Serious question about old window insulation kits I ignored for too long

I was talking to my neighbor Dave last Saturday while we were both out raking leaves. He mentioned he swapped out his storm windows for those 3M plastic kits on his whole house and saved $40 on his heating bill in just December alone. I always thought those kits were kind of a waste of time, like they wouldn't really do much. But he showed me his thermal camera readings and the difference was wild, like 10 degrees warmer near the glass after he put them up. Now I'm wondering if I should do my living room windows before next month hits. Has anyone else seen real savings with those kits or is it just hype?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomas_torres24d ago

Honestly those thermal gun readings can be deceptive if you don't account for the emissivity setting.

robin59124d ago

Man, you're spot on @thomas_torres. It's funny how a lot of those little gadgets we use for quick fixes have a whole other layer of settings most of us just ignore. Kind of like how my dad's old pressure washer has a knob for different nozzles but he just keeps it on the one setting and wonders why it doesn't work right.

spencer_owens5824d ago

Wait, hold up... emissivity setting? I've been using one of those things for years and I honestly thought you just point and shoot. Are you telling me there's some hidden calibration thing that makes it actually accurate?