Showing posts with label insulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insulation. Show all posts

Monday, September 12, 2011

Amazing green wall





This amazing green wall on the Caixa Forum Museum stopped me in my tracks in Madrid.

After I got home I discovered this is a vertical garden by Patrick Blanc. It was featured in the Listener in early July.

It seems like kind of a fad, but I like that one of his aims is to increase biodiversity and that it runs on wastewater and acts as insulation for the building.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Double glazing

Excited - getting secondary glazing installed - right now as I'm typing.

Do the two installers realise they are eco-heroes, part of the new green economy? (Err, I reckon not, they are clumping around in a tradesman-like way with tape measures and step ladders, squinting at the windows and muttering techie-sounding stuff. But anyhoo.)

High up in an existing apartment building with floor-to-ceiling windows, retrofitting actual double-glazing was never going to happen - way too expensive. And my view is way too awesome for that short-term shrinkfilm stuff.

But this seems like a good answer - sheets of perspex that are attached to the inside of the window frame. I had the bedrooms done last year - the view is perfect during the day (though there's some kind of reflection that gives me a double-image of the lights outside at night). And it has worked brilliantly - noticeably warmer and NO condensation.

The other nice thing is that if you get any condensation between the panes (sometimes a problem with double glazing), you can break the magnetic seal and let it dry out.

So, excited that the living room's happening today. Just in the nick of time for winter.