Articles tagged with: R value 
Cooling, Heating »
There are plenty of cheap and common insulation materials available on the market today. Many of these have been around for quite some time. Each of these insulations have their own ups and downs. As a result, when deciding which insulation material you should use, you should be sure to be aware of which material would work the best in your situation.
Recently, materials like aerogel (used by NASA for the construction of heat resistant tiles, capable of withstanding heat up to approximately 2000 degrees Fahrenheit with little or no heat …
Home Energy Tips »
There is this almost fanatical belief amongst homeowners that their home must be energy efficient so they can reduce their energy bills. Unfortunately,this is the wrong approach to take. You improve your home, you increase energy efficiency so that you can live comfortably. Then the energy saving comes naturally afterwards. Think of it as comfortable living = energy saving.
The two paths two sometimes cross. For example, in the winter or colder months, if the weather is particularly cold outside one day, you may not be comfortable in your house with …
Cooling, Do It Yourself Projects, Heating, Home Energy Tips »
So the last experiment was disappointing, because it appeared that plastic did very little to prevent heat loss for your leaky hallway window. Things aren’t looking so good for the thin plastic as insulation.
Luckily, we have another scenario. Plastic over part of a window has come “undone” giving us the perfect side by side comparison of surface temperatures over a window with and without plastic – without interfering sunshine and the heat from solar convection.
Cooling, Do It Yourself Projects, Heating, Home Energy Tips »
This question is important to many homeowners and renters because we believe that placing plastic over our windows will halep us save energy on cold winter days and nights. Some plastic makers claim that plastic adds at least 1R value to the window.
I doubt this to be true. But using the information presented in the home energy audit kit, we can easily see heat loss with and without the plastic to see how much of a difference it makes.
Heating »
Q: I was walking around my neighborhood today and saw that my roof barely had any snow on it, but my neighbor’s houses did. I think we have the same roofs. Is this a problem?
Probably. If you don’t have snow on your roof, this points to an energy leak through your attic to the roof. What’s probably happening is the warmed or heated air in your home rises, and the last place it gathers is the attic. Typically, there are attic vents or ventilation fans to disperse the additional heat. …
Do It Yourself Projects, Heating »
If you have particularly drafty windows or just want to improve the overall insulation of the window quickly and easily, install insulated plastic.
This is recommended generally for windows with leaks you can’t seem to find or are having trouble repairing.
Of course the optimal solution would be to replace the window eventually, but right now that’s not even an option. So a good workaround would be to insulate it as best you can.
Keep in mind this will somewhat obstruct the view in and out of the window. But it …