A Cambridge engineering student, Harry Blakiston Houston, came up with an ingenious and cheap way to help Ukraine citizens who have had their windows broken during the war.
Staying warm in the face of high energy prices has been a pre-occupation for many during winter, but in Ukraine the problem has been of a different order of magnitude, because bombs and bullets have destroyed thousands of windows – it seems that freezing people out of their homes and demoralising the population is part of the Russian tactic.
Blakiston put together a triple-glazed window that takes just 15 minutes to build, with cheap materials: sheets of polyethylene, PVC piping, pipe insulation and duct tape. The windows let in the light and insulate homes.
At a cost of about £12 a sq metre, a fraction of the price of any other repair, volunteers can get materials for 4,000 windows on the back of a lorry that could carry only 30 equivalent glass ones. Harry’s simple idea became the “Insulate Ukraine” campaign, which has already installed hundreds of windows across the country. The plan is to create teams of local people and charities already working in the damaged areas, who can replace damaged windows within 24 hours.
Using stabilised polyethylene that does not degrade under sunlight, the windows will last, but when no longer required all the parts can be recycled and used for something else.
