Space Blankets
 

Hi All-

I ran across this forum when I was researching using space blankets to insulate a house. Google pointed me here and it looks pretty nifty so I joined. My Dad raised me to always turn off lights, compost, recycle, drive slow and fill tires to save gas, etc. I didn't realize until years late that was eco/ green stuff? I still just think it's common sense. I drive a 2003 Jetta TDI and my best MPG is currently 52 (650 miles, one tank) .

I'm currently obsessed with insulating my tiny rental on a tight budget. Even after searching the forums, I haven't found the answer to my question; Will taping space blankets to a wall provide any amount of insulation? Even a fraction of an r?

you will get a fraction of an R-value because of the air gap that it creates, but mostly you will reflect all of your infrared heat back into the room instead of letting it soak in to the structure of the house, I am pretty sure that white zinc oxide paint will do more or less the same thing without being silver and zinc oxide paint might even do a better job because from what I remember reading about it, it radiates infrared and reflect it.
I have yet to find it for sale, but I've read about what is most often sold as ceiling paint, an insulated, reflective paint that they claimed you could paint over and it would still hold most of it's properties, but as I said, I've never found it for sale.

yes, it should help. however, it will make your place look like a grow room. if you are trying to stay cool, think about putting it in the attic, on top of the insulation.

grow rooms are bad in my area, cops go over with infrared cameras and look for hot houses and think your growing drugs, keep that in mind. And welcome to ecomodder

Also, in SoCal, with a small place, big fans and opening and closing windows at the right time, and nice thick blankets for the winter, could go a looooong way. I still like the space blanket idea, though. Especially over windows at night in cold weather.

What I did was tape up 2 blankets then I hung curtains lined with 2 more space blankets over top of them. Not sure yet if it has any effect.

Heavy curtains will help over the windows as a barrier from IR and radiant heat from windows, space blankets might help more but it depends on what you like the look of.

Check out www.ecorenovator.org they cover more of the home stuff but make sure to keep checking back here I'm sure you will like what you find.

I'm using an indoor outdoor thermometer to monitor the difference between the wall temp and the temp of the air about 6" inside the curtain. So far the difference is negligible. I theorize that the space blankets need to be sealed to wall (eg continuous tape to seal in the hot air).

But the whole experiment does have me thinking about using the leftover space blankets to make a cover for my black car lol! Some muslin fabric (to strengthen the space blankets and keeping it from blinding passerby), duct tape, rope and tennis balls should do it. The tennis balls would go inside the windows to secure the cover to the top of the car. I have one of those cars where you roll the windows up by turning the key in the driver side door.

to work as intended, the space blanket needs to have airspace on one side. ideally, for your car, it would have the shiny side outward, facing the sun and reflecting heat, and blinding the passersby. :) Sorry if you already knew that.

After some experimenting, I figured out my wall curtain experiment would work better with rolled Metalized Polyester Film. That's basically scientist talk for space blankets without the folds, right?