How do you put tin foil on the window to keep the heat out?
Here's what you can do: Put the foil right on the glass, shiny side facing out, cover the whole glass part, and tape it in place. Do not open the window during the day, it only lets in hot air. You can open it at night if you like, to let fresh cooler air in. One really helpful (and cheap) thing to do is take 4 empty milk jugs, fill with water, cap, and freeze. Get a big breezebox fan to put in your room, and a plastic tub like a large cat litter pan or something, place that on the floor just behind the fan, and keep a couple frozen jugs in the pan. When the fan sucks air in from the back side, it will draw air over that ice, which cools it down a lot, and blows over you, cooling the whole room. Change the frozen jugs every couple hours, put the melted ones back in the freezer, and bring 2 solid ones back to the fan. The reason to keep the frozen jugs in a litter pan is to catch the condensation from the melting jugs, so it doesn't soak your carpet and cause mildew.
How to reflect heat from a sofa in front of a radiator ?
I have a double rad in my lounge but there is a two seat sofa in front of it , Its leather , I always find that the lounge is cold , I have tinfoil behind the rad , would sticking tinfoil on the back of the sofa help at all ? Thinking it may reflect the heat back to the rad. I cant move the sofa as there is no where else for it to go .
What can I do to prepare an outside cat for the winter ahead? I can't bring him in because I have 3 cats that won’t accept a newcomer. I feel horrible with him out there.
(above: real photo of two of my ferals. This is not a Halloween decoration )All is not lost. depending on your budget, you can do your outside cat well. Shelter: There are really nice ‘cat houses’ available online from any shopping site or, specifically, any pet supply chain.Some are heated!Can you afford the additional electricity on your bill?You can also buy a separate heating pad made especially for outside cat houses.If you’re feeling adventurous, try building a shelter.There are many different techniques. Styrofoam coolers are easy to customize. I use to build shelters out of cardboard boxes, with weatherproofing and heat reflective lining and any other ideas I can come up with as I got more creative.I would prefer using mylar (space blanket) instead of foil, if possible. Available at sporting goods and camping supply stores.Important: Don’t line it with towels. They get too damp too easily and end up getting cold and actually draw heat away from the cats.Straw (not hay) is the most highly suggested filling. You can find a lot this time of year as everybody takes down their Halloween decorations. Offer to cart it away for them.You can also get ready-made cage lining straw from many pet shops.Place the shelter, whatever version, out of direct elements, if possible (overhang, porch etc). It will add to the durability and effectiveness of the shelter.If the cat is that friendly, keep the house near yours.Where do you live? Is this cat visiting your backyard or are you on a city block?Hopefully, if you have to place the shelter out in an alley or somewhere further away, nobody will be inhumane and mess it up just for ‘kicks’.Food and as warm a shelter as possible will get your poor buddy through the winter. Maybe you’ll have better luck getting him socialized with your other cats when spring returns.Good luck! Thank you for caring about this cat!
What makes the blue painter's masking tape work better than the traditional white masking tape?
Better in what respect? For painting and eventual removal? Or for something else (masking tape gets used for many “general purpose” reasons too)?If it’s for painting, masking tape for that purpose usually needs to do two things: One, have good initial adhesion that is sufficient to block paint from “creeping” underneath the adhesive that destroys a clean line and two, removing cleanly so as not to pull up any material underneath (old / fresh paint to which the tape is attached).So it’s not necessarily that blue tape is “better”. It is important to note that there are many types and brands of the “white” masking tape, and they are not the same, varying widely in quality and price. Many companies make a variety of both papers and adhesive systems on them. Some will even take quite a bit of heat (up to 325F) for baking the paint with the tape still on the part.The blue tape, from what I’ve seen, is specifically a 3M product. It has a formulation of adhesive that is unique to 3M. I’ve also seen another brand that is a green version called “Frog Tape” that many people use instead - at least for masking areas where they are painting latex on walls in a house or building. I’ve used the blue and white tape successfully for painting latex. My dad prefers the green “Frog Tape.”So the question really is: What do you want the tape to do well? Then it’s a matter of either testing several tapes to see what works best for your specific application, or asking what has worked well for others in a similar situation.
Can I poke holes in an air duct?
Whose air conditioning system are you cutting into? Assuming it's a system that's intended to serve your living quarters, what you do with it is up to you. Otherwise, you should look at installing a through-the-wall unit. If on the other hand you're simply spending more time in your basement than you are upstairs (and in the summertime, you're likely to be cooler that way), I would recommend cutting into the duct and adding an operable vent. Then if you move back upstairs in wintertime, you could close the vent to send the majority of the heat upstairs. Also: consider heat reflective film on your windows. Keeping the heat out of the basement means not having to remove it later.
What types of privacy window film work at night when lights are on in the room?
I'm assuming you want a window that you can see through during the day, but can give you privacy at night, even with the lights on. This is one of the most common customer requests. Unfortunately, there is no passive film (by passive I mean one that works by just being there) that is transparent during the day and at the same time blocks the view from the outside at night when you have the light on inside.All glass in windows reflect a certain amount of light, the percentage depends on the specification. Usually, the higher the efficiency of the window, the more light it reflects. During a very bright day, a passerby would probably not be able to see through a high efficiency window into your home, this is because the amount of light being reflected, is greater than the amount of light coming out of your house. The same principle applies at night when you are inside your home. If you try to look through your window at night in a brightly lit room, you would probably see your own reflection, because amount of light being reflected is greater than the amount of light coming from the outside, furthermore, since a window only reflects a percentage of visible light, the light that is not being reflected is going through the window and into the dark street, this of course would enable any passerby to see through your window.There are active film options and one of them is called electrochromic glass, which changes from transparent to translucent when you apply an electrical current to it. The user can manually control the transparency through the use of electricity.
Why is tin foil a good insulator?
Tin is metal and therefore is a good conductor of electricity and a good conductor of heat. The "foil" part of tinfoil just means that the tin is in a very thin sheet - so thin that the metal can be bent and wrapped around things.Note that these days, most "tinfoil" used in homes is actually aluminum foil, i.e. thin sheets of the solid metal aluminum. As a metal, aluminum foil is also a good conductor of electricity and heat.So why do we wrap food in aluminum foil to keep it warm if aluminum conducts heat so well. Another basic property of all metals is that they are all highly reflective. Aluminum foil reflects the thermal radiation coming off of the food back onto the food. It also traps pockets of hot air, so that they cannot convect away heat. When we say metals are a good conductor of heat, we mean that heat flows easily through the metal when it is in contact with a heat source. As long as the aluminum foil or tin foil is not actually touching the food, but is instead wrapped over it so as to trap a pocket of hot air and reflect back the thermal radiation, then the foil's high heat conductivity won't really matter. Hope this was useful to you…