WisconsinGardener
Loony Member
I don’t know if this is the right spot for this. Let me know if there is a better forum area to pose this question.
I have a 3-season room that is unheated, no AC, nothing except those vinyl (not glass) windows. Had I known ahead of time how it gets really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter, I would have done some things differently. Now, I’m trying to find ways to make it at least warmer in the winter, preferably passively.
The first winter, I put window plastic up on the inside, you know, that 3M stuff that you use a hairdryer to make taut. Turned out to be a huge mistake. I don’t really understand the physics of what happened with it, but it iced over and then when it did get above freezing in there, it all melted and pooled water on the floor. I wound up pulling it all down after a couple of weeks.
I have photos, but they are too large, and my tech abilities are pretty nil for making them small enough. I tried putting them on Facebook and then copying them over, but that didn’t work, either.
Anyway, my current idea is to make wooden frames with 2x2 boards (is there such a thing?) the size of the windows and stretch clear plastic over them - then attach them on the outside instead of the inside. That would make an air space, and maybe being outside, it wouldn’t make the windows just frost over???
My goal is a place warm enough to grow winter greens. Right now, it is 33 degrees outside and 36 degrees inside the room. As it gets colder outside, the difference gets greater, maybe because it steals heat from the house. If it’s -20 outside, I think the coldest it ever got inside was just below zero, but that’s still too cold for greens. I would also just like to use the room more myself in the winter. It’s really more of a two-season room. In the summer, it gets very hot, and maybe I can be out there in the evening if I have the fan going full blast. Lots of things I would have done differently when I had this built had I been smarter.
I have a 3-season room that is unheated, no AC, nothing except those vinyl (not glass) windows. Had I known ahead of time how it gets really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter, I would have done some things differently. Now, I’m trying to find ways to make it at least warmer in the winter, preferably passively.
The first winter, I put window plastic up on the inside, you know, that 3M stuff that you use a hairdryer to make taut. Turned out to be a huge mistake. I don’t really understand the physics of what happened with it, but it iced over and then when it did get above freezing in there, it all melted and pooled water on the floor. I wound up pulling it all down after a couple of weeks.
I have photos, but they are too large, and my tech abilities are pretty nil for making them small enough. I tried putting them on Facebook and then copying them over, but that didn’t work, either.
Anyway, my current idea is to make wooden frames with 2x2 boards (is there such a thing?) the size of the windows and stretch clear plastic over them - then attach them on the outside instead of the inside. That would make an air space, and maybe being outside, it wouldn’t make the windows just frost over???
My goal is a place warm enough to grow winter greens. Right now, it is 33 degrees outside and 36 degrees inside the room. As it gets colder outside, the difference gets greater, maybe because it steals heat from the house. If it’s -20 outside, I think the coldest it ever got inside was just below zero, but that’s still too cold for greens. I would also just like to use the room more myself in the winter. It’s really more of a two-season room. In the summer, it gets very hot, and maybe I can be out there in the evening if I have the fan going full blast. Lots of things I would have done differently when I had this built had I been smarter.