insulation on the problem side of the house is now red taped up with patches of Styrofoam insulation inside, lending a colourful backdrop to pans hanging on screws decorating the studs.

The roof insulation was changed and the roofing cover and soffits were added

It is much warmer these days, but what helps most is that it is 850 Sq ft over a basement where the wood furnace is along with furnace fan, a high powered squirrel cage fan, ceiling fans, a few more positioned strategically, and I keep the 5x8 bathroom toasty warm

Also the windows have insulated roman blinds, and I roll up rugged clothing awaiting laundry under door cracks.

I find the thing that really limits my comfort with lower heat (and I'm not talking remotely extreme here! Just the low end of what people consider normal) is my hands when working at a computer.

I have some wool fingerless gloves but they start to bother me and I get too warm after a bit - I think I'd need something a little thinner and a little more fitted. I often have a hot cup of tea handy. I've been contemplating a little mini heater or a heating pad.

Our current central heat is an oversized gas furnace and quite swingy, which is getting replaced with a heat pump soon which should generally be more stable but we may want to lower the thermostat a little on the coldest days to reduce electric backup usage!

L Gaudette wrote:

... my hands when working at a computer.

I have some wool fingerless gloves but they start to bother me and I get too warm after a bit - I think I'd need something a little thinner and a little more fitted. I !

Try getting some cotton blend work gloves. I find them at an all purpose store that sells clothes for working outdoors, in packs of 10 or more that cost a couple dollars each at most, and cut the fingers off. Use them for cleaning jobs when it's time to replace them.
I also keep a couple pairs in each glove compartment

Naturally, I dress in layers. When it gets cooler, I add an additional layer.

Another thing that has worked well: I purchased styrofoam panels several years ago. They were cheap at the time, about $9 for a pack of 6. I cut them to fit the windows and put them in the windows in cold weather as soon as the sun goes down; take them out when the sun starts hitting the windows in the morning. In the summer months I use the same panels during part of the day to reflect the hot sun out of the windows.