The home is located on 7.4 acres of rolling hills with natural woods surrounding the perimeter. With a running stream and pond for the boys to spend endless hours exploring and an in-ground pool for summer comfort, I could not have found a better property to raise my family.

My husband, a native of Connecticut, was somewhat taken back by the thirty-five windows and four sliding glass doors not to mention the 20'x 45? living area with cathedral ceilings in the one level dwelling. The previous owners were quick to assure us that storm windows made the home quite comfortable in the winter when combined with the large woodstove for heat. This was to be my first winter in Connecticut. How bad could it be? I was sold and there was no turning back.

For the first nine years we lived in the home I never felt a need to cover the windows at all. The setting is extremely private and we all enjoyed the openness afforded by the landscape. We all got used to bundling up a little more in the winter and using the electric baseboard heat combined with the woodstove to stay relatively comfortable.

In September 2005 two life changing events occurred in my life; my youngest son left for college and Connecticut Light & Power announced their plan to increased rates by 17.5% effective January 1, 2006 with an additional rate increase of 4.9% as of April 1, 2006. All together our already astronomical winter bills were now going to increase by 22.4% in the next six months! Just in time to catch winter at its worst.

I am first a mother and a wife, second a proud American, and third a believer in the American way: namely, capitalism. However, this blow to my family's economy, already stretched thin with two boys in college, seemed a bit excessive. Of course there are always numerous ?reasons? for this ?necessary? increase: ?a more than doubling of the utility's cost of purchase?,? increase in wholesale prices due to hurricanes on the gulf coast?, ?fuel shortages?, and ?wholesale market rule changes in New England?. All about as meaningful to me as ? the price of tea in China?, ?the anticipated monsoon rains in Japan?, and ?the increasing number of bubbles in champagne?. I was faced with a daunting problem; what can I do to lower our energy usage that can be implemented quickly and not cost me a fortune?

I knew our entire attic was well insulated so I was not particularly concerned with loosing warm air through the roof. The main area I felt cold pockets of air was near the windows. I always suspected the windows could be draining precious heat from our home; little did I know.

With a little research I found references to windows as ?thermal holes? that let thermal heat escape in the winter and allow solar heat gain to occur in the summer. And that as much as 30% of the energy used to heat or cool a home is lost through windows. After learning about R-value, the thermal resistance of a material to heat flow, I began researching methods of insulating my thirty-five windows.

I first tried to find a pre-made window treatment. All of the pre-made products had fairly low R-values ranging from 1.07 (Venetian blinds) to 3.5(Roman shades with two layers, plastic retardant & insulating material). Price range for the size of my windows was about $100 to $300 per window. Ouch. There had to be something more effective and less expensive.

I finally happened upon a fabulous patented multi-layered fabric with an R-value of 6.39. The manufacturer offered names of establishments that would make shades from this fabric for me or I could buy the fabric and they would supply the directions on how to make the shades myself. I am able to sew a straight line and I did not want to incur the labor costs to have them made so I opted for plan B ? make them myself.

The manufacturer's directions were for a Roman type shade requiring cord, rings, pulleys and mounting boards, which I would need to screw to my thirty-five window casings. I would also need to attach magnetic strips into the lining of the shade and mount magnetic tape on three sides of the window casing to get a good ?seal?. I am a patient person and I am fairly good with my hands but with winter starting to rear its formidable head I needed to come up with a much simpler design if I was going to finish before my youngest son graduated from college.

My primary goal was to create a highly effective yet inexpensive insulating barrier

for my windows. They needed to go up quickly without compromising the surrounding window casing or adjacent walls. They should be adjustable to let in winter sun when desired. They should store compactly when not needed. If I ever decided to put up decorative window treatments, I should still be able to use the insulating barrier in the winter. It didn't seem too much to ask. As it turns out, it wasn't.

The Energy Cinch is born.

They say the best inventions are created out of a need the inventor has. This was certainly the case for me. I now have a patent-pending product which I believe can help every single homeowner, renter and building owner to reduce their heating and cooling bills by as much as 30%. After making fifteen prototypes and installing them (each one taking less than a minute to install) my kilowatt usage dropped by 38%. and continued in the two digit range the entire winter. This winter I will have the remaining twenty windows installed plus our four sliding glass doors. And for the first time, I am looking forward to seeing my energy bill.