Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Homeowner's Bleg

Another blogging beg, as I ask for help/advice from you, Faithful Readers.

Since I live in Longmont (the Boulder County equivalent of a third-world country), my house has old, old windows. I'm sure they were wonderful, state of the art back in the late 60's when my house was built. But at this point, they suck. Last winter, when it really got chill, I could stand near them and literally feel a breeze as cold air came pouring in.

Being the cheap bastard that I am, I invested in $25 worth of plastic film, which I taped over the windows. From now on, I am calling this the 'Longmont triple-pane'. I had some problems getting it to stay up, but mostly it worked really well, and definitely held down the heating bill in what was the coldest winter I've had here.

So I'm trying to do the same thing again, but for whatever reason, having much less luck with the taping part. I did every window in the house on Sunday, and by Monday morning every sheet but one had pulled away from the wall. I got some more last night (different brand), and doing some more reading, found out that the tape is actually not designed to stick to painted drywall. But the recommendation was that I attach to the frame, and apparently the tape is not designed to stick to cold metal, either.

As a desperate last measure, I decided to try duct-taping the plastic to the drywall, only apparently duct tape doesn't stick to drywall for shit, either.

So, I'm lost. Does anyone out there have some experience along these lines? Is there a kind of tape (either single- or double-sided) which sticks better to painted drywall? Or a particular brand of these plastic sheet packages that I should be buying? Or any other ideas, short of getting better windows?

1 comment:

auntB said...

magnets on metal frames? i guess they're probably aluminum though...
the cool blue masking tape for painting?
let me know if you figure something out!