LESLIE: Joann in Connecticut is dealing with a wall of windows and she needs some help. What can we do for you?
JOANN: I have three windows all in a row and they’re fairly new windows. But it’s not that I feel a draft coming through them but I would like some kind of warmth in the room as far as, you know, the darkness that the wall – you know, that the windows give me.
TOM: So is this an issue of temperature or a decorating question?
JOANN: Well, it’s an issue of temperature really; although, like I say, it’s not a breeze. It’s just that it – it just feels cold because of the glass.
LESLIE: No, you feel coolness on the glass.
JOANN: Right, right. And also too, because it’s a west-facing room …
TOM: Right.
JOANN: … in the summertime I deal with the glare coming – it’s a very small room and my television is on the opposite wall.
TOM: Right.
JOANN: So I do need to pull something down at certain times of the afternoon to keep the glare off the television.
LESLIE: Are there any sort of dividers between these windows? Are they operable or are they just like sheet glass with a frame around them?
JOANN: No, they’re operable windows and I do have a fourth window that wraps around the corner. However, I want to say I want to treat the three windows in a row as one unit because I’d like whatever covering I use or whatever kind of shade I use to inset into that …
TOM: Well, here’s a couple of ideas. First of all, you might want to think about looking into window films. 3M is probably the largest manufacturer out there. They have dozens of different types of sun control window films that’ll be very effective at reflecting back that UV that you’re feeling in that room in the summer. In terms of the …
LESLIE: Mm-hmm, so it’ll control that glare.
TOM: Right. In terms of the winter, you know what might be a good option here is cellular shades. Cellular shades are sort of like honeycomb and they sort of put an air mass, a contained air mass, between the glass and the rest.
LESLIE: Does Levolor make those?
TOM: Yeah, I actually have some Levolor honeycomb cellular shades in my house and I really like them. We put them in for a TV show years ago, that we filmed here, and I never took them out.
JOANN: Oh, good.
TOM: And I think they’re great. Because if you have a good – a very nice, insulated shade like that, what happens is right now you have warm air from your house that strikes the cold glass. It cools and then you get this convective loop where the cold air falls and causes a draft. Simply by putting the cellular shade up there, it breaks that path and you don’t feel it anymore.
JOANN: Now, Tom, are those easy to clean?
TOM: You know, I hate to tell you this but I haven’t had to clean mine.
LESLIE: Really?
TOM: And they don’t get dirty. You know?
JOANN: Oh, well that’s good.
TOM: It’s not like we’re ignoring it. We clean the windows but the shades just get a little dusty and we vacuum them. We’ve not had to do anything else. You know, it’s not like the old venetian blinds where they used to get really, really dirty and gunky and you have to soak them in the bathtub.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Super dusty.
TOM: It’s not like that. These things stay pretty clean.
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