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Window Insulation: Pearl's designs for layers

 
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This thread about insulating windows sort of starts here Waterfalls: Odd window insulation that's working! when I mentioned that I had lots of layers on a badly leaking set of windows. But it REALLY starts with my design for our forever home that is not built yet, Maison du Bricolage: Do it yourself house which has had from day one an elaborate system designed as part of the heat and cooling of the house. The Waterfalls have been added to the system design (as they work surprisingly well!) and I drew up both what I'm doing in this rental, and what I have in my house design, so others can see what I have worked out and maybe get ideas for how to make it work in their own homes.    

Starting here at the rental on the front window with it's layered system made out of what I had at hand.

This is what was here when we got here:

the base rental layout


It has a useless valence, put there just to hide the rod, not to do anything with temperature control. There are structural issues that make it very difficult to hang anything on the walls (there have to be studs someplace in there, but they are not on 16 inch centers, or easy to find) so it's all weird what I can and can't manage to do.

When we got here the place had lightweight curtains. And this house is DARK. I pulled a bit of the curtain over and tacked it to the wall, and put behind it a 4 foot florescent light fixture with daylight spectrum bulbs. In winter it is on a timer to come on about 6AM and turn off about 9AM, then come back on about 6PM and shut off about 10PM.
There was also a bad sideways draft, I cut a pool noodle in half lengthwise, and covered it with white fabric and tacked it up on the side edges of the window frame, helps a lot.

Added light and draft exclusion


Lightweight drapes pulled over a light fixture


With the light on


What it looks like in use


What it does is make it seem like the sun has come up earlier, and stayed up later than it has, this helps with Seasonal Depression both me and mom have problems with.

The Waterfalls I made (see the other thread) in down position, staying out of the way when not in use:

Waterfall down


And up in the position they are used in:

Waterfall up


On my drawings the Waterfall looks like this:

Waterfall schematic
 
Pearl Sutton
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To continue:
To block more of the draft, but still let light into this dark house, I put up two clear shower curtains, their rod is behind the white drapes rod, toward the glass. To keep the draft more constrained since they don't reach the floor, I put a strip of trim on the wall (found two studs for it! Woot!) and taped rare earth magnets to it, and magnets that line up to them to (... hm... I think they were pieces of a blind....) making two bars that go on the outside of the clear drapes and pull it tight to the wall when the magnets connect. There was still some draft through the bottom crack, but not a lot, and the Waterfall has stopped that.

Clear drapes schematic


Clear drapes


Another bar was added in front of the white drapes, and a heavy blue blanket was hung from it.

Heavy blue drape


Heavy blue blanket drape


When all of the drapes and Waterfall are in use it all looks like this in diagram, although all you see is the blue blanket, above, with the fake sunlight being bright on the right side edge.

Diagram of all the layers
 
Pearl Sutton
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And THEN there's the design for our forever home. It's the same idea... but well designed and a major part of the whole system for heat and cooling control in the house.
( Maison du Bricolage: Do it yourself house  has more of the temperature control details in it.) (Wow, just realized that thread has only one casual mention of the hydronic heat system in it, guess I need to rework that thread soon!)

The south face of our design is this, the windows I will be showing drawings of are the two to the RIGHT of the front door.

Front elevation, south face


The interior of the house, in cutaway view, both the main floor and basement showing, also shows the colored power and air flow risers that line up on both floors. The flat spot above the windows is sloped, see the house thread for better visuals of what it will look like. The windows I'll be showing here are on the LEFT of the front door now.

Cutaway view of south wall interior


What you would see looking at the window wall from the inside:

basic layout of the south wall


side view of the basic layout


The valence is 12 inches deep and high, made to constrain the air within it. The face of the risers with the outlets and switches on it is 12 inches off the wall, smooth with the valence front. The hinged panels are floor to valence high, and riser to window width, but open on the window edge, you'll see why in a bit. They open so the 12 inch deep by a bit over 3 foot deep space is accessible as needed. They shut to match the valence and riser, basically they look like blank wall, and can be made to look like any other wall with artwork etc. Visual effect is of a wall with windows in 12 inch deep alcoves.

And now let's get into what's behind the hinged panels!
 
Pearl Sutton
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Removing the panels, and the electrical risers exposes the return air tubes. They go from up in the valence (to pull off excess heat) to go through the floor and hook into bigger tubes that are fan driven air flow to the air handler. There are intake points that can be opened and closed up high in the valence, at just above floor level. In summer the high ones are open to remove window heat, in winter the low ones are open to remove cold air at floor level.

Return air flow tubes


Side view of return air flow tubes


Within the valence is a set of rods to slide stiff sections of drapes on, more like sliding doors than like curtains, each layer moves as a solid unit, not like a curtain that ends up zigzagging into a clump.  

