How to Double Glaze Your Windows in Under 10 Minutes

Looking for an easy way to improve the thermal protection of your windows with everyday materials?

Standing beside your windows in winter can send a chill down your spine and in summer, they’re conducting all of that yukky heat in and leaving you boiling hot inside.

Here’s a simple trick to insulating/double glazing your windows that will only cost you a couple of minutes!

In this video, thermal comfort expert, Maurice Beinat, explains how you can improve the thermal performance of your windows using only bubble wrap and water.

YOU WILL NEED:

1. Bubble Wrap
2. Water in a Spray Bottle
3. Scissors
4. A Retractable Knife with a Sharp Blade

METHOD:

STEP 1:Cut your bubble wrap roughly to size, keeping it nice and square to fit into the corner of your window frame
STEP 2:  Spray the surface of your window with the water
STEP 3:  Press the bubble wrap onto the glass
STEP 4:  Trim around the edges with your retractable knife

If you can’t watch it now, here’s the full transcript of the video:

“I’m going to show you today how you can insulate your windows in under 10 minutes, for under $10! It’s the quick and dirty way of double glazing your windows using what you’ve got around the house.

A lot of Australian homes have been built with single glazed windows. Now, the trouble with single glazing is that glass is actually an excellent conductor of heat.

This means that in summer, heat is drawn into your home from outside. You may even recall last summer – feeling like your home heats up during the day and just won’t cool down through the night, making it impossible to sleep and extremely uncomfortable to live in.

In winter, it’s the opposite, your lovely winter warmth is lost through the glass, leaving you freezing cold, to the point where you barely want to move. You’ve probably experienced that chill when sitting beside a window in winter – you’d certainly never choose to sit beside a single glazed window, that’s for sure.

And it gets worse. Not only are you stuck in an uncomfortable home but the cost of gas and electricity is going up! This means that the more you use your heating and air conditioning, the more expensive your bills are going to be.

AND, if your windows are single glazed, you’re probably not even enjoying the heating and cooling you’re paying for!

The natural thing is to think about double glazing, which traps a layer of still air between two layers of glass to insulate the surface of the window. But double glazing’s expensive, right? Not to mention how disruptive and wasteful it is to remove and replace all of your windows!

So, let me show you how to beat the system and use bubble wrap instead. The principle is the same, the bubble wrap has tiny pockets of air trapped all over it and it’s this still air that helps to create a barrier and keep your winter warmth in and summer heat out!

You’ll need enough bubble wrap to cover your windows, a spray bottle filled with water to stick it onto the glass and a Stanley knife to trim your edges. Let me show you how easy it is…

1. Spray the glass
2. Apply the bubble wrap
3. Trim the edges

… How simple is that?! Obviously, it’s not going to perform as well as double glazing … you actually need about a 14mm layer of still air to get the best thermal protection … But there it is, the simplest, quickest and certainly the cheapest way to double glaze your existing windows.

And remember, there are heaps of ways to get the benefits of double glazing, my only advice is to do your research and make your investment count. Because when you do, you’ll enjoy a much more comfortable home all year round, that’s cheaper to run, and better for the environment too.”

Enjoy a much more comfortable room thanks to your newly insulated windows!