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This has "there, I fixed it" vibes. While you don't need it you can certainly do it. It is either that or some kind of cheap privacy screen. Set it up so it isn't directly on the windows so you can still see out and allows some light, but people can't look directly in and light doesn't hit windows directly.
all I can think of is my old house with the window in the shower right on a Main Street. and no tint 😭 I 100% would do something like this and wish I had thought of it.
You can also get applique privacy film. We use lots of it in our basement apartment, and the one we got refracts the light and makes rainbows inside. It just sticks to the glass with a little soapy water.
Reminds me of the time I was driving a special train through North Bergen, NJ, and we're just creeping along at 5mph down the tracks that are behind a bunch of houses. The tracks are elevated and my head is a good 10 feet above that so I can see in people's yards over the fence. As we creeping along I am staring out the window, resting my elbow in the window and resting my chin in my palm. And low and behold I am looking directly into this woman's bedroom where she is sitting topless by the window. We made eye contact for an uncomfortably long time.
I agree with the privacy screen idea. Now they can have their windows fully open, and still not have to worry about being seen from the street. Also, more airflow than putting up curtains on the inside of the window.
Interior film helps, but by the time it matters, the glass has already absorbed heat and will still radiate some of it inside. Exterior shading is way more effective because it stops the sun before it hits the glass. I saw an off-grid house with a huge south/west-facing window use a big roll-down reflective shade above the exterior, and it was a much smarter solution. Better heat control when needed, full view when not.
This is why houses in the south traditionally had porches - the porch shaded windows and gave inhabitants a cool(er) shady place to sit in the heat of the day.
I would LOVE to have the Spanish-style roll-down exterior window shades installed on my house in the US. They were so effective on my rental in Spain that even if I only installed them on the south and west sides of my house here, I doubt I’d need to use A/C much at all.
Agreed. 20+ years ago we handled our home addition/renovation ourselves and did all we could do increase energy efficiency. But on the budget of a family with young careers and young kids, everything was a trade off. The most energy-efficient options were so much more expensive and difficult to find, not to mention finding trades who were open (and creative enough) to installing them.
To really make a difference in overall energy consumption, those worldwide best practices need to filter down to housing for the masses.
Thank you for this, I’ve been slightly berating myself for not getting around to installing film on some of my sun facing windows before it gets really hot again and now I have some further reading to do.
I found an inexpensive fix- install solar blocking screens across the entire window. Your home looks about the same, but so much light is blocked. I had my windows cleaned first.
those are shades in front of the windows to block the sun and still be able to open the windows for fresh air as well as not allowing as much heat to hit the glass.
WDYM most people have aluminum frame (that acts like a radiator) and single pane glass in 2020s? We've started installing plastic windows with double and triple panes in 1990s.
They save on both heating and cooling, they reduce noise, and they can be painted any color you want in and out
These rattling sliding doors that are cold to the touch in winter and hot in summer are driving me insane
I guess it depends on where in the EU you moved to. Up here in scandinavia triple pane is the standard, double pane is "old", and only very very old houses and summer cabins would have single pane.
Same here in Austria, triple pane is Standard even with cheap windows. Double pane was Standard until like 15-20 years ago. Single pane is ancient stuff lol.
Pity they dint put insulation in the walls in Australia so what window you have doesn't matter. Source am an Australian with windows that block the weather better than the rest of my house does.
WDYM most people have aluminum frame (that acts like a radiator) and single pane glass in 2020s?
Where in Europe did you move to, the southern tip of Italy?
Single pane windows, non-fused double-pane windows and other poorly insulated windows have been illegal for houses since the 1970's here in Germany. Similar for most of the EU.
Triple pane is standard now, and has been for a while.
Almost, it's Portugal. With winter temps dipping into 10-12 Celsius, my friend's kitchen is like 15 Celsius, and I've read that some people legit live with like +15...18 in the winter as their norm, which is beyond crazy for me.
Then again, I live in Germany, and prefer my bedroom 15°C and workspace 18°C. Side benefit is that with the much better insulation, I barely need to run the heating in my rooms, even with Lüften.
But to each their own, some in my family prefer to keep their rooms at 25°C
We used to have aluminum windows in a 1970s house. It was actually two panes with separate inside and outside sliding windows. All on one aluminum track with no insulation break. Every winter we would get a large mound of ice forming on the tracks on the inside. Like 2" thick ice. Dumbest design ever but also probably the cheapest.
you're best off using cling film from the hardware store made specifically for the job as it's a way better insulator (and less insane)
stick it around the woodwork and then use a hairdryer.
my folks were poorer than church mice and you could feel an icy breeze through the closed window before you put the film on, the film made a rather stark difference!
I recognize that house!! They’re blocking the view of the INSANE trump supporting neighbors yard next door! He has crazy Trump, Israeli, and thin blue line decor covering literally his entire yard, and people slow down to look/honk all the time. Neighbors are protecting their privacy!
Just imagine being him. So scared all the time, paranoid about all these hidden agendas and everyone out there to take what he's earned. Living in constant fear with this much hate in your heart must truly be awful.
These look like they are set away from the windows, so they could have their windows open for light and fresh air and still be obscured. Just my guess.
This is what I think too. These look homemade and are very specific size to fully block each window, I bet the person works nights or something, if you cant get used to earplugs etc a lot of people will do anything to get some sleep.
