sun glasses for my house

here are some solar shades we made to cool our home cost about 3-5 dollars a window

When I worked in Saudi Arabia during the terrorist bombings, I learned that when a bomb goes off inside a building, most of the fatalities are caused by shattered window glass that flies all over the place.  The solution was to put a sheet of mylar on the inside of the windows.  Apparently, this stops the glass shards from whizzing by.  A very cheap and easily installed solution to a serious problem.

So if you put a sheet on the inside, then not only will you have sunglasses for your house, you'll have a bomb shield, too, and will be protected in case someone tosses a bomb through your window.  So sleep well tonight.  ;--))

FWIW, Discovery Channel used to have a program on "Extreme Engineering", where the team had to come up with solutions to different problems.  One of the things they came up with was coating both the inside and the outside of your standard concrete brick building with the material they use to line pickup beds.  After it cured, detonating a car bomb next to the building might shatter all the windows, but the structure maintained enough stability that people could safely exit the building.

I wonder what the R value is on that stuff...

In the same vein as your sunglasses but costing quite a bit more, I'm planning on putting solar screening on our south and west windows.

I'm currently re-screening our south facing screen porch using Suntex 80 fiberglass screen material. I have completed two panels (out of umpty) and it's amazing how much difference there is. You can actually feel a difference in temperature between the new panels and the old, both with direct sunlight and indirect light. When I'm done with the porch I'll be constructing exterior screens for the south and west windows using the same Suntex 80. It should make a big difference since we're in a heating climate not a cooling one and we have old aluminum windows.

c bostic got any pics or links for screens

The Suntex 80 solar screen material I'm using is available from Home Depot and Lowe's and is described here:
http://www.phifer.com/ExtSunControl.aspx A dark color is recommended to improve outward visibility. It is very heavy duty and strong and can also function as pet screen. We have four cats that love the porch, so that was important for us. The Suntex 80 is rather more difficult to cut than the screening I've worked with before, so you need a lot of sharp utility knife blades. Also, you need to use about the smallest spline you can find because the screen is thick.

The vinyl track system I'm using for the porch is described here:
http://www.screentight.com/inthenews-do-it-yourself-screened-porch.shtml It is also available at Home Depot and Lowe's. If you haven't done screening with groove and spline techniques, I can't recommend it enough. It takes a little while to get the hang of it, but once you do you can rescreen an area very quickly with little effort and the result is tight and professional looking and it stays that way. The Screen-Tight conversion system is pretty easy to use and looks really good when finished.

The Screen-Tight company also makes parts to put together external screens. They're available guess where. The sides of the screen frame are aluminum and the corners are vinyl. I haven't actually used these with the Suntex 80 so it's possible the groove is not large enough. I'll be doing that after I get the porch done and I'll post and let everyone know how it works. There are other options for screen kits - do an internet search for Suntex 80 screen.

Here are a couple of pictures of the porch, the new screen is on the right in the first picture.

Pretty neat, and inpiring.  Now I have another project for the queue...

I've used that screen system too, works great. But I used the frames to make exterior shutters to put over our big south-facing windows in the winter. I just duct-taped sheets of bubble-wrap-foil insulation (Reflectix) onto the screen frames and sewed some heavy-duty nylon covers to slip over them for weather-proofing. They were held in place on the outside of the windows using s-hooks screwed into the wall and 4-foot lengths of 3/4" EMT (electrical conduit) fit through those hooks at the top and bottom edges of the screens, friction fitting them to the windows.

We ended up even using them sometimes in the summer. The R-factor was about 8, so much better than just double-glazed windows. But since they were opaque we switched to clear double-wall  polycarbonate panels instead. They have slightly lower R values but we can leave them up on extremely cold but sunny days to cut heat loss while still enjoying sunshine. They don't give you a perfectly clear view of the outdoors but for that we go outside! In the summer we pull down some interior, commercially-made, white metal-slat aluminum shades to reflect sunlight back outside. You can adjust the slat angle to give a good exterior view while still reflecting out most of the heat.

Was that some kind of aluminium foil?

Malinda, it looks like aluminized mylar.

I can tell you that I put the solar film on my daughter's windows (SW corner of house...the HOT corner) and it made an immediate difference. After puting the 1st sheet on (S window, top panel) I was sweating. After adding the 3rd sheet (W window, top panel) I was able to actually feel the air moving from the AC...this was in July at 4:00 in the afternoon when the sun was full force thru the window. Over the next few days, I would compare the hallway, where the thermo is, and her bedroom. Before the film, during the really hot days, it would be about 78-80 in the hallway and probably at least 85 in her bedroom. After the film, they were the same temp...oh, and much less condensation dripping from the air vent on to our 60 year old wood floor. Not sure how we lived in this house as long as we have without the film.

Highly recommended, inexpensive ($50) and easy (1 hour) DIY project. Find it at Lowes