i sat down and very carefully tried to be as thorough as i could in getting everything done in the kitchen and i came up with:
- paper towel holder (i was going to make one, but i bought one)
- knife sharpener
- 32 ounce plastic cups
i was also looking at a mini food processor, specifically for garlic and dill because it's hard to cut it close, but i'd use it for broccoli topping and other things as well, and also at a new cutting board, but i had mostly decided against it by last night. i have three metal bowls and a fan in a cart at walmart awaiting a cancellation on something else.
when i woke up, i realized i had to address the temperature, as well.
the cardboard is actually a good insulator, and taping cardboard over the ceiling will probably help quite a bit in itself. i have a lot of cardboard. i should do that. but i was looking at buying some foil or some tape to reflect the heat back in and i wanted to make sure i understood what i was doing first.
i am very much doing the opposite of what most people are trying to do when they look into this. most people are trying to reflect the sun's light out and keep the cool air in; i'm trying to keep the cool air out and bounce the heat back down. for that reason, what i'm doing is likely to actually work, while it's not that likely to work in most other situations. i would not recommend doing this if you were trying to cool your space down.
if you want to create a thermal barrier that traps heat into your space and blocks cold air from a cooler space above you (in my case, an air conditioned main floor), the best heat reflecting material out there is simple aluminum of a thickness greater than that in alumnium foil, but you need to be careful that you aren't just conducting the heat through the foil, because aluminum is also a strong conductor.
it is argued on the internet that if you want full reflectivity then the way to do it is to create an air barrier between the foil and an insulating material that is large enough to prevent conduction through the aluminum but small enough to prevent radiation on the other side. i think that this is wrong, but thinking it through helped me better understand. my take on this is that this is probably a fool's errand, and that this supposed air barrier is probably going to inevitably result in convection, and there's probably no way to actually get this middle point between convection and conduction other than by heating the gap up. you should probably be more concerned about preventing convection than you are about preventing conduction and as such be careful to make sure there is no air gap at all; convection is more likely to break you than conduction, especially if you pick a good insulator on the other side. the aluminum is not going to store the heat radiating into it, and the heat isn't gong to disappear into the quantum void, it is either going to go through the aluminum to whatever is on the other side (including by convecting) or reflect off of it, back into the room. that proposed air gap is probably just giving the heat somewhere to go, until it gets hotter than downstairs and starts bouncing back; a flush insulator will stop it from building up in the gap and just push it straight back. i'm consequently going to warn against this idea of creating an "air gap" as being bad advice and instead advise you to push the aluminum flush against the insulator to minimize any space where the heat can build up. certainly, you want to ensure the aluminum is not touching any other conductors, as well, but that's not the point, and that advice does not extend to trying to prevent it from touching insulators.
in fact, that is the advice given by the company that makes the aluminum insulation that i just bought 400 square feet of. the sheeting is a roll of insulating styrofoam-like plastic sandwiched between a relatively thick sheet of aluminum (much thicker than aluminum foil). to maximize effectiveness, they suggest making sure the aluminum is pushed as flush against the wall or ceiling as possible, to eliminate air gaps. i think that is actually correct and that the advice on the internet is wrong.
i am going to use looped over packing tape to connect these sheets of foil-sandwiched insulating foam to large pieces of cardboard, and then use more looped over packing tape to connect the cardboard to the ceiling. i may also use pink fibreglass insulation in one space where there will be a gap, for added insulation. the layering will be as follows:
(cold air)
- flooring (either wood or plaster)
- (insulation, where it is open wood)
- corrugated cardboard, mostly from walmart or amazon
- aluminum
- foam
- aluminum
(hot air)
i want to keep the hot in and the cold out. the aluminum on the bottom, as insulated by the foam, should keep the heat in. the aluminum on the top, in context, should have little utility - it might reflect any light coming in from upstairs, but that should really never happen. rather, it will continue to reflect any heat that gets through the foam back into it, the other way. it will keep the heat that is upstairs, as little as it may be, up there, too. that heat would not flow downwards, anyways. the systems are designed to reflect heat in in the winter and heat out in the summer, depending on where the source of heat in the thermal gradient is sitting. the cardboard on the other side of the aluminum and any insulation on the other side of it will act as a final barrier to prevent any heat that got through the foam and the second aluminum from escaping, pushing it back down to the aluminum. a gap will develop between the foam and the cardboard, consisting of the heat that got through the foam and can't get through the cardboard. that trapped heat will act as a barrier between the two apartments and a buffer blocking any cold air from upstairs, which will get neutralized between the floors and have less effect on me.
this will allow me to open the windows without triggering the a/c upstairs, so i've bought a large amount of metal meshing to screw over the windows from the inside. this will keep out bugs, rodents and bad guys.
most of it will be here before monday.
when i stopped yesterday, i wanted to sort through some posts made in may to make sure i was keep tracking of plans i made and wrote down, without abandoning them due to the headache. these processes are interrelated and will finish together, it's just that this is a sorting process that requires space in ram to move things around in before i can have more space to move things into their right places. i want to make sure i don't skip anything and then have to come back to it.
i will need to sort through my pile of boxes before i can get the radiant barrier up. i will need to get into that space, first, which requires cleaning around it. i need to have somewhere to put it, which will require moving the boxes of books, which will require installing the shelves, which is what i was starting to do the other day before fell asleep.