Improvised storm windows and insulation

As the major surprise storm rages it has cracked a window or two and, as you are now many days without utilities, it is getting colder where you are bugging in. You decide you must improvise something like storm windows, reinforce the windows that have been cracked so they do not fail, and further insulate all the windows.

Going to the home supply store is out, you start looking around your place, and do what?

Cardboard. And plastic sheeting. I live an apt that had one window poorly sealed. As soon as the weather turns, I put up some cardboard I had trimmed to fit, put that over the window, then seal it all with plastic taped to the sill. The window faces my neighbors fence, so I dont really mind losing that view.
The rest of the windows get just the plain old plastic sheeting treatment.
Taught & clear are the keys-the idea is to minimize air movement between the glass & the plastic, and the clarity allows the sun to still come through. I try to avoid turning the heat on as much as I can, and have already caved a few times this year...this helps with the heating bill though!

Get some plywood, and cover it on the outside.
Get some insulation and cover it on the inside.
Put a layer of reflectix on the inside over the insulation.

All on hand.

Oh, and heavy plastic sheets are good, I have some 20'x100' in the basement from concrete work leftover too, or tar-paper. If you want to keep something onhand cheap and small the painting plastic is affordable, small, and can close up a window decent.

Get some reflectix to go behind your blinds so you can't see them, but on the inside side of your other coverings. This stuff works pretty good, all the RVers swear by it. It's very affordable.

In my old apartment we used cardboard against the windows, and then blackout shades for blinds. Worked good.

If you've got some gorilla tape, dry the glass and tape the crack. Even cracked, it's still a barrier.

The large-bubble bubblepak works quite well taped to the inside of the glass where you want/need light. But that's here in a relatively mild winter area. For you poor souls in the really cold ares, maybe stack straw bales on the inside of all exterior walls... ;-)

Sue

Going to get something outside of what is already at your place is out; you are limited to using what is on hand.

Thinking about what is in your home, garage, etcetera, what would you do?

ducktape and nails,
trash bags and closet doors,
spare mattress, airbed, shower curtains
patio furniture, grill cover, tents

waterproof some bedsheets with leftover paint (have glossy kitchen/bath kind, and living room latex)


but realistically it would never get to that

harvest screws, nails, paneling, and drywall from interior walls
ceiling tiles
inflate those vacuum storage bags
newspaper
wallpaper
furniture cushions
pillows
dog or cat bed
stacked paper goods, towels, TP, boxes of tissue
contact shelf paper
bulletin and white boards
wall hangings
pictures / photos in frames
glue
expanding foam insulation

Work on the outside. Tack up tarps and fill with snow,leaf litter, potting soil, dog poop, or what have you.

Restrict activities to a well insulated inner room.

Wear more clothes. There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing (from my brother in Minnesota, who survives every winter and loves it). My available clothing has taken me to -30 F comfortably.

Newspaper is a great idea! And most people have that on hand too.

Consider creating a well-insulated inner room!

Back when wood was cheap and plaster expensive poor homes were often lined with wood. If the family became prosperous they would plaster the walls. Until that happened they would make the interior more secure by gluing paper, virtually any paper, to the interior. In older houses you can sometimes find pages from catalogs, discarded books, receipts, and quite frequently newspapers, glued to the walls to help stop drafts.

Remembering this and with temperatures expected in the teens, no money and a house you could hear the wind blow through we got to work. Mixing up some glue by combining flour and water we set to work sealing the building up. We glued newsprint over the the frames of the double-hung windows. Thick glue on all four sides and place the sheet/s pulling them tight so there was about 1/2" between the paper and the glass. Repeat the process inside. Instant 'triple-paned' windows. We did the same thing inside and out with more glue brushed on and strips of newspaper ripped about 3" wide to cover the gaps around the window frames.

We covered holes in the walls, around door frames, twisted up newsprint like rope and wet with glue we filled holes around pipes and stuffed a couple of long gaps where the floor met the wall.

If you wait for the glue to dry on a window and then moisten the paper with vegetable oil the paper becomes much more transparent. Translucent really. And it will let in more light and allow you to see shapes outside.

The methods work and last several months as long as rain doesn't get to it. Generally the colder it is the longer it lasts. If the paper is lightly oiled it will withstand a fair bit of misting rain and fog without sagging or rapidly deteriorating. In time insects may eat the flour glue. If you want the assembly to last longer and resist insects you can add boric acid or borax washing powder to the flour water mix. I have been told you can add lime and or alum to get a sturdier glue.

