Looking for my inner MacGyver

It's been a bit cold here in Poland (and Eastern Europe in general) lately, and I've been having an issue where my bedroom for some reason is much colder than the rest of my apartment.  So much so that I've had to start wearing socks to bed because even under my double-layer of blankets, my feet would freeze during the night.

So after a bit of investigation I came up with three possible factors.

First, there is an air vent in my bedroom closet that was letting a bunch of cold air in (no AC here, just natural ventilation via vents), so I shoved a plastic pillow-case bag up against it and used a box to hold it up.  I hoped that would block most of the cold air.  That helped a bit, but not nearly enough.

Second, the heating radiator in my bedroom is directly under the window (as I believe they should be).  Unfortunately, the window has a large stone lintel that runs completely under the window and sticks out several inches beyond the top of the radiator.  I noticed that the lintel was actually warm for the part above the radiator, but very cold just a few inches in, and guessed that the stone was absorbing a lot of the heat from the radiator.  So I went out to Praktiker (the hardware store) today on my day off looking for some reflective film my co-workers said I could find that people put against the wall behind their radiators to help reflect the heat back into the living space.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find that, and I couldn't find anyone who spoke English at the store.  So I dug out my inner MacGyver and came up with this:

If you can't tell, that is a car windscreen sun reflector that is wrapped around the stone lintel and down slightly behind the radiator.  And because I wasn't sure that would reflect the heat fully, or hold up to the heat of the radiator, I then added a long sheet of aluminum foil along the bottom of the lintel as well.

I have to hope it works, because the last option is that the radiator in my bedroom is not putting out as much heat as it should be which will mean calling my landlord to arrange to get a maintenance person out to see if it has air trapped in it (which reduces the hot water flow, which reduces the heat).  And if that doesn't work, the last option is to buy some painters tape and some clear plastic and just tape off the whole window, hoping to prevent any cold air from infiltrating.

But in the meantime, I also bought a small electric heater to help tide me over.  =)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!