My aluminum storm windows are wasting energy in my home, however, the $7000 estimate to replace them is beyond (well beyond) my comfort zone.I know aluminum is a great conductor of hot and cold. I was considering cleaning the frames, and then coating them with a brush on clear or possibly white liquid rubber to reduce the conductivity. Any idea as to how much benefit I'll realize? Is flammability going to be an issue?I need some solid answers please. Trolls go get your two points elsewhere.Thanks.Your help is much appreciated.
LJR, There could be no issues concerning reactivity or flammability with reference to putting some sort of liquid rubber coating on your aluminum window frames. Aluminum is a reasonably inert steel, or maybe has a skinny coating of aluminum oxide on its floor that reduces its reactivity much extra. Coating it with something could be completely secure. to whether you will attain reward from doing it relies upon on the layout of your dwelling house windows. i do no longer understand lots approximately dwelling house advancements, so i can not truthfully image how they're set up. in case you may coat the frames each and all of the way around so as that there isn't any way for the aluminum to habit warmth from the outer portion of the window to the interior portion of the window, then this could be fairly efficient. yet whilst portion of the frames are embedded interior the wood such which you would be able to no longer get right of entry to it to place a coating on, then coating something of them won't do lots sturdy. honestly, while you're effective which you would be able to coat the entire physique and placed it returned in the way it grew to become into, i might circulate forward and do it. If no longer, i might ask somebody at a ironmongery shop approximately different suggestions.
Plastic coating will not stick to aluminum well. You will have to sand it first then use a aluminum metal primer. This is very labor intensive and you would be better off making new frames from wood or vinyl
There are rubberized automotive undercarriage coatings that are designed to adhere to all metals, including aluminum. That would solve the problem of finding something that can stick to the frames, but I honestly don't know if it would help with the heating issue. I also believe they only come in black, I'm not sure if there's a white but it could be painted, Chassis Saver by Magnet is one I believe, the other is a Por 15 product. I'd like to know if it works though, I've got similar problems in my house.
Coating your existing aluminum windows will help absolutely zero. To be effective, you would need a thermal break between the aluminum and the heated portion of your house. Unless you have aluminum storms applied directly to aluminum windows, you should already have some kind of thermal break. At the end of the day, the aluminum is not really costing you much in terms of energy loss. Adding any kind of coating to the storms does not help because it is not between the aluminum and your heated area. I can't think of a way you could do this anyway. Aluminum is incredibly hard to get a coating to stick to and I have never seen a product that would be suitable for this.