When the weather changes and the newsprint starts to fail you rip them down and compost them. Then go back and scrub the glue off. Note that if you use borax or other amendments to the glue mix the glue can be more difficult to scrub off.

Flour, water and newsprint, and a couple of sticks and you can build a kite. Fun, a potentially useful signaling device, and entertainment for the kids.

Sealing a structure using flour glue and newsprint to keep the heat in works. The same method could be used to help keep chemical contaminates out. Used to be plastic sheeting and good duct tape were dirt cheap. They aren't chap any more. Newsprint snapped up from the recycling bin and flour are much cheaper.

in abandon farm homes in Minnesota you can find what i assume were bedrooms that were wallpapered with newspaper.that would really keep out the wind if not the subzero cold.some rooms had been done in all the colored sections which must have made for an offbeat room once the bed and stuff was put in..

Back in the 20s and 30s a considerable number of kids got their first education in reading by sounding out the words on newsprint and pages from the Sear and Roebuck catalog glued to walls in their home.

Insulating a home isn't a new issue. Medieval castle owners put down rugs, hung tapestries and used heavy drapes. All of these made living in stone walls much more comfortable. The old canopy beds were designed to give a person an insulated pod to sleep in.

What about mice? Won't they eat the flour-saturated paper?

Mice, in my experience, don't seem to be a great problem. The glue is applied pretty thin and unless the house is already overrun with mice I don't see see them pulling a mau-mau on your improvised window insulation.

Roaches will nibble the glue in time. The SE is big on roaches. I don't care how fastidious and clean you are every house that isn't soaked with pesticides has some roaches. You can limit their attraction to the glue by mixing in boric acid to make it unpalatable. But newsprint and flour glue isn't extremely attractive to roaches. Nor is it intended to be a long term solution. So if the roaches nibble the edges a bit it isn't the end of the world.

It is a short term survival strategy for sealing a house tight enough to stay warm in. And a stopgap measure for people with few other resources. In time moisture, roaches, ants, perhaps mice and mold are going to attack the glue and newsprint and destroy its integrity. With a little luck this happens slowly and after winter has passed.

I didn't mention it but it is also something of a fire hazard. If the newsprint catches it is going to go up fast because it is a thin section of flammable material held vertically. Curtains are also a hazard for the same reasons. Be careful and use common sense. Keep candles, heat sources and sparks away. Keep a fire extinguisher handy. If you don't have, or can't afford, a fire extinguished keep a bucket or buckets with water and/or sand handy.

Come spring you can tear it down and redo it in the fall.

I'll have to keep that trick in mind for hunting camp. This year we remembered to bring a couple cans of that spray foam stuff, but plenty of times we just lived with the drafts.

What we really need to do is gut the cabin and put up new siding, insulation and wall board. But we've been holding off because that would make the place more attractive to kids looking for a place to party when we're not around.

In one of Tom Brown's books, he suggests making a warm nest with mattresses: one on the floor near a corner of the room (no window), one on the wall side of the floor mattress, and push both against the wall. A third one on the bottom end of the floor mattress, push the whole thing against that wall. A fourth one on the outside of the floor mattress. One more on the top. The open end is draped with blankets or comforters so you can come and go. Make it double length for the whole family.

I thought that was pretty clever.

Also, if you have as much scrap foamboard insulation as I have (don't ask), you could cut it to fit the windows and strap/staple them in place.

Sue

Building an interior room out of mattresses works. People with few resources can also do much the same thing with blankets, comforters and old sleeping bags.

There are lots of ways to assemble such a room but one handy way is to rig what amounts to a couple of clothes lines about six feet high and about six feet apart through the middle of an interior room. Nails will work to hold light rope or wire if you hit a stud but screw eyes into a stud are far less likely to pull out. The additional strength will allow you to safely tension the lines more and make for easier assembly and a better room.

Along these you hang your blankets, or what have you, vertically from the lines and between the lines to create a room. And more blankets across the top to create a roof. Clothes pins, large safety pins, and spring binder clips can be used to hold the pieces together. They can also be stitched with a large upholstery needle and heavy thread or string.

Assembling a tight sleeping area in an interior room can make a huge difference in your ability to survive through cold temperatures if the heat is not working.

As with all such expedient assemblies and strategies you have to be careful. Fire, smothering and carbon monoxide poisoning have to be avoided. Better to be a little cooler than comfortable, than dead.

Ah, the urban debris shelter!

Most of the really good techniques date back to the Great Depression, or earlier. The United States was largely a rural and agrarian nation before WW2. And had a very limited industrial sector before WW1.

Even today poor and homeless people are a great source of information on survival, and living with limited resources.