The problem: a through-the-wall package air conditioner that loses all
kinds of heat energy in the winter, both through metal conduction and
air leakage around a badly-done installation.
Solution: build an insulated box to simply slap over the entire thing in winter and seal against the surrounding interior wall. A quick set of on-site measurements gave the necessary LxWxD needed to clear it all around. After a little design noodling, a single 2x8 piece of XPS board would suffice. Went with 1.5" foamboard instead of the original idea of 1" since that's what HD had at the time, a happy accident that in retrospect made it much better.
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Since the match to the wall would be close but couldn't possibly make
a perfect air-seal on its own, a gasket of squishy-foam went on all
around. I wound up using my
spinning staff as a roller to
press down the gasket sticky-back.
All the outer angles got a liner of Tyvek tape, as yet another redundant air-seal and to protect the foam edges a little better. |