Multiple rods


From the side you can see how the sliding panels work. Each layer is different, you can use any layer combination you need.

side view of rods and hanging panels


From the glass to the room, by the colors I used in the drawing:
Green: Insulated firm panel, wood facing the glass, several inches of insulation (probably wool) that hangs low enough that when it slides out, it can be put into the window frame and fill it tightly. There are (not drawn) bars and brackets that can hold it tightly in place for storms or seriously hot or cold weather. If a window breaks, it might mitigate how much damage happens. Exterior mesh will help keep breakage down, but if a tornado is determined to break windows, there's not a lot you can do to stop it.

Blue: Clear plastic. It's heavy duty table covering plastic that comes in big rolls. It'll have a frame that makes it slide as a unit and magnets to hold it tight to the wall.

Purple: Insulated drapes, multiple layers of fabric and padding, and again, it moves as a stiff unit, not squishing up like curtains.

Red: Lightweight drapes that are on a bar that moves in and out of the space so the whole thing slides, but the curtains on it can be split apart to open them and tie them back to look pretty.

Orange: Lace drapes that are also on a bar that sides on the main bar, can be pulled back or left to just hang.

There's a space that if there's room may end up with vertical blinds as a sliding out option too. I dislike them, but they are better than horizontal ones if we decide we MUST have them.

And looping back to where this all started (see the Waterfall thread in the top post) waterfalls that can be flipped up to use, or left down (at a height below the insulated panels) to keep them out of the way.

Waterfalls both up and down


Side view, Waterfalls both up and down



Total effect of all of this is no matter what season, there are coverings that can be used together deal with almost any weather, and the air that is not the desired temperature is constrained behind the drapes, and removed to be heated or cooled in the air handler and sent back through thermal mass in the center of the house. This keeps the air flow moving all the time, and any air that's not the right temperature being treated elsewhere, not just making hot or cold spots in the room.  

What I have at the rental is the cheap version of this, but you can see now what I was sort of making with what I have to work with here.

Thank you for reading through it all!! It's a complex system, but all the parts are super simple, low tech, and function stacked. That's my goal for our home, all of it easy to make, easy to change or repair, and everything having the most effects I can work into their design.

:D
 
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I'm reminded of years ago living in a poorly heated space, I cut out pieces of styrofoam board insulation the exact size of the window frames, and simply stuck these up over the windows from the inside every night, which was the coldest time and I didn't need to see out the windows anyway.  It didn't take very long, putting them up and taking them down in the morning, since there were only two windows, but it made quite a difference.   Also reading the post about the tubes to bring cool air into the space reminds me of the time I tried to do this with a cabin I built.  The tube was underground and connected to the wood stove pipe in the summer to try to use the rising air in the black stove pipe to suck in cool air from underground flowing through the tube.  Problem was condensation in the tube eventually blocked it, since it could not drain out...
 
Pearl Sutton
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Alder Burns wrote:I'm reminded of years ago living in a poorly heated space, I cut out pieces of styrofoam board insulation the exact size of the window frames, and simply stuck these up over the windows from the inside every night, which was the coldest time and I didn't need to see out the windows anyway.  It didn't take very long, putting them up and taking them down in the morning, since there were only two windows, but it made quite a difference.

 
I have a couple of north facing windows at the rental that are nasty draft points in winter. I made a sheet of clear plastic that hangs off a curtain tension rod that fits tightly in the window frame, it blocks a lot of the wind that comes through. On each edge I put metal that magnets adhere to (pieces of metal lumber strap, check the trash at a lumberyard, that's wonderful stuff!) and made styrofoam panels with magnets on them that click into place easily.

The windows are tall and narrow, I made three panels per window, so when we want light to come in, we remove the top two panels and leave the smallest one at the bottom as a waterfall. Works really nicely! On very cold days we remove just the middle one so we can see out, but as much as we are not looking out of is still blocked.

And me being me, after I decided the design worked, I covered the ugly foam in turquoise satin cloth (because I have a lot of it) and when the window is covered it reflects the light in the room and looks much prettier.  Tinfoil would reflect the light well too, I use a lot of it, but turquoise satin is just pretty!! I don't have pictures of the satin covered panels, maybe I'll take some when they go up again.

Also reading the post about the tubes to bring cool air into the space reminds me of the time I tried to do this with a cabin I built.  The tube was underground and connected to the wood stove pipe in the summer to try to use the rising air in the black stove pipe to suck in cool air from underground flowing through the tube.  Problem was condensation in the tube eventually blocked it, since it could not drain out...


My house design has sloped smooth walled pipes that run a long way under the ground before reaching air. The design is a mix of earth tubes and ancient middle eastern water harvesting techniques, and the idea is to cool and dehumidify the air by making it so it water harvests into a small pond for animals, and the cooler, drier, slow moving air (doesn't work if it's high air flow!) is the air input into the house in summer. Multiple parallel pipes due to the slow movement, so it adds up to more total air coming in the house.

