Energy Efficient Windows For Our Visitor Centre
Many of us consider new windows to be fashionable and energy effective. Windows help to insulate your home from the weather, keep hot and cold air inside the house where they belong, and regulate temperatures throughout the year. With these properties in mind, it’s easy to see why windows can have such a positive effect on energy consumption. The more reliable windows you have, the more you can save on heating and cooling costs each year. This is why we decided to have new windows installed across our visitor centre in order to bring down our energy costs and improve the experience our visitors had when visiting our centre.
How Can New Windows Benefit Us In The Long Term?
The typical mid-size window today is usually a double glazing low-E glass with insulating between the panes for optimum thermal performance. An improvement over just a single pane, insulating windows are even better at preventing heat gain and heat loss, maintaining the indoor temperature of a home fairly constant. In fact, many homes with double glazing still have thermal bridging which is not thermal insulation at all but rather a design feature designed to give the illusion of high R-values. Double glazing windows also offer the advantage of making the home appear larger to outsiders than it actually is. This makes your home appear less likely to be struck by a storm or fire, so if you value your safety, high R-values, and the aesthetics of a large, spacious house, double glazing is an excellent choice.
Newer windows often use a new technology called thermal mass that contains two layers of thin film metal film sandwiched together. The film is between two sheets of thicker glass, making the window more insulating than a regular pane of glass would be. These thicker films have higher thermal mass, holding the heat close to the interior of the house where it is needed most. This also means that windows need less maintenance and cleaning than traditional windows because the film is thicker, holding the heat close to the inside and lessening the amount of radiant heat transfer from the outside. This means less energy is wasted through the windows, thus lowering your electric bills.
What We Have Learned
If you are looking to insulate your home, one of the best choices you have for improving your energy efficiency is double glazing windows. A low-emissivity window can dramatically reduce your home’s energy consumption because it keeps heat close to the interior of the house where it is needed. There are many different factors that affect a home’s energy efficiency, including the weather, the number of occupants, and the type of heating and cooling systems used inside the home. A high u-value is an indication of the efficient nature of the window; windows that have a high u-value have the ability to reduce heat transfer by more than 50% while doubling resistance to heat flow. A high u-value window also offers higher sound insulation, which can reduce outside noise pollution and lower your home’s overall temperature.
Double-glazed windows offer a high insulating value, but they have their disadvantages as well. They tend to be flimsy in comparison to single-paned windows, and heat can escape through the opening at the top. This means that the home will need to be cooled more frequently and that you may have to install an additional air conditioning unit to provide adequate cooling in hot areas.
Conclusion
To conclude, the windows that we have had installed at our visitor centre have made a significant positive difference and are one of the main reasons why we have improved visitor retention figures. Clearly there are a number of reasons as to why any visitor centre might want to include new windows in the overall setup of their building. And this is key to ensuring that the building is energy efficient and also allows in adequate light.