I live in a Victorian house. It's a beast to heat/cool. I've gotten a better HVAC system. I've done blow-in insulation in the walls.
The main source of energy leak to/from the outside is the windows and the sash. Windows are circa 1900, original sashes. Those are just big hollow spaces in there with counterweights for the windows.
Windows are about 8' tall. There are about 20 of them on first floor.
Windows are single pane. Small strip of felt between the bottom (upward sliding) potion and the top (stationary) portion is all that keep out that draft.
The storms that came with the house sort of loosely fit into the exterior depressions of the window's frame. They're not airtight by any stretch.
They are also single pane glass. Some of them have broken over time, so some windows have no storms, so it allows me to check the drafts between windows with and without the storms.
They are definitely less drafty without the storms, but it's like saying the my refrigerator is less cold than my freezer.
The first year we decided to put up the inside plastic wrap insulation stuff you tape on and stretch with a hair dryer (forgetting technical name) on the windows we were able to keep the house without turning on the heat to about 5ยบ colder outside. So that was a win, but not that great.
Years ago I talked to a contractor about replacing all our windows—as much as it would kill me to lose the original glass. They told me that new windows wouldn't help because they pop out the windows and leave the old sashes. I felt at the time like they could just fill the sashes with insulation. Their suggestion was someone that made high-quality storms, that would measure the actual spaces of the windows and make tight fitting ones, probably magnetic mounting.
Is this a thing? I find some places that offer magnetic "invisible" storms but seem mostly for historic tourist sites and the like.
Submitted December 11, 2015 at 04:56AM by davidjschloss http://ift.tt/1Qi1gdY HomeImprovement
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