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In our cold Yankee climate, we heat only the most used parts of the house. Each fall I cover doors and windows in seldom used rooms with foil-backed 3 1/2" - fiberglass, and then cover that with sheets of poly film stapled and duct-taped to edges of wood trim. Poly goes on the outside as well. To eliminate wind flap, I tape wood lath in a cross pattern on the outside. With the fiberglass offering R-13, the glass R-1, the 2"-thick layer of dead airspace behind the poly adding R-2, and the two sheets of plastic another R-2, I have almost R-19. Cost per window is less than $5 and the materials are usable for years if removed and reinstalled carefully. It's ugly but cheap and effective.

Over windows in frequently used rooms, I screw fixed-pane, wood-sash, storm windows snugly to the outer window-trim boards. I've replaced the droopy felt weatherstrip with 3/8"-wide x 3/16"-thick EPDM rubber weather-gasketing around the inside of each stormwindow frame. Sold by W. J. Dennis & Co., of Elgin, Illinois, for over 25¢/foot, EPDM isn't cheap. However, it is 10 times more effective than felt or easily torn-open cell foam stripping. Its self-stick backing adheres to any dry surface. With a tough, closed-cell skin, it will last for 10 years or more. Not as sturdy as EPDM is the 1 1/4" wide, self-sticking, closed-cell, vinyl weather strip used to seal between truck beds and camper tops (Its width also makes it useful on uneven surfaces such as the bottoms of old window sashes.)

On the inside and outside of windows we want to see through, I fasten window-clear plastic sheeting, which is double the cost of semiclear poly but worth it. Anti-wind-flap lath crosses are held on the outside with clear poly tape. If the putty keeping glass panes in place is maintained, the old windows are airtight and offer R-values of 3 to 4. Thick, tight-closing drapes bring the R-value up to 5 or 6.

More effective than drapes are window quilts: roller shades of two layers of fiber- fill with a reflective mylar sheet between them. Boxed at top and held by airtight guides at each side, quilts offer an insulating value of about R-4. You can also buy or make insulating drapes with a boxed cornice at top, edges fastened to walls, and bottom weighted down or on tracks to seal with the floor. They will more than double the R-value of an old-style picture window, sliding door, or window wall.

I'd suggest that you avoid those heat-shrink, plastic film, indoor-window insulating kits that sell for about $3. The film tightens up fine if you heat it evenly, but the two-faced tape that comes with it won't come off its paper backing unless it is fresh from the factory. Indeed, I have yet to find a tape that won't remove paint from the walls when I peel it off in the spring. You're better off fastening plastic film by folding the edges of the plastic two or three times, and then compressing it with thin wood strips tacked around the outer edges of the window's wood trim.

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