At home, my den faces to the west. This unfortunately means that I have to deal with the late afternoon sun pounding on my office window. Not surprisingly, this often turns my den into a complete sweat box. Since it's spring, and the weather is starting to heat up, I decided to get creative. I have a set of outdoor hanging blinds over the window to keep the sun out, but that only helps so much. I needed something much more impenetrable; meet my homemade aluminum foil solar shield!
Making my solar shield was actually quite simple; in a nutshell it's just like a car windshield sun visor, only larger. First, I found a large cardboard box I had lying around the garage. The box, once cut open and flattened measured about 7 feet (2.1 m) long by about 5 feet (1.5 m) tall. Granted, this isn't big enough to cover the entire window, but It easily covers a fairly large portion of it.
I flattened out the box on my garage floor, snagged some spare aluminum foil from the kitchen, and grabbed the nearest roll of duct tape. Unfortunately, all I had was black duct tape; in retrospect, white or another color might have worked better. But, I wasn't about to make a special trip to the hardware store just for another roll of duct tape. Anyways, I got busy with the foil and tape. I unrolled several sheets of foil and smoothly placed them onto the flattened box. I taped each seam to keep the foil as flat and smooth as I could. This worked very nicely. Using about 7 sheets of foil I put together a solid reflective surface for the shield.
To hang it, I poked some holes near the top of the shield, reinforced the holes with some additional duct tape, and strung it with some spare twine. Hanging it was relatively simple. I already had hooks installed for the other hanging blinds over the window, and simply looped the twine from the shield over the hooks. I placed my shield directly over the existing blinds.
That's it! In about 30-minutes I had a super cheap and extremely effective solar shield. Hopefully this will help reflect some of the solar energy away from my den window, ideally keeping me and my office a bit cooler.
If you want to make your own for a window on your home, all you need is a roll of aluminum foil, a roll of duct tape, a spare cardboard box, and a little time. Here are some additional pictures (click for a larger view):
I flattened out the box on my garage floor, snagged some spare aluminum foil from the kitchen, and grabbed the nearest roll of duct tape. Unfortunately, all I had was black duct tape; in retrospect, white or another color might have worked better. But, I wasn't about to make a special trip to the hardware store just for another roll of duct tape. Anyways, I got busy with the foil and tape. I unrolled several sheets of foil and smoothly placed them onto the flattened box. I taped each seam to keep the foil as flat and smooth as I could. This worked very nicely. Using about 7 sheets of foil I put together a solid reflective surface for the shield.
To hang it, I poked some holes near the top of the shield, reinforced the holes with some additional duct tape, and strung it with some spare twine. Hanging it was relatively simple. I already had hooks installed for the other hanging blinds over the window, and simply looped the twine from the shield over the hooks. I placed my shield directly over the existing blinds.
That's it! In about 30-minutes I had a super cheap and extremely effective solar shield. Hopefully this will help reflect some of the solar energy away from my den window, ideally keeping me and my office a bit cooler.
If you want to make your own for a window on your home, all you need is a roll of aluminum foil, a roll of duct tape, a spare cardboard box, and a little time. Here are some additional pictures (click for a larger view):
Did you find this post helpful, or at least, interesting?