August 25, 2004
kinetic energy
8/25/04
Okay, I need to enlist the collective brainpower of the blogosphere here, so put your Theoretical Universe™ Caps on. I'm trying to make our barn a little more cozy in the winter – we put in a nice forced-air furnace that keeps things bearable when it goes below 20 degrees, but I want to make retain heat better and save energy.
I'm in Brooklyn right now, so I can't give you a better picture, but the interior looks like this:
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...only it's cleaner than that because I was more of a slob back in 2002. Better yet, here is a rough floor plan of the downstairs of the barn (some of you have already been there):
The pink area is the main "hangout" area that I'd like to keep warm, and there are several heater vents in there. However, this barn was built in 1884 and is un-insulated. The biggest problems are shown by the purple arrows – heat is flying up the staircase to the second floor (there is no door, it's wide open) and heat is rushing out of the main barn door (it slides into place and has all kinds of holes).
So...
I need to find a way to stop heat from escaping those two places. Last year, I made a foam "door" that slid horizontally at the top of the stairs, but it got beat to shit and left plenty of gaps. Also, I tried putting stuffing the barn door with insulation, but it kept falling out, and we needed to use the door.
So what I'm looking for now is some sort of flexible insulation, like an "insulating curtain" I can hang up over the barn door's joists, and also hang at the top of the staircase. It needs to be rugged, mildew-repellent (meaning no straight-ahead cloth) and easy to replace via hooks or Velcro or something.
I have an idea percolating in my head, but would love to know what YOU would do.
Posted by irw at August 25, 2004 10:20 PMIn Polish railway bars around the time of the fall of Communism, doorways in winter were shielded from the cold by layers of thick fabric you had to walk though. It was like going through theatre curtains made of carpets. They hung from metal arced rods fixed into the ceiling which left space for the door to open inward. There was a bit of space left between each layer so the door got the layered sweater effect.
get more dogs.
My father put up plexiglass from floor to ceiling on sliding "rails". It worked well for keeping heat in our den, but caused problems when newcomers ran into it leaving lipstick marks. I am sure it comes in all kinds of colors these days to prevent such atrocities. I thought he was nuts at the time but now realize he was just being energy efficient...
At the beer store here in Charlottetown the "cold beer room" is very cold, and yet there is no doorway between it and the regular part of the store. It seems like there's a "curtain of air" that keeps the cold air in and the hot air out (and vice versa).
At the Fairway on 125th Street, they keep the cooler cold with a vinyl curtain-type thing. It's a series of vinyl rectangles hanging across the doorway, aligned like the cloths that dry your car off at the automatic car wash. Get some of those, man.
I'm thinking about the freezers at the various restaurants I've worked at and I seem to recall that many of them had walls of overlapping plastic strips that you stepped through to keep the cold in. I think something like that might work in your situation. My parents house (a 100-yr-old farmhouse) is only heated on the main floor and they put up blankets & old comforters across the major doorways to keep the cold out, but then again, they are broke farmers, not globe-trotting-movie-moguls-to-be, so maybe that won't work for you ;)
How about these?
http://www.frommeltstripdoors.com/
Or these...
http://www.strip-door.com/industrial-pvc-strip-doors.html
These might work too, but I've always found them kind of loud and annoying...
http://www.actroninc.com/airdoors.htmCan you tell I'm procrastinating and avoiding work?
Man, that last link was pretty cool. It's very "Boy in the Bubble."
http://www.angelfire.com/ia2/ingenieriaagricola/room_cooling.htm
might be useful
Heated "air curtains", like in the grocery store entrances, use a ton of energy. The clear vinyl strips could be great.
soundproofing mats. they are the answer. you can get big rolls of the shit - ain't cheap, but it's H-E-A-V-Y and effective.
As a fellow Chapel Hill graduate, may I recommend the system utilized by Big Bertha at Fowler's (I think those names are right...)
Heavy plastic strips that you can walk through but, when left to their own
sorry, I had to kill a roach running across my feet...
hang side by side to stop the temperamental loss of heat.
Just a sugesstion.