Do I like to cool, or dark?

[alexpgp]

The cord to raise or lower the window blind in my office assumes an angle of about 25 degrees with respect to the wall when I manipulate the blind. Yesterday, I found out the hard way that the "perpendicular-to-the-wall" component of the force (the part that does nothing to actually raise the blind) is sufficient to pull the fastener doodads holding the end of the blind completely out of the wall, causing the blind to fall with the kind of impact and clatter one associates with serious force.

Clatter I can deal with; it's just noise. The stuff underneath the blind when it fell doesn't generally do so well with impact, but nothing seems to be broken. But with no blind in place, the late afternoon sun shines directly into my window, so the room became pretty hot.

Galina came up with the idea of using a piece of radiant barrier that (apparently) has been abandoned by the crew that started, but never finished the job of installing it in our attic. The barrier works very well, from the temperature perspective, but it's opaque, which means the light has to stay on whenever I'm working in the office. In and of itself, since I'm using energy-efficient bulbs, the heat load from the lights is not bad, but I am coming to realize just how much I dislike working in what amounts to a windowless room.

Ah, well, live and learn...

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I house I rented in grad school had a west-facing window in the bedroom that the previous occupant had covered with aluminum foil. After thinking it out, I left it intact.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

I recall doing that trick with aluminum foil in a dorm room back in college. It did make things cooler, but after a while, the darkness got to me, so I took some of it off.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

The previous owners of the house we have now lived in for the last 16 or so years had a family of teenagers. Hence, one room was painted a rich lavender, and another had black mini-blinds. Well, with three sons, the lavender went right away. But the black mini-blinds are still hanging there. They aren't offensive in color, but they are on a west facing window, and like yours, soak up a lot of heat. I should mention that one of our first improvements to the house was to have double paned windows installed. That made a huge difference. But the windows are still west facing.

My latest scheme is to replace them with a curtain treatment that will resemble the sails on a tall ship. I have even already bought the white duck curtains. I would like to raise and lower them using a sailing ship system of blocks and tackles and hang them from a "yard." This is, after all, the room used by our most avid sailor. I also envision these curtain "lines" being tied off to a belaying pin.

I guess I'll know when Kris raises or lowers the curtains when I hear him bellowing, "Raise the tops'l, aye!"

Hopefully he'll be getting a fresh breeze to keep our vessel on course.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

You post a photo of that treatment when you finish, ok?

:^)

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the first mate/ship's carpenter has mutinied. I may have to shanghai someone else. Aargh.

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

My home office faces west, and in summer it get the full blast of afternoon sun from about 1 pm until sunset. The neighbour next door has a galvanised iron roof on his garage, bless him, so I get very nice reflection of sunlight off that AS WELL. During first summer we spent in this apartment, the office was unusable after lunchtime - up to 110 -125 F!

We put a timber Venetian blind on that window, nice dark cedar, which helped, but it was still too hot. Then had a bright idea and bought some adhesive silver thin ducting tape (about $5 a roll from hardware store). The slats are 48 mm wide, tape is 50 mm, close enough. Two hours work turned one side of the blind into something resembling a space-age slatted mirror.

Tested the rig last summer - temps dropped literally down to 85 F. It's SO good. :) Looks nice from the inside, too, as I only stuck the silver stuff on the intended external surface, so the inside is still soothing dark cedar.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Good application for duct tape!

I had a momentary idea of doing the same thing with the materials I have at hand, but I figure by the time I get to this "to do" item, it'll be fall! :^)

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

It only took me two hours :)

Besides, in the fall you can flip the slats the other way and reflect the warmth back inside the room!