Quote:
Originally Posted by sammyg2
I'd venture to guess that screens have an R value of about .01
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If that.
If she (or you) is really concerned about loss through the windows you can probably do something similar to what I've done for the winter months with my old basement windows - get a sheet of rigid insulation and cut it down to fit the dimensions of the inside pane (outside the glass, just before where the screen typically sits), then plug the opening with that. Ugly and you lose the window but gets rid of the draftiness. As a temporary thing it might be fine. I don't care since they're being used on basement windows only for a couple of months (the rest of the house has been upgraded to double pane, more modern window assemblies - one of these days I'll get around to figuring out what I want to do with the basement). If you're concerned about the appearance, get a piece of thin plywood cut to the same size to go on the outside so you only see wood from the exterior rather than foil.
From a practical standpoint, removing the screens will have a negligible effect on overall building envelope thermal performance. Not even worth worrying about.