Morning Frost Light

Mornings Frost Light

The windows of our cottage are still just double pane glass. Some time, where there is more time, I’ll raise this to quadruple pane through thin film glazing like the super windows I built in the old farm house. Until then, on extremely cold mornings we wake to the most beautiful frost patterns on the windows.

Even the fancy windows and the double glazed front door with their rare gases get this effect on the inside of the glass. My experience is that building my own many paned windows out of outer layers of glass and then inner panes of stretch film is far more effective than the expensive commercial windows. It is really all about layers of static gas. A quarter inch or so thick for each gas layer seems to work well.

Sunny Solstice to all and sundry.

Outdoors: 21째F/2째F Partially Sunny
Tiny Cottage: 68째F/51째F

About Walter Jeffries

Tinker, Tailor...

8 Responses to Morning Frost Light

  1. dinkleberries says:

    Yes, winter solstice, the promise of longer warmer days ahead. My favorite day of the year. =)

  2. oshea12566 says:

    Awesome picture. Thanks for sharing!

  3. Mary Ricksen says:

    Do they feel frosty if you touch them?
    Merry Christmas to you and your talented family. All the way from your wife and her artistic talent, to your son and his project.
    Have a good one Walter and I hope Santa brings you something good. A drill something. (grin)

  4. Mary,

    Yes, the frost is in relief on the interior of the front door's inner double sealed pane. On the double windows I made the frost only comes to the inside of the outer pane so the inner pane stays frost free. When I finish off the super windows they'll be properly ventilated on the exterior panes and more layers (4?) so that this should stop. Then we'll lose our pretty frost paintings. This morning Hope and I were admiring them as the sun rose.



    PS. I have eight (!) drills. When we're doing construction and need to go fast it makes a big difference in speed to have everyone outfitted with the right tools plus some of the drills are specialized (hammerdrill for rock, drill press for steel, etc). I'm hoping for a chocolate bar. Rich, dark chocolate maybe with nuts or orange or something in it. That is luxury. :)

  5. E says:

    will you describe in more detail how to build your own super windows so we can, too?

  6. E,

    See this post for a short description. Some time I'll write up detailed description of how I made the first ones almost two decades ago and the things I've learned to improve them. The basic idea is layers of static air.



  7. humble.pie says:

    dear Walter,

    this is not quite the right thread. But a few days ago i returned to sugar mountain farm blog after several months & discovered you pouring concrete piers & foundations for what will be the slaughterhouse.

    that's what gives me pause. It looks to be gigantic. It's right next to tiny cottage. You are going to be living in the tiny-cottage-behind-the-slaughterhouse.

    of course, it's too late to change now, but was this always what you really wanted? somehow i don't think so. I'm wondering why didn't you locate the slaughterhouse far away from sightlines of tiny cottage. Like one mile down the road.

  8. Humble.pie, See here for a detailed answer how of all of your assumptions are wrong and why I like it just the way it is. It's hard to tell from the photos the way things are laid out. Hopefully that post explains the reasoning. If you have any questions, let me know.

    Merry Christmas!


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