Tips for Insulating Your Windows This Winter

Winter is such a wonderful time of year. What’s not to love about snowball fights, the holidays and warm winter treats like hot cocoa and Christmas cookies? Unfortunately, one of the downsides of winter is the damage the cooler weather can do to your electric bill. 

Every year, U.S. homeowners spend way too much on heating their houses because of poor insulation. The main culprit for heat loss from your home during the winter is poorly insulated windows. While windows can be great at letting in sunlight and trapping heat during the day, they can’t do much to maintain that warmth into the evening. Below are a few tips on how you can easily insulate your windows this winter for a warmer home and a reduced electric bill.

Window Insulation Kits

Insulating your windows on your own can be intimidating if you are new to home improvement. However, there are tons of window insulation kits available that make the process as easy, user friendly and, most importantly, as effective as possible. Not to mention, these kits are super affordable and a worthwhile investment for the retention of heat in your home. These kits come in multiple sizes to fit windows large and small and offer some of the simplest installation on the market. For example, this super-affordable and effective Shrink-It Window Sealer Kit can be installed by just attaching it to the window you would like to insulate and using your hair dryer to shrink the film drum tight onto your windows for maximum insulation.

Weather-Stripping

The tried-and-true method of insulating your home during the winter, weather-stripping is another simple and super effective way to keep your home warm and your electric bill down. For windows, you can use traditional weather stripping or weather-stripping tape, like this Frost King Black Rubber Tape, which is both easy to install and affordable. One advantage to methods like weather-stripping and using weather-stripping tape is that they can be used to insulate more than just your windows. A $3 roll of weather stripping can insulate your windows and a few doors in your home, which means that the insulation will quickly pay for itself.

Acrylic Glazing

For those of us who live in especially frigid climates that can reach winter cold temperatures almost year-round, it might be wise to invest in a more robust insulation solution. While not as simple and temporary as an insulation kit or weather stripping, installing a sheet of Acrylic Glazing (plexiglass) in lieu of traditional glass panes on your windows is a super-effective way to keep the cold out of your home. Acrylic glazing has many of the same properties as glass, with some added benefits: It lets in about the same amount of light, it can be as thin or thinner than regular glass panes, and it is shatter resistant. However, what makes acrylic glazing great for insulation are its properties at the molecular level. Because acrylic glazing is produced differently than traditional glass, it does not conduct heat as well as glass does. What this means for you as a homeowner is, while traditional glass windows can conduct heat very well and radiate a significant amount of your home’s heat away during the evening, acrylic glazing will trap this heat because it is a poor conductor of heat energy.

Sealing windows for winter shouldn’t have to be a scary or complicated task. While each of these methods for insulating your windows is super effective, we also recommend using them in conjunction to maximize the insulation on your windows. We hope that these tips have been helpful and will give you some peace of mind this winter season. And for all other home hardware needs, feel free to visit Bonanza Hardware for great prices and even better customer service.