Building the thermal shutters

Once we had all the outside preparations for winter finished, we needed to turn our attention to the inside of the dome. The one thing we really needed for winter was to build the thermal shutters so we would reduce the amount of heat we lost through the windows. Our thermal shutters have two inches of foam insulation, to reduce convective losses, and a layer of air foil (aluminized bubble wrap), to reduce radiative losses. This combination gives the windows a combined R value of 20. This picture is of the construction of one of the half round shutters. Also, in the background, you ca see that we were insulating under the window sill. That would eventually be covered with wood and painted. You will see pictures of this later.