The
Engineer bubble wrapped my house. Ok, not the whole house, just the
windows. Ok, not all the
windows, just the ones I don't need to see out of. I just liked that
opening line.
Some
of you have heard some of the stories about what my Engineer does for
fun. It's not what most people, or even most engineers would do.
He's kinda like the dad in “Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang”. He invents
things.
I
read this description in Debi Pearl's book, “Created to be His HelpMeet” and it fits him to a T.
“Mr.
Visionary will take out the trash if he remembers it. But he may
also end up inventing a way whereby the trash takes itself out, or is
turned into an energy source, or he may just waste a lot of time
building you a cart to take it out. He will not mind cleaning up if
he notices it needs doing, but he may get so deeply involved that he
decides to paint while he is sweeping, and then will switch projects
before he finishes painting.”
That
part about the energy source is really key. His first project love
is alternative energy. For 10 years we had a wood-burning fireplace
that used the existing forced air ducts that he hacked into, added
fans (from the recycle bin at his day job because “we're changing
parts and throwing these perfectly good, NEW fans away”) and blew
the hot air from downstairs up to the main level.
However,
I got asthma, so no more wood smoke. We now have radiant in floor
heating, where water, heated by a special hot water heater (that he
found on craigslist for a song) circulates through pipes under the
floor. Then that hot air rises.
What
about the bubble wrap? Getting there.
The
whole system isn't finished yet, only about ½ the rooms have the in
floor heat. So he decided that we needed some more insulation to
keep the heat that we have produced IN. Of course, not regular
insulation.
He
read somewhere that if you squirt a window with water, bubble wrap
will stick to it adding enough “R factor” (um...used to measure
the value of the insulating quality...these are the parts where my
eyes usually glaze over...I mean, I've already said yes to the
(slightly crazy, admit it) bubble wrap, I don't need to know HOW much
it will work) to equal another window pane.
This
is key on our back patio door because we've had to blow-dry it every
morning to get it to open. (We were dog sitting – it was the best
dog exit, but no more) Now it looks like this
No,
we can't open it. But we don't need to now that the dog is back home. We also “wrapped” the
boys' bedroom windows because they always leave the blinds closed, so
who cares. In addition, we did our master bedroom window
because
we haven't bought window treatments yet. It gives some privacy. And
the Christmas lights look really cool shining through it as you're
trying to go to sleep.
There
is one last window – my “office” window from which I'm writing
this. I needed to be able to see out, so it's partially done.
Questions?
Yes, it's helping. Yes, it looks a bit weird from the outside, but
I'm pretending that we've decorated the windows for the winter...you
know with snowflakes. And yes, I'm a bit insane too.
And
you thought bubble wrap was just for popping as stress relief...
