If your home is a solar home and you have windows on the south side of the house, that makes this a perfect spot to sit read a book enjoy the beautiful view and sometimes even take a nap approximately 50% of the wall area is glass compared to perhaps 15% in a typical home.
The many windows are crucial to maximize solar gain but it also dramatically increases potential energy losses when the sun doesn’t shine. In a home like this window quilts are not simply for saving but to make your house livable in the winter. You couldn’t live here without them.
Window quilts for winter have a new option: motorized units that allow you to use them in previously inaccessible areas of the house.
Window Quilt: the cheapest option to insulate your windows
It’s unbelievable how window quilts have changed the nighttime atmosphere in this area before our motorized window quilts you’ve installed we used to have to wear a sweater or a warm bathrobe in this area. Once you already have learnt how to make a quilt, you can now consider your favorite chair read a book and still be comfortable in the evening. It’s amazing how much warmer the area feels the moment the window quilts are lowered.
For example in a guest apartment which is vacant most of the time. You can install panel window quilts. When the apartment is vacant you keep the thermostat turned down to the lowest setting. This is a well insulated apartment and panel both allow you not to waste any energy. In the family room at night it’s dominated by these two huge sliding doors and you have this wonderful wood stove that keeps me nice and warm in the evenings.
However you lose the benefit of the wood stove because two feet away the window is so cold. Once you lower the window quilts the whole atmosphere of the room changes. You can see the air billowing in the window quilt that’s similar to a spinnaker on a sailboat. You will notice how the window quilt blocks the air infiltration. Now you won’t feel the convection current draft on your feet.
Anyone with Windows in their house knows about convection currents and floor drafts. These currents are a kind of reverse chimney effect in which warmer air is cooled by and drops across cold unprotected windows.
Window quilts provide both insulation of the cold window surface and a full perimeter seal of the window: stopping these convection currents and uncomfortable drafts. The full perimeter seal for window quilt is crucial in the way it works window quilts seal at the top with a seal roller and behind that you have a seal foam that’s affixed to the fabric that ensures a tight fit between the seal roller and the trim.
On the sides, you have the side tracks that lock in the fabric into the trim and on the bottom you have your batten with the weather stripping. The fabric has an extremely high R-value that’s created by the five layers that are in here. You’ve got a layer of fabric, fiberfill, a vapor barrier, fiberfill and then fabric again on the back side. The fabric is ultrasonically bonded therefore there’s no perforations in the vapor barrier.
The key parameter in evaluating insulation measures thermal resistance. To put this another way: the value measures how effectively a particular material slows down the outflow of heat. This is an infrared photograph of an untreated window the red areas are warmer in temperature this heat is being transmitted out the window.
Now a comparison with the heat signature of the same window covered by a window quilt you can see how much lower the temperature is of the window on the left the one treated with window quilt notice that there are no red edges indicating heat passing through window quilts full perimeter seal.
Window Quilt Efficiency
The R-value added by window quilts reduces the heat lost by conduction through single pane windows by 80 percent and by 53 percent on double pane glazing. Assuming seventy seven hundred annual heating degree days (which is typical of northern areas of the United States) each square foot of window quilts can save over 150,000 BTUs of energy lost by conduction each heating season on single pane windows and over 65 thousand BTUs on double pane windows.
As a frame of reference 150 thousand BTUs saved equals about 44 kilowatt hours of electricity or one and a quarter gallons of fuel oil per square foot of window quilt. But there is more to the comfort and savings window quilts provide than is attributable to R-value or insulation effectiveness alone.
Comfort in a room depends on more than just the ambient temperature in that room. In order to overcome the cold radiation and drafts set up by windows, home owners usually compensate by turning up the heat. By cutting out convection drafts and insulating the window window, quilts keep rooms uniformly comfortable, allowing you to set the thermostat lower.
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Studies indicate that most people are comfortable at five degrees lower ambient temperature with this type of window treatment. If you can loyour your thermostat by five degrees, you can save 10 to 12 percent of the overall heat bill on a building and that’s in addition to the previously mentioned reduction in heat loss to conduction by the windows.
When the savings are properly measured window quilts remain one of the very best values in the energy conservation field. Window quilts contribute in warm weather as well. Unshaded single pane windows can account for 40% of cooling loads.
When it’s hot outside, heat is conveyed to the inside through the windows and not just by direct sunlight alone window quilts can block solar gain infiltration of warm air and radiant heat gain while still letting in light.
Window quilts light filtering fabric lets in plenty of light while still maintaining the insulating properties. The room darkening fabric option blocks 99.5% of incoming light: ideal for daytime sleeping or audio-visual applications.
How much do window quilts cost?
Window Quilts (quilted curtains) are cheaper energy savers than new windows. They are way cheaper to buy or to make. Window Quilts are easy to maintain and wash, they can be replaced easily.
You can go for a professional Window Quilt maker specialized in this field. Of course you will pay a premium price. But consider the two following factors:
- Buying Window Quilts for insulation is cheaper than buying new windows
- Install Window Quilts is faster
- maintain Window Quilts is easy
- the ratio between expenditure to buy Window Quilts versus to buy new windows is in favor of Curtain Quilts
You can expect anything between $250 to $500 by 30- by 60-inch window, depending on the option (Roller quilted window blind OR Top-down/bottom-up insulated cellular shade with side tracks)
For reference here are some noticeable Curtain Quilts suppliers:
- Home of Window Quilt – Insulated Window Shades: https://www.windowquilt.com
- Window Quilt | Efficient Window Coverings: https://efficientwindowcoverings.org
- A comparison with cellular shades: https://cellularwindowshades.com/content/39-window-quilts-vs-cellular-shades
The alternate solution is to make your insulation Quilts by yourself or if you don’t have the quilting skills, you can pay a visit to your local Quilting Mum’s Club, where you for sure will be able to to tailored-quilt a Curtain Quilt for you. If you negotiate well: you will get a real bargain on fabrics and on manpower!
Window Quilt Tutorial
How do you make a window quilt? Tutorial in video
How to maintain a window quilt?
How do you wash a window quilt? The cheapest way to wash a window quilt is to use your home washing machine like you would on your regular clothe but exclude any softener. It is recommended to wash your window quilt once a year. But in the case your washing machine is too small bring it to your laundry specialist who will take care of it (my preferred option: let the professional handle the window quilt washing)
Window Quilt Honest Opinion
Testimony: someone who started using window quilts back in 1980 and probably owned more than a million dollars worth of quilts on a 24 unit apartment building with two in three bedroom apartments. One boiler heats it until you get down to about 20 degrees below zero and that’s 155 thousand BTUs is all. The second boiler kicks in at around 20 below.
He is able to buy a heating system that is much less expensive because he is only using a third of the capacity and he actually air-conditioned a three-bedroom apartment with 12,000 BTUs and he couldn’t do that without the window closed. As his engineers have designed his heating system and our air conditioning they ignored the impact of quilts.
Home owners or tenants don’t use window quilts because of anybody they do it because they’re comfortable. Some window quilts have last 30 years. Window quilts helped rent apartments it increases his gross income and which increases net income.