I have an L-shapped enclosed patio around two sides of my inland Southern California house. The roof and walls of the patio are insulated in their interiors with a styrofoam-looking material but, unfortunately, don't provide anything near the kind of insulation that a "real" wall or roof provides for the main house itself. Thus, without the a/c on in the summer it's like a proverbial "oven" inside the patio room and in the winter it's quite cold unless I turn on the heat. I should add that there are in-wall dual air conditioning/heater units at each end of the L-shaped room. (By the way, the long section of the room is 40' X 10' and the short section is 20' X 8'.)
I'm looking for cost-effective ways (i.e. short of having walls built, which I can't afford at the moment!) to divide this enclosed patio room into two sections so that, when the heater or air conditioning is on at one end of the room, the cool or warm air stays mostly in the area which is being used at the time. Otherwise, with one unit turned on it takes forever (if at all) to cool/heat the entire room or else I have to have both units running simultaneously, which obviously draws a lot of expensive electricity.
The thought occured to me to divide the room into sections using vertically-hanging clear, thick vinyl strips which hang to the floor. I forget where I've seen these things. They kind of look like vertical blinds only made of very flexible, thick plastic. The idea is that by dividing the room into sections they'd more efficiently contain either the cool a/c air or the warm heater air to the section of the room which was occupied, leaving the temperature in the unoccupied rest of the room as it was before (too hot or too cold.)
Does anyone know what these kinds of hanging room dividers are called, and where they can be bought?
Also, if anyone has any other suggestions as to alternatives for dividing the room in the way I've specified I'd be very grateful to read them.