Thermal Shutters

There are a lot of products on the market these days, which purport to save you money by insulating the windows of your home or business. But most are ineffective or down right fraudulent. The plans that we propose have been tested in our own home with great success. With these plans, a few tools and some materials one can construct thermal shutters that will save you money while improving the comfort of your environment. 

The objective of a thermal shutter is of course to decrease the flow of heat passing between the living space and the outside through the window. In order to do this it must do three things:

• Reduce heat flow due to conduction (R-10 or better).
• Reduce heat flow due to convection.
• Reduce heat flow due to radiation.

There are only a few products on the market today, which when put together, can really fulfill all of these objectives. Of course, in building a thermal shutter, consideration must also be given to ease of construction, availability of materials of construction, weight of the shutter, air-tightness, esthetics (both viewed from inside and outside) and finally cost.

The best aspect of these thermal shutters is that they're so simple to construct, you don't need to hire a cabinet maker to construct them. This reduces their cost substantially. As a result it cost me approximately $22.00 to build a 4X4 foot thermal shutter for one of my windows. I expect that at current energy prices I'll get payback in about 5 years. If energy prices go up even sooner!

These plans also allow you the flexibility to maintain the window coverings that you have become accustomed to. Since they're so thin, they can be sandwiched between blinds and drapes or simply hidden behind the drapes themselves. The choice is yours.

Click on the "Orders" link at the left to place and order for a copy of these plans. 

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