Other tubes are designed also for possibly heat harvesting, (under a south facing concrete patio) but again they are smooth walled, sloped, with drainage points. Water harvesting via condensation happens, and it can be used for good purposes, or at least mitigated out in a good design. I cringe when people want to use the cheap flexible corrugated black pipe, it looks like a mold factory to me. I read of a house they had to tear down when they used a lot of that for air input without thinking it through, and it made the house so moldy there was no way to remedy it.

 
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These are great ideas I thought I would never need. Sold a house in Arkansas this summer that was built in 1988. Bought one in SE Iowa that was built in 1900 or earlier, which I told myself I'd never do again. Lots of updating going on here. Some windows have been replaced, but for the others, these tips will come in handy  because mine are all tall windows, too. Thanks for posting!
 
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These are interesting ideas, Pearl, and probably fairly effective in somewhere like a rental where you're limited in what you can do to the house. Your new house design is also rather interesting, but fairly mechanically complex. With many moving parts, I fear the risk of failure is quite a bit higher.

I'm curious if you've come across Passive House concepts at all? What I'm getting at is that all these modifications are only necessary because the window itself performs poorly, so why not just get a better window? Your south facade in your design already looks great, with a lot of windows to capture that free heat from the sun in the cold season. Higher performing windows can let that heat in while still insulating the cold out while also not frosting up, reducing the moisture issues that that brings about. For the summer season, have your roof overhangs (or awnings) extend far enough to shade the windows, keeping the heat out while the inside remains cool. Suncalc.org can help you get the sun angle at different points in the year, you'll just have to do a bit of trigonometry to figure out the optimal overhang. Exterior shades can accomplish the same thing, but introduce more mechanical points that could fail. Interior shades can help slightly, but it's harder to get the heat back out once it's already made its way in.

An air tight install of a high performance window will eliminate drafts and keep the face of the window thermally comfortable, removing the need for complex insulation systems that obscure the light and view, which is the primary reason a window is there in the first place. I live in a place that is likely to see -40C in winter and +40C in summer, and it's incredible how properly installed high performance windows and corresponding shading can make both extremes still comfortable on the inside.
 
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Riley Arfitzy wrote:An air tight install of a high performance window will eliminate drafts and keep the face of the window thermally comfortable, removing the need for complex insulation systems that obscure the light and view, which is the primary reason a window is there in the first place. I live in a place that is likely to see -40C in winter and +40C in summer, and it's incredible how properly installed high performance windows and corresponding shading can make both extremes still comfortable on the inside.



For our American friends, that's -40 to 104 F.  I grew up north of Saskatoon and I remember for the longest time, the TV weather noted 40C was the all time high...I was living in the region (or possibly at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon) when that record was broken.  At least it is dry so sweat works in the summer and in the winter you can just add another layer to dress for the chill.
 
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For those of us who are a little weak in thermodynamics, I thought I'd post what my son explained to me:

Heat is what does the moving. The goal is to keep the heat trapped, so what Pearl is building on the inside of her windows will keep heat in (not cold out).

If you want to keep heat out in the summer, outside shade trees to keep the sun off the windows, or outside roller blinds will help, (but they also block all the light.) Old fashioned angled covers will block a lot of direct sun, but done well, will bounce some light into the room. This is also why shade cloth is put on the outside of greenhouses in the summer.

That said, if you have huge wind-chill issues in the winter, old-fashioned actually working shutters will help, not by keeping the warmth in, but by keeping the wind off the glass.

If I want a green house to help me in our cool damp springs, it's going to have to have some sort of an easy to operate inside curtain system that can be opened to let the sun in during the day, but closed for our long nights. I like Pearl's idea of using magnets!
 
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Riley Arfitzy wrote:Your new house design is also rather interesting, but fairly mechanically complex. With many moving parts, I fear the risk of failure is quite a bit higher.

so why not just get a better window? Your south facade in your design already looks great, with a lot of windows to capture that free heat from the sun in the cold season. Higher performing windows can let that heat in while still insulating the cold out while also not frosting up, reducing the moisture issues that that brings about.

For the summer season, have your roof overhangs (or awnings) extend far enough to shade the windows, keeping the heat out while the inside remains cool. Suncalc.org can help you get the sun angle at different points in the year, you'll just have to do a bit of trigonometry to figure out the optimal overhang. Exterior shades can accomplish the same thing, but introduce more mechanical points that could fail. Interior shades can help slightly, but it's harder to get the heat back out once it's already made its way in.

An air tight install of a high performance window will eliminate drafts and keep the face of the window thermally comfortable, removing the need for complex insulation systems that obscure the light and view, which is the primary reason a window is there in the first place. I live in a place that is likely to see -40C in winter and +40C in summer, and it's incredible how properly installed high performance windows and corresponding shading can make both extremes still comfortable on the inside.



