Insulate Your Windows -Step by Step

by The Frog Prince and Family
(Los Angeles, CA)

With the autumn well underway and winter looming before us, my best tip to reduce electric consumption (granted, our rental house has electric heat) actually relates to insulating windows, and drastically reducing heating bills as a result.

The first step is to get some rope caulk, and press strings of that along any of the areas where the outer window frame meets the inner window frame. Especially thick strings can be used to plug the almost always substantial gaps between inner sections of window that slide over each other, and along the bottoms.

This will cut down on drafts, on moisture getting into the house, and on bugs that want to get into the house to escape the cold. The nice thing about rope caulk is that it never dries out and stiffens, or acts like a glue, so the caulking is neither permanent nor paint-damaging, which is ideal for an area that you’re going to want to open up in other seasons.

The next step is to get some large-bubble bubble-wrap, and cut and tape together sheets of it which can individually cover each pane of glass. Tape these directly onto the panes, bubbles facing the glass, using whatever sort of clear packing tape, or similar, that you have on hand.

All those little pockets of trapped air are going to do wonders for temperature control.

Lastly, get some sheet plastic, and tape that tautly over the entire window frame. If you’re worried about the packing tape stripping the paint off your window-frames, use painter’s tape, and support the less durable adhesion by adding a few small tacks around the perimeter of the frame, in the joint between frame and wall, where the holes won’t be noticeable.

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