swans on tea

Just another SFN Blogs site
  • Home
  • A very little about me
  • Sample Page

Tiny Bubbles

Published by swansont on December 29, 2014 03:00 am under Photos, Physics, Thermal IR

My trip home for Christmas gave me my first shot at using my thermal IR camera in quasi-freezing conditions — it ended up being warmer than usual, but still dropped to freezing, or close to it, when the sun was down. I did a survey of my mom’s and a neighbor’s house (confirming for the neighbor that the section of roof where the snow melts fastest is warmer than the rest). Not surprisingly, the warmest parts were the windows, and we have lots of windows. The largest ones are now double- or triple-pane, so it used to be be worse.

Several basement windows, though, are still single-pane. The whole idea of insulation is to trap dead air, i.e. it won’t convect and it also conducts poorly, so I tried a little experiment: putting some bubble wrap up against the window, wrapped in some thin packing foam. I left a slice of it uncovered as a control.

You can see that the left side is noticeably warmer than the insulated part. I went online to see if anyone made insulation made specifically for glass, and ran across a site that had done pretty much what I did — just using two layers of large-bubble packing material so I went out and bought some. The basement windows are now no warmer than the rest of the cinder-block walls. The bubble wrap is translucent, so most of light still gets through.

I used the last of the wrap on some windows on the north side of the house, so I’m not blocking any incoming light that helps heat during the daytime. In my test, I blocked off one section

The window I tested is the one on the left. It’s slightly cooler than the rest. I used one of the other FLIR programs to confirm it’s about 1 ºF cooler than its neighbors (those pictures don’t get saved to the camera roll, though. Not sure why). These are multi-pane windows so the effect isn’t as dramatic, but every little bit helps, so I ended up covering up a few more windows to use up the bubble wrap I had bought. They’re in a part of the room that’s partly blocked anyway, so it doesn’t really impede looking out. This could be re-used from year to year (the basement windows probably left up permanently) and only took a few minutes to do.

No Comment

Comments are closed.

Posting your comment.

  • Recent Posts

    • When Does the Decade End?
    • This is the Hardest Job a Manager Has …
    • 5 Things You Should Know About Light
    • See Spot "Run"
    • The System Works
  • Recent Comments

    • Joey Cook on One Ringy-Dingy, Two Ringy-Dingy
    • Science Fanatic on Talk Like a Physicist Day
    • Chris Gould on Brian Cox is Full of **it
    • LaurieAG on Inmates Running the Asylum
    • Uncle Al on Curious About Curies
  • Archives

    • December 2019
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
    • December 2009
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • May 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
  • Categories

    • admin
    • Antiscience
    • Art
    • Blog Compendia
    • Blogging
    • Body
    • Books
    • Bureaucracy
    • Business
    • Cartoon
    • Conference stories
    • Cool stuff
    • DIY science
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Experiments
    • Food
    • Game
    • Geocaching
    • History
    • Humor
    • Illusions
    • Journalism
    • Lab Stories
    • Language
    • Links
    • Math
    • Metaphysics
    • Misc
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Navy
    • Not Really Science at All
    • Other science
    • peeve
    • photography
    • Photos
    • Physics
    • Politics
    • Quotes
    • Rants
    • Religion
    • Satire
    • Sci-Fi
    • Science-general
    • science-y observation
    • Security
    • Shameless self promotion
    • Sick sick sick
    • Silly
    • Sports
    • Tech
    • The Lab
    • Thermal IR
    • Time
    • TMI
    • Toys
    • trivia
    • TV
    • TYAGFITI
    • Typography
    • Uncategorized
    • Video
    • Weird
    • World Events
    • Writing
  • Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2022 swans on tea
WordPress Theme based on Light Theme