How To Cover Windows To Keep Heat Out

Those mid-summertime or belatedly summertime air conditioning bills can be brutal. The toll of keeping your home reasonably cool in the summertime rises dramatically with each new heat moving ridge; and if you live in an area of the country where the hot weather condition starts early and stretches on well into autumn, you may feel similar you are out of luck when information technology comes to trying to save coin on air-conditioning or climate control. That's why some people resort to extreme measures—like putting aluminum foil on windows.

You may have heard of this practice, or seen it done. Maybe you thought it was terribly ugly, not aesthetically pleasing at all, or maybe y'all thought, "What a great thought! I wonder if it works!" Nosotros are hither to respond that question.

Does putting aluminum foil on windows actually keep the heat out? If not, why practice people do it? And if information technology does have some benefits, what is the all-time type of foil to apply and the best way to continue it in identify? Is at that place another solution that could work better than aluminum foil on windows? We'll tackle all those topics and more as we move forward.

Does Aluminum Foil Go along Heat Out?

Aluminum foil, or tin foil as information technology is frequently called, is primarily intended to provide heat-proof, air-tight, safe coverage for food. Information technology'due south popularly used to cover hot foods, to provide a protective barrier over baking trays or dishes during the cooking process, or to package certain types of meals, candies, or other items. Aluminum foil keeps out odor, moisture, germs, oxygen, and light, which could contaminate food. It besides locks in any desired wet, scent, and season.

As far every bit keeping the oestrus out of a domicile, there's no proof that aluminum foil on its own is particularly effective at this chore. Sure, it will reflect some light away, preventing it from entering the home. Notwithstanding, the foil itself does heat upwardly over time, so the extra estrus isn't necessarily all bouncing away into the air. Some of it is yet getting within.

Aluminum foil on windows is most effective at keeping out heat and lite when you place it shiny side out and comprehend its backside with a layer of something else, like insulation or cardboard.

Health Concerns About Tin Foil

Some people are worried that using tin foil or aluminum foil on their windows could crusade serious hazards. Fortunately, there is no indication that using foil over windows is dangerous.

The heat of the sun cannot melt the aluminum foil—information technology is tough enough to handle loftier oven temperatures, then it tin can certainly handle the power of summertime sunlight. And beingness exposed to heat will not radiate harmful toxins into your house when it'southward exposed to sun and rut, either.

After all, if that was the example, it wouldn't be approved for mutual use around food. Unless you ate a lot of aluminum or breathed in a lot of aluminum grit generated past machines in a factory, aluminum can't injure you. So it'due south perfectly prophylactic to use tin foil on windows if that's your preference.

Some have also suggested that using a lot of metal foil on windows might cause a building to exist a target for lightning strikes. The science just doesn't back up this. The foil behind the glass on your windows has no effect on guiding lightning bolts at all. It does not attract or repel them, so there is no crusade to worry on that business relationship.

Other Reasons to Use Aluminum Foil on Windows

Some people may put aluminum foil on windows in winter. They're not necessarily trying to reflect the heat of summer out of the home; they are probably taking advantage of the can foil's other properties. Allow's look at a few more reasons why homeowners might choose to cover windows with aluminum foil.

Glare Protection

If yous live in a dwelling house where the sunday tends to come up in at a particular bending that causes severe glare, you may exist interested in finding an cheap way to go along that from happening on a regular basis. The position of the dominicus every bit its beams surge into the abode might exist interfering with the utilize of a bathroom mirror in the morning, or with the viewing of the TV at noon, or with regular dishwashing and cleanup chores in the kitchen at dusk.

Any the annoyance the glare may be causing, for some people, it'due south easier to quickly slap a sail of aluminum foil over the offending window pane to block out the glare.

Room Darkening

Some people put aluminum foil on windows to keep calorie-free out. Individuals who work third shift or some other type of shift that necessitates sleeping while the lord's day up often has to resort to extreme measures to ensure that their chamber is nighttime enough to allow them to sleep. Room-darkening shades or blinds or curtains can be very expensive, so some renters or homeowners choose a quick, temporary, easy, and cheap solution.

