In the winter season, when you come from the street, chilled and frozen, you want to get into a warm apartment full of comfort. Winters of Siberia are especially cruel, and you can feel it even without going out, for the ordinary reason that the insulation in the houses we live in built under the Russian Union is weak, and the heating systems are already becoming unusable.
Most Russians are well acquainted with drafts, strolling around the apartment, snow on the windowsills and between the windows, ice-covered windows. Even with moderate frost, the temperature in homes can reach only +15 degrees, with all this central heating remains in operation. In the end, what Russians have frequent colds.
Poor insulation of residential buildings not only harms human health, and very unpleasantly "hits" the wallet, since we often resort to the help of electric heating devices, and when we receive bills for electricity, "grab the head." Therefore, people need to take up their own housing independently, and by what method, we must decide for ourselves: to resort to the help of innovations or to apply the old ways. Let's consider the basic ways. 2/3 of heat from the room go through the windows, so that, at first, start with the insulation of the windows.
Statistics show that almost always in apartments and to this day, there are old wooden window frames with the same glazing. Wood structures, with the passage of time, begin to recede from the temperature changes and change shape. For these reasons, there are gaps between the window frames, through them the loss of heat occurs and the cold air penetrates easier. The slots appear to be minimal, but even if their size is 2 mm across the entire window, this is equivalent to a 10 cm hole. Old window frames, if deformed, need to be sealed at the corners by special steel angles. That is, you make the smaller the skews and the sash windows will close denser. Another step is to change the old profiles to new ones, in order to keep the glasses denser and to remove the slits with silicone sealant.
In order to hide the cracks between the wall and the frame, the acrylic sealant or waterproof sealer is a good choice. Many people are well aware of how to get rid of the crevices between the window frame and its flaps. There are a lot of ways. You can take the putty for windows or cash register tape, you can also use paint tape or honey plaster. These methods to some extent can only reduce drafts, but at the onset of the spring, you will patch, clearing the windows of all traces and putty.
More convenient and effective in this case are modern heat insulators (foam rubber, polyurethane, rubber). Polymer material, made in the form of tubular profiles, is the most reliable. They are simply inserted between the flaps and the frame, with all this densely overlapping the slot, well, with the extraction of this material there will be no problems. According to the mood of the owners, they can choose at least some color palette. The best option, of course, will be to change the old windows to modern ones, you will save yourself from constant overspray.
It is clear that this pleasure is not cheap, but in this case the windows will let you relax in the warmth and comfort for many years. The next plus of plastic windows - they will not need to be painted, and the window frames will never dry up. Additional energy savings can be achieved by installing roller shutters on the windows. In the afternoon they can be folded, and at night you can spread out to keep the heat in the apartment. And, of course, if the apartment has a loggia or a balcony, they must be glazed.
Apartments in "Khrushchev" usually have poorly insulated walls and are also very thin. They just need extra insulation. This is especially important for corner rooms, in which one wall has an exit to the outside. Not rarely the corners in this room are strongly and noticeably freezing and in them there is a constant dampness and mold. In these situations, you need to do the warming of the room from the inside. On this wall are fixed logs, which consist of wood or galvanized profile, between them is laid thermal insulation material, having a thickness of at least 50 mm.
You can use plates or mats made of mineral wool, in this case, the heat insulator from the side of the room should be covered with 2-3 layers of polyethylene film, which has a giant vapor barrier. This is necessary in order not to accumulate water in the material itself. If the styrofoam boards are to be used, the vapor barrier should not be used. Penoprostyrene is easily closed with sheets of particleboard, gypsum board or fiberboard, on it you can do almost any decoration - to paste wallpaper or simply paint. Naturally, using this method, the area of the room will decrease a little, but the local climate for all the inhabitants of the apartment will become even better.