today janice made

Sunday Funday

Label design for Pedal Pusher, for a bike-themed IPA from Smartmouth in Norfolk, VA. Photo courtesy of Smartmouth.

Sunday Funday

I’ve lived in Norfolk, VA for 5-and-a-half years. The city, surrounded by multiple bodies of water, experiences strange temperature fluctuations over the holidays. My first Christmas in Norfolk, I wore a t-shirt & shorts while riding my bike in sunny, 75* F weather. The following week, I resembled the Michelin Tire man as my friends and I bumbled downtown in 28* F. 

The weather of subsequent holidays hasn’t been as dramatic, but coming from the Bay Area – where the weather arcs predictably from day-to-night, day-to-day – Norfolk’s winters continue to surprise me with its ebbs and flows. When the wind and rain I usually associate with winter finally rolls in, as it did last week, I’m caught off guard. The first place I notice this change is the hallway to the bedroom.

----

My place consists of 2 main spaces: An open kitchen/living/work room, and a bedroom. The former is the larger of the 2 spaces, and includes 4 windows along 1 wall; the bedroom, on the other hand, is about half the size yet has double the number of windows along 2 walls.

To illustrate, here are some photos from the Zillow listing before I bought the place:

Living Room, 4 windows

Hallway to Bedroom, 4 windows

Bedroom, 4 windows

---

The benefits of this layout are: 

I go to bed & wake up enveloped by views of downtown Norfolk.

The living room, where I spend most of my time awake, has a relatively stable temperature.

The cons of this layout are: 

I go to bed & wake up as an icicle when the weather dips below 40* F 🥶

The living room, where the thermostat is located, hogs all the warmth.

---

The bedroom experiences larger temperature swings than the living room because the number of windows in the bedroom exacerbates heat transfer, or the flow of heat from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object. 

Before diving into the phenomenon of heat transfer, let’s take a look at the properties of aluminum. Many of aluminum’s properties are what make it such a favorable window framing material:

It’s highly malleable – so it can be shaped into any imaginable structure;

It’s light-weight, yet strong – so it can reliably hold up large panes of glass without weighing as heavily as a material like steel;

It’s non-porous and corrosion-resistant – so it can withstand nasty, wet weather conditions and it won’t rot under prolonged exposure to water.

While aluminum is clearly a sturdy building material, here’s the main reason I think it’s a poor choice for window frames in my climate:

Aluminum is an excellent thermal conductor. Just because I’m using the word “excellent” doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. The better a thermal conductor something is, the more quickly it transfers heat; as an excellent thermal conductor, aluminum allows heat to pass through it quickly.

---

🍳

Fun fact! Metals in general are great thermal conductors. This is why the most popular materials for cookware are iron, steel, aluminum, and copper; the metal pans quickly pass heat from your heat source (ie. an electric or gas stovetop) to your food.

On the contrary, materials like wood and silicone are poor thermal conductors, meaning they transfer heat at a low rate. This is why wooden or silicone cooking utensils pair well with metal cookware; your wooden spoon won’t transfer the heat from your metal pan to your hand & burn you.

Ok, back to our aluminum window frames!

---

As an excellent thermal conductor, the aluminum window frames do a terribly excellent job of transferring the warm heat from my bedroom into the cold air outside 😭

The Scientific American expands on this law of heat transfer:

“If two objects have different temperatures, heat automatically flows from one object to the other once they are in contact. The heat energy is transferred from the hotter to the colder object.” 

So here’s what’s happening in my bedroom: The air in the bedroom is warmer than the air outdoors. By the laws of heat transfer, the heat from the air indoors (the hotter object) wants to flow to the air outdoors (the colder object). Because aluminum window frames are, unfortunately, great thermal conductors, they enable the warm air indoors to transfer – or as I see it, escape! – to the cool air outside. And since there are so many windows in my bedroom, the effects of the heat transfer are multiplied, rapidly cooling the room till I am an icicle 🥶

---

Learning about heat transfer explained why the bedroom got so cold – but it didn’t explain why there was water pooling on the window sill. Since the water only appeared on the sill, I didn’t suspect that the water was a leak.

A Duck-Duck-Go search confirmed that the water on the sill was not a leak, but was condensation – a result of high humidity and thermally conductive window frames. When the water vapor in the warm air comes into contact with the cold aluminum window frame, the vapor is cooled & changed into a liquid – forming water droplets on the window frame. 

Condensation by itself is not an issue. It becomes an issue, though, when there is so much condensation that the water pools onto the wood trim along the window. Wood + moisture = mold. NOOO.

Source (Aside: I love how easily you can search “[thing] + meme” and find the perfect meme.)

So what can be done about all this? Am I doomed to live in a moldy, icicle of a home?

No! Thankfully, understanding the problems meant I could formulate some solutions.