They simply plaster the windows in the chamber with tin foil to effectively seal out light and create a room concealment effect. The aluminum foil tin can go all the way to the edges of each window pane and fit closely and tightly against the glass, enabling a better seal and a more thorough blocking out of any potential stray bits of light.

Privacy

Window coverings, in full general, are intended, at least partly, to provide a form of privacy when it is needed. Even so, window coverings similar blinds, shades, drapes, curtains, and shutters tin be quite expensive, especially if your home has a lot of windows to cover. Peradventure you only don't have that kind of money right at present, and y'all demand a quick, like shooting fish in a barrel solution to provide the privacy you need while you're saving up for the window treatments you really desire.

Or maybe yous actually exercise accept the money on mitt for curtains, blinds, or shades, but you are waiting on ordering them because yous haven't quite decided on the decor you'd similar for that room yet. While yous're pondering the overall artful of the room, yous might need a quick temporary solution to comprehend those windows.

Subsequently all, you don't want passersby peeping into your sleeping accommodation when yous're asleep or observing yous as you lot dance with your significant other in the kitchen or lecture your kids about homework. Privacy is of import, after all, and you shouldn't take to forgo it just because you're not fix to invest in window treatments. Aluminum foil works better than paper to thoroughly embrace window panes. Where paper might plow see-through when in that location is a bright plenty light behind it, tin foil on windows provides more than opaque coverage.

Putting Tin Foil on Windows

So how practise you put the tin can foil on your windows? We'll go through a few of import steps in the process and so you tin know how to all-time make utilise of this unique household production.

Purchase an Ample Supply

Tin foil is fairly cheap—much cheaper than a set of blinds or curtains. Buy a few boxes of it and spring for the loftier-end, quality stuff, not the cheapest box on the shelf. If y'all go also cheap, the foil will tear way also hands, and yous volition become very frustrated equally you lot endeavour to utilise it to your windows. It is a expert idea to spend a few extra bucks and score boxes of aluminum foil that will actually hold upward during installation and will last for a adept long while.

Measure Your Windows

You tin do this step later on you've already purchased a few boxes of tin foil, or yous tin can measure out your windows first to ensure that y'all purchase enough square footage of foil for the surface expanse you need to cover. If you're only doing a couple of smaller bedroom windows, you won't need much tin foil; but if you lot are planning to utilise tin can foil to cover all the windows throughout your habitation, you volition definitely need a lot more of the material.

Measure out the length and width of each window you programme to cover. Multiply the length times the width to get the area of the window, the square footage of the space you demand to comprehend with foil. Keep in mind that the foil won't need to cover the frame or any window trim pieces—just the glass.

Once y'all have the area of the window, write it downward and repeat the process for every other window you programme to conceal with aluminum foil. Make a list of the expanse of each window, in square inches or square anxiety. Add the area numbers together to get the full square footage of all the windows in your home. That'due south the number of square inches or square feet of foil you lot will need. Even so, it'south a skillful idea to purchase extra foil in case some of it gets ripped or punctured during the cutting or installation process.

Cut and Tape the Foil

Measure and carefully cut or tear-off sheets of the aluminum foil to fit the window panes that y'all need to cover. Yous can shape or cut to fit the exact size or shape of the windows. Be sure to add together painter'southward tape or some other sticky yet wall-condom record along the edges of the foil, to secure information technology in identify. Occasionally you may accept to replace the foil and the tape, equally the tape may lose its stickiness over time through exposure to heat and lite.

While there's nothing inherently incorrect with using aluminum foil on windows, it tin be a distraction to passersby. Glare from the metal sheeting could distract drivers, or make your neighbors really curious near what suspicious activities might be going on in your home. Your guests, family unit, friends, and neighbors might also dislike the odd wait of the foil. It definitely can have a negative effect on adjourn appeal, so information technology may exist wise to look at the foil as a brusque-term end-gap rather than a long-term solution.

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Allison Cartwright has been writing professionally since 2009. Cartwright has published several eBooks on craft and garden-related subjects. She holds a available's degree from the Academy of Arkansas.

Source: https://www.h2ouse.org/aluminum-foil-on-windows/

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