Storm Windows: Installation and Maintenance Tips
The energy efficiency of your home is important, especially in winter, and there are plenty of ways to improve it. Whether it’s for environmental or financial reasons (or both!), it’s in your best interest to organize your home to become as energy efficient as possible.
Good insulation is often cited as the first step in reducing your winter heating bill, and with good reason: a well-insulated home, an almost impenetrable barrier between indoors and outdoors, heat loss from air infiltration. Storm windows are an effective seasonal solution to insulation problems that apply to windows.
Everything you need to know about storm windows
Storm windows: interior or exterior?
First of all, we must consider that interior and exterior storm windows can both help you save on your energy bill. These are frames on which glass glazing or a well composed of rigid and transparent acrylic sheets is placed and which is installed from inside or outside your home.
Storm windows work by allowing a second layer between your window and the outside, effectively keeping air out of your home. Outside air is trapped between the two window settees and storm windows.
Exterior storm windows can be installed on the ground floor and interior storm windows are recommended for the upper floors of your home, to simplify your installation.
They usually come with wooden or aluminum frames. Nowadays, aluminum frames are more common due to the low maintenance they lack, unlike wood frames.
If the aesthetic appearance of your windows seen from the outside is one of your concerns, interior storm windows will be more suited to your needs, because exterior storm windows can change the appearance of your windows and this change will be visible from the outside. Now that we have defined together the advantages of having a storm window and how they work, we can discuss their installation.
How to install a storm window?
An exterior storm window is installed on the frame covering the window when seeing it. It must be screwed in correctly to allow the insulation around the storm window to be properly applied and thus to be able to seal the window. Pay attention to the presence of the water drainage holes on the lower part of your window, because they must not be obstructed with the storm window!
An interior storm window has the advantage of coming to rest directly on the window frame, ensuring superior sealing. It is fixed using a magnetic strip which will be placed on the window frame with screws or using double-sided adhesive tape. The storm window will have a metal frame to which the magnet will attach.
A rightly important point about the storm window is that it usually just completely closes a window on which it is placed, then preventing it from opening to ventilation louvers in a room. It’s his final but, after all! You can ask yourself beforehand if this causes any problem from your point of view before installing a storm window.
How to maintain it?
The golden rule for keeping a building in good condition is to prioritize maintenance over repairs, because the short-term costs may seem high, but they are always less than what a lack of maintenance can generate in expenses. in the medium or long term.
When you (re)install storm windows for the cold season, you must inspect each fall to ensure that the glazing, sealant and weatherstripping are still in good working order.
If you use exterior storm windows, clean only the interior window. The main window is properly sealed and is more airtight than the storm window. Otherwise, the humid air in your home can infiltrate outwards and create a zone of humidity between the two windows, which will risk damaging the wooden frame of the window.
It will also be necessary to think about uninstalling them and storing them in a safe place once the winter is over. Some people decide to keep their storm windows on in the summer and open them if they allow it, but their excellent insulating abilities can become bothersome, especially if they trap too much heat in the summer.
Uninstalling them also allows you to inspect them so that you can repair them if needed, ensuring that you can continue to use them optimally. It is important to mention that a storm window installed in a shady place in summer could have a beneficial effect on the temperature of the room, keeping the air fresh inside.
An aluminum frame can develop signs of oxidation over time, which show up as a rust-like powder: these deposits can be easily removed with fine steel wool.
A wood storm window frame must be painted properly to prevent deterioration of the wood. Also, be sure not to paint it with too thick a coat of paint, as each coat adds thickness that can make installing the storm window more difficult from winter to winter.
Newer Articles
- Matter, formerly Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP): The Home of Tomorrow
- How to Stop the Interior Walls From Sweating
- 10 Tips for Healthy Diet