Hi! Welcome to permies! Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
In order....
The house is not mechanically complex. Those moving parts are basically sidling doors or sliding drapes. Not complex at all. And very low price to build, maintain and modify.

The current prices are forcing me to stay with cheap windows for now, leaving it so it can be modified easily if I get more money (installing replacement windows from the start, not builder's windows.)  

Even with the overhang (which IS in the design, and is properly calculated) and even if I had better windows, I'd still be putting that system in. There is a lot more going on in that system of air and drapes, and the power outlets, than I drew in, or expect it to do. I was trying to show how the drapes are designed, not to attempt to explain how the whole house system works with all of this.

More people are interested in how to modify the house they have to be more useful than to care about my design, which is very specific to the exact microclimate and physical characteristics of my property and the exact health issues me and my mom deal with and are likely to deal with in the future, for example, I have cataracts just beginning, mom just had cataract surgery, her macular degeneration is moving very slowly, I have the genetics (my grandmother was blind by my age) and some days we need either all the light we can get, or the sunlight glares out vision badly.  So that's a very specific to us thing, there are more, but I was only showing the thermal blocking and air flow effects to keep it from being overly complex. Permaculture is big on systems design and function stacking, and my brain works VERY well with that, and our house is designed accordingly.

:D
 
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Jay Angler wrote:Heat is what does the moving. The goal is to keep the heat trapped, so what Pearl is building on the inside of her windows will keep heat in (not cold out).


At night, radiant heat loss is high, the same factors that let heat into the house during the day turn around and let the heat out. Keeping it in is important to me.

If you want to keep heat out in the summer, outside shade trees to keep the sun off the windows, or outside roller blinds will help, (but they also block all the light.) Old fashioned angled covers will block a lot of direct sun, but done well, will bounce some light into the room. This is also why shade cloth is put on the outside of greenhouses in the summer.


Yes, keeping the sun off is important, I haven't drawn the plans I have for doing that, as they are subject to possible change during construction. Drawing up this stuff is work, when I can see it in my head clearly detailed out I don't have the urge to do the work unless someone else needs to see it.
There is also, in my design, clerestory windows bouncing light in and mirrors bouncing that light around, as well as windows in interior walls letting light bounce through the walls. It sounds WAY MORE complex than it actually is, since it's been designed in from the start and isn't modification on a finished house.

That said, if you have huge wind-chill issues in the winter, old-fashioned actually working shutters will help, not by keeping the warmth in, but by keeping the wind off the glass.


I'd love to do that, but it's not feasible for me. Too many factors would make it difficult, including tornado risk and not wanting anything outside for the wind to grab and yank. That is what starts most tornado damage, something the wind can pick at till it damages a spot that the wind can rip things off of. I f can be done, and is feasible in someone's life, that IS the best option.  

If I want a green house to help me in our cool damp springs, it's going to have to have some sort of an easy to operate inside curtain system that can be opened to let the sun in during the day, but closed for our long nights. I like Pearl's idea of using magnets!


The magnets only hold the curtains to the walls. Think of it as two magnet strips that will hook to each other, one anchored to the wall, the other loose, and any kind of curtaining can be pinned between them to hold it tight to the wall. It's a neat system, and can be made out of a lot of materials, depending on what you have, I'm a dumpster diver, I have odd things to work with.
Putting the curtains on a stiff thing to slide, so have more like a sliding door than a curtain is an idea that might help you a lot. Fighting with normal curtains gets old fast, just sliding a door type panel that happens to be curtains is much easier. At motels they have a wand type thing hooked to the top of the curtains to make it easier to slide them open or shut. Putting one of those wand things to push and pull it all as a unit is even easier to open and close, as you are just moving it, not attempting to compress fabric at the same time.  (Do I need to draw that up? I can, it makes sense to me, doesn't mean it makes sense to others.)
My greenhouse design has drapes that will work like that, again, designed in from the start, so it's easy to adapt the rest around it.

:D
 
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This stuff was new to me, so I thought I'd mention it;  I just cut pieces of the material (that is 48 inches long), to fit into my windows, which are about 45 inches tall, and all summer long the A/C has come on very little, me opening up the doors and using a fan to bring in the cool morning air (starting about 6:00 a.m.), then closing up as the day heated up, so the house STAYED cool throughout most of each day.  Anyway, thought I'd mention this stuff which, IMHO, has kept my electric bill for cooling DOWN:

Amazon Smart Shield insulation

I am anticipating taking the pieces down during the day in the winter, (except on super-cold days) to let in the sun, then putting them back in the evenings.  The pieces of insulation have been stiff enough I didn't have to use anything except to push them into the window frames.   I also have curtains made of space blanket hung on the windows, plus regular cloth curtains over that, but this insulation material seems to have made the most difference.
 
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