---

Problem #1: Condensation

Since we know that condensation is a result of high humidity coming into contact with the cold window frames, the most cost-effective solution is to remove humidity from the room. I could invest in a dehumidifier placed near the windows to reduce the moisture in the air – thus reducing the humidity in the air & making the window frames less susceptible to condensation.

A less cost-effective solution would be to replace all 12 window frames with a less thermally conductive material. According to the home-improvement contracting service Home Advisor, the cost to replace oversized aluminum windows average $1,200 per window. Hahahahaha. No.

Problem #2: Heat transfer

The room with the most windows loses the most heat. So how do we regulate, and in this case, slow down, heat transfer? The main solution is insulation, which reduces heat transfer by slowing the movement of heat. In my next post, I’ll dive into…

How I’ve learned to insulate my windows; 

How insulation plays a role in home building beyond windows;

How insulation & thermal conductivity relate to the snow bootie anecdote from post 01

---

Till next time!

Taos, New Mexico has an elevation of 6,969 feet. In the high desert climate, the winter days average 36° F, while nights dip to 12° F.

When my then-boyfriend Eric and I camped in an airstream named Judd on New Year’s Eve 2019, we were shielded from the cold by the metal container and 3 space heaters which efficiently – a little too efficiently – warmed the RV’s two tiny rooms. 

The following morning, Eric and I pried ourselves from Judd’s warmth to brave the outdoors. Determined to embrace the “camping” concept, we wanted to start our day with a campfire.

A combination of wind, wet wood, and the cold made it difficult to start the fire. After 20 minutes of striking matches, lighting kindling, watching it smolder, and trying again, we had a fire big enough to huddle next to and cook s’mores for breakfast. 

Though Eric’s gloveless hands had essentially frozen into 2 blocks of ice in the process, his feet had stayed warm the entire time – all thanks to a common kitchen accessory.

–––

Prior to our trip to New Mexico, Eric’s dad passed along a piece of advice: 

“Wrap aluminum foil over your socks to keep your feet warm. Looks silly, works great.” 

His dad spoke confidently, swearing by this method to keep his own feet warm during hunting trips in snowy woods.

–––

I thought about this anecdote last week as I looked at the pools of water that had formed on my aluminum window sills.

Prior to living in this condo, the windows in every home I’d lived in were vinyl. Water pooling on top of the interior window sill was a new problem to me. I’d wondered why the windows were built this way; a little internet sleuthing helped me discover: Before it was condominiums atop a sports bar, my building was a furniture store.

Source: Vintage Norfolk

According to a presentation titled “Maintenance and Repair of Historic Aluminum Windows” from the National Park Service, aluminum window frames were a common building practice.

“[Aluminum] windows in buildings have been around since the 1930s… numerous landmark buildings in the 1930s and 1940s prominently featured them in their design… By the 1970s, they rivaled the dominant wood window industry, particularly in commercial and institutional construction. The historic significance of early aluminum windows is now being recognized and efforts are being taken to preserve and rehabilitate them.”

In what I assume was a move to preserve the building’s history, the condo developers maintained the original aluminum windows.

Source: Zillow

While beautiful – indeed, the metal-encased 7-foot windows & the light they let in were the first thing that attracted me to this condo – the windows proved to be leaky and poor insulators.

–––

I’m fortunate to have had the past week-and-a-half off from work. This means I’ve spent the past week-and-a-half searching the Internet for solutions to my wet window frames and other problems (and, as an aside, reading Solutions and Other Problems). 

My research began with one question: Why is aluminum an effective barrier against the cold, wet snow (as with Eric’s makeshift bootie), but a poor material for a barrier like window frames?

My research expanded to a single, enveloping curiosity: What makes a good building – and, in particular, a good home?

I’m starting this blog up again to document the things I’m learning about the science & psychology of buildings. As a reminder to myself that writing is doing is learning, I’m calling this series “A Building Mindset” – a play off of the phrase “a growth mindset.” 

Subjects like physics, engineering, and mathematics have always daunted me. However, coupled with my interests in interior design and user experience, I’m finding that the answers to the central question of “What makes a good building?” has made STEM subjects accessible and relevant.

When I’d encountered home-related problems in the past, I’d search for quick-fix solutions. As a result, I never truly understood the what of the problem, and thus, the why behind the solution. 

In documenting what I learn, I’m hoping to cement my learning, surface new curiosities, and share my newfound interests with others.

Looking ahead, I’m excited to share what I’ve been learning about:

Thermal mass v. insulation (RE: aluminum booties v. window frames)

Green building concepts like “passive house,” “pretty good house,” and “zero energy design”

Natural building materials like rammed earth, cob, and hempcrete

The bureaucracy of building – from finding land to build on, to building your home on it

–––

Till next time! 

– Janice

A piece I designed for my friend Brian Villalon’s show “Real Talk 🗣” at Selden Market this past Saturday.

words by frances grin: