Light management in HT rooms.

[Candoo]

when i decided to build my hT I looked at the rooms in my home that could best fit the build requirements. I considered the living room but found it was too open the hard to control sound and light. I then considered a spare bedroom. and while that would work the room size would limit the size of screen and the distance i would be able to sit from it. I then decided t settle of a room at the stop of the stairs. an upstairs faimlyroom of sorts. It had the right dementions generally and the right qualties for sound basically. however it had three large windows letting in so much light that it was nearly blinding. now these windows did have white plastic blinds in them and while that did help too remove some of the excess light. it wasn't nearly enough so we purchase some moderately priced curtians we thought would looki nice with the color scheme we chose for the couch and foor.

The curtians where a vast improvement over the blinds, although we did leave the blinds inplace behind the curtians. And even though this was working fairly well it still left the screen looking washed out a peek times of sunlight during the day. I started feeling that I would be spending $60 to $80 per panel of curtina just to blookout the light and i just felt that there had to be a better more resonable solution.

I spent someitme thinking on things and wondering through stores and lookingat verous curtins and solar blocking panels. untill three days ago. I finally found the perfect solution it was cheap. it was easy and it was on clearence.

I was in target poking around among the isles as i typically did on a friday night and ran across a clearence isle that had ARE YOU READY FOR THIS????

rolls of DIY car window tint plastic sheets. suddenly i had an idea with this "Limo dark" plastic sheet applied to my offending windows I could probibly block enough light to make the blinds and curtinas enough ... welll i bought up their entire cleasence stock of 5 rolls and went home that even to test it out. applying each layer of this very sticky plastic film toeach window that night. and then gong to bed thinking of what the morning light would show me.

the next morning i woke up and walked out of my room to view the results and was suprised to foind the room was nearly itch dark. some light did spill from the sides of the curtians but not enough to effect viewing in anyway.

thus far I am very pleased wiht the solution i found and at $3.50 per roll of auto window tint film it was a very worthwhile investment that did the job very well. infact it done'st even look bad from the outside of the house.

I hope this give some folks some good ideas and i just wanted to share my expierments...

thanks for reading my post.

[thirsty ear]

Nice idea using window tinting. I used tint one time on a LED alarm clock. I had it sitting next to my TV and it was so distracting to the point I would cover it all the time when watching TV. So I just asked for a scrap of tint from a body shop and applied a few layers.

I understand the importance of light control and have to fight it every summer. Here is Fairbanks Alaska in the summer time there is daylight late into the night. So I have had to use double curtains to keep all of the light out. When I was little my mom a actually made some curtains for my room that use two think cloth pieces sewn together with thick stuffing insulation in-between. It kept me warm from the cold window too.

Good luck on your build.

[Prof.]

Well done Tim..

That sounds like a simple solution for light control that any one could do..and particularly if you didn't need or want any acoustic treatment in the window..

I'm presuming that you've used a fairly dark tint to achieve this.?

[thirsty ear]

I would say 95% or more, the darker the better. Or even two or more layers. Best thing is you don't have to worry about getting a ticket for having too dark of windows on your house.

[Candoo]

yes i used the maximun tint this manufactuer provides. the thing is I rent my home currently so i can'tmake any dramatic changes....

so no acustic treatments. the tint is nice because it just peels off
it basically honds ont the window via static cling. it's very cheap and it does work quite well
and multable layers wouldn't be out of the question.

[the_rookie]

I really never thought of that. Sounds to be a great idea, and think it would be better if I had thought of it sooner, I could apply some soon.

[hjones4841]

This stuff works well if you don't want adhesive on your windows:

http://www.filmtools.com/duv54rolx50y.html

They have blackout tape that has just enough adhesive to hold the fabric to glass or the window frame. I have had this over two 36"x36" windows for almost a year - almost 100% light blockage and it has not come loose.

[Candoo]

Great idea even though whati used was just held inplace by static charge and not an adheisive.

that is alsoa nice solution allbeit a bit more expensive.

[salvasol]

Great idea

But when you're ready to go to the next level here is an idea, look at the pictures on post #9 in this thread

[KASR]

Pure genius! I had never thought of that - but looking at your idea, it's a no-brainer - especially since I have an offending window where light still kinda bleeds in during the day (regardless of my blackout curtains) Thanks for the most excellent idea!