Iowa City Real Estate Blog: December 2009

Another icy cold day in Coralville and Iowa City again today. Always looking for new ideas to keep my heating bills down I stumbled over a good one at the weekend at Build it Solar.

I'm sure you all know that a large amount of your heat is likely to escape through the windows. Of course if you've upgraded your windows recently to take advantage of the Government's tax credit promoting energy efficiency you may be in pretty good shape.  If you're like me though and have that on your "to do" list.

Anyway, to use a common saying around here. It is what it is... It's icy cold, I haven't updated the windows in the home I moved into in May 2009 and the windows are leaking like a sieve.  Now you've all heard about lining your windows with plastic film, right? A pretty cheap solution that requires a small time investment and works well. Freezing as I was this weekend and too tight to turn up the heat I found an even cheaper solution that takes almost no time to install and it works too... I have two words for you bubble wrap. Yes, plain old bubble wrap will do the trick.

Now of course I'm sure you're wondering how you attach it to the window. Easy, you spray the window with water, attach the bubble wrap (bubbles towards the window pane) and presto you're done. Told you it was easy, didn't I?


As you can imagine, this is not the prettiest solution in the world, so you may not want to use it in "high profile" areas. It's great for bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens though. Also, perfectionist as I am, I'm thinking weather stripping is probably necessary around the frame to make the whole endeavor truly worthwhile. Guess who's off to Lowe's later to put that plan into action?