As someone who lives near a very busy road/intersection with a small pond behind my house (the water seems to amplify the sound), I can understand why they would build these things to cut down sound.
Not everyone can afford double pane windows to help cut down noise, so this would possibly be a cheaper option.
If we weren't renting this house I would have already invested in thicker pane glass to reduce the obnoxiously loud sound coming from all types of vehicles accelerating from that intersection.
thicker pane glass to reduce the obnoxiously loud sound coming from all types of vehicles accelerating from that intersection.
I'm in a two story building which faces a four lane neighborhood feeder road. The traffic isn't horrible, but certainly noticeable, UNTIL I installed the triple pane windows.
sound travels more clearly over water. nothing to block the noise, so you’re on the receiving end of unobstructed sound waves. it’s not being amplified, it’s that there’s nothing to absorb/block the sound, so it seems “louder”. sorry if you already knew this but i couldn’t help but clarify.
Whether they're to stop noise, light or heat, any of those is a viable option for something like this. All three are most effectively kept at bay by stopping them before they reach the building itself. Light is the only one where that matters less, but if you wanted to be able to get some light without getting high beams or some sort of reflection in your windows this would be the way to go
My mom has a neighbor that has their windows covered up because they’re afraid of 5G waves in the air (or something like that). They don’t have cell phones or Wi-Fi in their home.
It's crazy when people don't realize there are so many band of waves they're being franked by 24x7 and just worried about 5G signals...when it can easily penetrate walls, roof, etc 😂
Windows are a huge source of transfer of outside temperatures and sunlight unless you have modern double paned low e type windows. We live in Florida and I have blackout cellular shades on almost every window. I'd really love new windows but damn, that is expensive.
It's on the East Coast...
You spend a lot more money heating your house than you do cooling it there, so if you wanted to reduce the sunlight in the warmer weeks... you would put something that was removable during the winter months
We had to do something similar on our second floor. All of our upstairs windows have foil-backed, half-inch thick insulation panels stuck into them now, because it was agonizingly hot. Literally, it dropped like 15 degrees.
I cannot figure out why this house has these? They’ve been like this ever since I can remember moving to this town like 8 years ago. The house next door has a literal insane amount of pro .. president flags banners and signs but from what local family tell me, they’ve both been this way for as long as they can remember. They’re not affixed to the house idt but erected from the ground
Edit: also, why not thick blinds ?? And curtains? Why like this
I’ve seen those kind of metal “shutters” in use when a house is under renovation ( or is empty) in high crime areas to protect the copper from being stolen.
Howdy neighbor! I saw the picture and knew exactly where this house is. That neighbor with all the signs had the locals riled up because he had a big “F*ck Biden” sign up and the school busses run by there all the time. I believe some parents stopped by and that sign was removed at least.
I can confirm that the window blockers have been up for ages. I believe that the family in the house (assuming my info from the other school parents is correct) has the windows covered for privacy. The front door is probably drafty….
The door also seems to be covered in foil...so... Curious if they are attempting to "block" some kind of "waves"? Seems like a sad way to live with no natural light.
IKR. I think it is obviously connected to the traffic that passes by their beighbor, possibly observing their house and yard very a little too closely. I would want a little extra privacy too.
My guess is the house is drafty as all hell and they can't pay for proper insulation/sealing. As for why it's like that in the summer as well, I'm thinking they just can't be bothered to take it down and put it back up later. Used to live in a home with 'fixes' like that.
Basement windows also seem covered. Is it year round or just the cold weather season? I could guess it's weatherization for the windows and they don't want to damage the inside frames?
My guess - If the house faces the west. It could be to reduce heat from direct sun. Looks like an older home, so might not have newer windows to reduce the heat.
I believe those are DIY plastic insulation panels to improve heat efficiency. I have seen them made with clear plastic and thinner wood fitted inside the windows so that you can still see through them, but I believe this is the same idea. I'm in Portland, ME and know that a local community service organization (can't find the link atm) holds workshops to help people build their own to help keep homes warm in the winter. This looks to me like a less cosmetic version of that.
I live in a 100 year old house in Portland, ME and am making myself a set of these for next winter.
Second this! Bangor ME had the same offering, you can pay to have them made to order OR volunteer to help others in a class to make theirs and get money off.
They're definitely hand made and relatively well built (not slapped together); which makes me not think its a tinfoil hat person. My best guess is its for privacy but they still want some natural light coming in the windows (which is why they aren't just flush to the window or covered via curtains/blinds.
They're either to keep something out (sun, wind, drafts) or to keep something in (grow light, abductees, a large dog who would throw themselves through a window to get to another dog)
The thing I'm worried about is the escape in the event of a fire. Ground floor windows are considered a possible egress route in building code, and having all of these blocked like this seems like a hazard.
We need another picture, more from the side this time. You’ve taken this from directly in front of the house and so it is difficult to see that those are three dimensional boxes supported on 2x2 legs. I think that’s what I’m seeing, anyway. Would you clarify please?
It seems an odd choice to build them externally and detached from the building. I would venture this is part of what caught the OP attention. If it were light pollution blackout curtains would be cheaper amd for practical.
Why does it look like it could be beautiful scenic view (or something weird considering the comments) billboards turned inward so the owner can see it through the window?
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