window treatments, any that reduce energy costs?

[julie53]

Hi,

I live in the midwest (near Chicago) and just bought a new home (well it is 9 years old, but new to me).

Are there any window treatments (blinds, drapes etc) that will help reduce my energy bills? Are cellular blinds helpful with heating bills?

Thanks
Julie

[Sharp Advice]

Hello: Julie

The 2 primary goals are to reduce drafts from the windows and heat loss through the windows. Window treatments will help to accomplish the goals.

Since window treatments is the basic question, your question has been moved into this topic. The professional in this topic will help provide you with the suggestions and ideas for the window treatments.

A house that is only 9 years old should already have double pane insulated windows. If that is the case, energy savings is already at the best level. The choices in window treatments than is likely to depend upon decoration and design to match your tastes and room decor, etc.

[resercon]

Congradulations on your new home. There are a variety of product for windows that supposidly will help you save money on your energy bills. However, this is usually not the reason for the high energy costs when people buy a new home. We all at one time have been to someone's home and found the home to be cozy. These people have lived there several years and you will notice that they never complain about their energy costs. The difference between your home and their's is furnishings.

Regardless of the type of heating and/or cooling system you have in your home, what they do is either heat or cool the volume of the air in the home. The larger the house, the larger the volume of air these system have to condition. Common sense tells us this but rarely do people relate this size of the home to the volume of air in the home. But in reality it is the volume of the air in the home that determines the costs to heat and cool it.

Another way of illustrating the effect of furnishings inside the home is a glass of water. If the glass of water is filled to the brim and you drop a marble into the glass, water spills out of the glass equal to the volume of the marble. If you drop several marble that is equal to half the volume of water into the glass of water, the marbles will displace half the volume of water inside the glass. So if you removed the marbles, the glass would only be half filled with water. Furnishings causes the same type of displacement of air inside the home, which will dramatically reduce your energy bills.

Comfort levels are dramatically affected by furnishings which produce the Cozy Home effect. This is done because the furnishings can hold heating/cooling far longer than air can. This is referred to as Thermal Mass. Once the furnishings reach the desired temperature you want in your home, temperature swings throughout the home are dramatically reduced. You couple this with the reduce volume of air caused by the displacement of air with the furnishings, the Cozy Home effect produces the sense that the heating and cooling systems hardly ever come on. This is because the system have less air they have to heat/cool, so they come for a considerably shorter time and the Thermal Mass of the furnishings reduces the frequency the systems come on because of its ability to hold heating/cooling far longer than air.

I do recommend window treatments of any kind, the type is of no consequence in my opinion. If you ever washed curtains, drapes and/or blinds it is impossible to wash any one of them all at once. This is because there isn't a residential washer/vat in the world that could accomodate all the curtains, etc. for a house at one time. This illustrates the amount of air is displaced in the home by windows treatments. It is going to take you years to furnish the house to reach the Cozy Home effect.

[Annette]

:rolleyes:

i think you were asking about window treatments, right? hope this helps:

"soft" window treatments will meet your needs better than "hard" ones - both visually & functionally. yes, the honeycomb cellular shades have a good insulating factor, as well as appearing warm & soft, compared to hard-lined, cold-looking miniblinds. thermal draperies will certainly work for you, too, as will any lined drapery treatment. if you have drafty windows, layering a cellular shade under thermal draperies would give you maximum coverage. although, i'd soften any "hard" treatment with drapery panels or at least a valance of some sort.

however, if your windows are not drafty, then your main goal will be to block out the sun during the summer months to keep your house from heating up. and most any window treatment, except maybe sheers, will do that. you can even get window films that block most of the UV light and theoretically forego window treatments altogether! but i'm sure you'll need some privacy, too.

[katiefran]

[QUOTE=Annette you can even get window films that block most of the UV light and theoretically forego window treatments altogether! but i'm sure you'll need some privacy, too.[/QUOTE]


I'm not 100% sure, BUT, I thought that I read here somewhere that some films can break the double pane glass and cause condensation between the pains and void the window warranty. :confused:

[Annette]

interesting..........in that case, one should make sure that the film is suitable for double-paned windows & that the windows are suited for film, before going that route.

i hadn't heard that. i have, however, heard of people using the films with great results.

thanks for the warning!

[julie53]

Thank you all for your responses. Now if I could just decide how to decorate!


JUlie