Plastic Over Your Windows--How Much Can You Save...Really??

if you're anything like me you have often wondered if putting plastic over your old windows actually saves you any money is it worth the headache and the hassle of using that blow-dryer and looking at that ugly plastic all winter like how much savings does this stuff really buy alright so this is the brand that I have used in the past frost king extra large windows what I needed because I have there's four large windows this says you can increase your r-value up to a 90% save efficiency okay more like 35% come on frost King weight 90% if you have no window and you put plastic up over a hole yes but otherwise really we're looking more like 35% you can't save up to $500 yeah probably if you were heating your house to like 90 degrees I'm here to test that theory and see how much it actually saves us in our utility bills is it negligible or is it a significant amount I'm super excited I got my utility bill today this is the first time I have not put plastic up over our double-hung windows I've been recording all my utility bills for the last six maybe seven winters it looks like over the last six years the average utility bill for our house for the December and January pay period was a hundred and sixty eight dollars and 32 cents so that's our average bill and this year's bill without the plastic over the window in two hundred and thirty dollars and sixty cents so a fifty two dollars more than the average bill guys we keep our house at 67 degrees during the day and I turn it down to 59 at night so even though it's been kind of a cold winter here in the Midwest like the plastic stuff works I think it's like 20 bucks for us other stuff or like it's like $5 per window or something like that so like I think usually in the wintertime I spend 20 or 30 dollars on on the plastic and I've always 20 or 30 dollars like I'm probably not eat like okay I'm making up the $30 so diving into this a little bit more average gas usage for this month is eighty two point nine units of gas this month I used a hundred and fifty nine units of gas nearly double the gas usage of the average month but this was a particularly cold January okay the average temperature here was 24 degrees with a low of negative for last went to the average temperature was 38 to 0.3 so that's a pretty big swing so let me look at the the last winter that had a really cold winter here which was the 2014 January average temperature was twenty four point three degrees and the lowest temp was negative seven so that year I used a hundred and twelve units of gas with plastic over the windows so one hundred and twelve this year it was one hundred and fifty nine so forty seven units of gas more to not use plastic over the windows for a comparable month thirty nine cents times forty seven units using plastic over your windows will say would have saved me $18.33 okay so that's a little bit more like a verifiable number eighteen dollars to a comparable month for how many units of gas that were used either way that's eighteen dollars in one month so divide that by like four months worth of winter here in the Midwest would end up being seventy-three dollars in savings from using plastic instead of not using it so if you figure you're spending 20 or 30 bucks to use the plastic on your windows and then you're gonna save 73 and result is you're gonna save about $50 each winter so is it worth your time to put the plastic up on windows to save 50 bucks is it worth the aesthetic to have to look at the plastic totally your call man I don't know that this is a tough one this is a tough cookie to crack I think the plastic is gonna pay for itself in the mean time comment below what are your utility stories what have you discovered I would really love to hear those have you conducted any experiments post them down below or suggestions for experiments subscribe to the channel for more great content headed your way and in the meantime we'll see ya later for spearing [Music] you

Channel: Spirit of a Handyman

Views: 252,467

Keywords: Energy Efficient, frost king, made in usa, double hung, save money, plastic over windows, hair dryer, old house, save energy, worth time, worth money, savings, real life, winter, money saving, old windows, drafty, cost analysis, experiment, window insulator kit, shrink film window, duck brand, 3m, draft, big windows, weatherproof, insulation, cheap, diy, beginner, home owner, easy, utility bill, lower your utilities, alternative, results, extra large window, shrink film

Id: c7VkAakTQag

Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2018