The right window treatments can be beautiful and functional as your home's privacy solution. They are great for covering up the unwanted view inside or outside your home. But how often do you dress up your windows for function rather than beauty?
With proper placement of the right window treatments, you can dramatically lower your monthly energy bills. Here are a few window treatments that will help you ease on your air conditioning.
Shades
With proper installation, shades can be the simplest and most effective way to save energy with window treatments. For maximum benefit, make sure you mount your shades near the glass and close to the adjacent wall to create a sealed air space that reduces both heat gain and heat loss.
You can add more functionality using a dual shade – a light colour on one side (white) to reflect hear and a darker colour on the other side (black) to absorb heat.
You can reverse the shades throughout the seasons, using the light-coloured shades to reflect heat in summer and the dark-coloured shades to absorb heat in winter.
Exterior and interior blinds
Both interior and exterior blinds add style and functionality to your home by reducing heat gain while maintaining the desired degree of light, aeration and privacy.
However, exterior blinds tend to be more functional in comparison to interior blinds. This is because interior blinds have numerous openings between slats that make it difficult to control heat loss. Nevertheless, interior blinds offer the flexibility of adjusting slats to control light and ventilation during summer.
Exterior blinds, on the other hand, will help reflect heat before it's transmitted through your windows and warms up your house. When lowered completely, the slats meet to provide shade, and when partially raised, exterior blinds allow light and ventilation through your windows.
Exterior roller blinds are available in wood, vinyl, plastic, steel, fiberglass or aluminium.
Draperies
Based on the type of fabric, colour, and weight, draperies can help reduce both heat gain and heat loss in your home. Medium coloured draperies that have a white or near white plastic backing can help reduce heat gain in your home when left closed during summer months. Just like other window treatments, hung your draperies as close to windows as possible.
Awnings
Not only do awnings add character to your home, but they also offer an excellent shield against solar heat gain in the hot months.
With a few features, you can improve your awning's performance. For example, a light-coloured awning will reflect more sunlight while a tightly woven awning is bound to block solar heat better.
Consider installing retractable awnings to allow sunlight inside your home during colder months.
Share6 September 2017
When I decided to become a freelance designer, I decided I would work from home. I was sick and tired of being in an office all day and to be honest, some of my workmates were pretty annoying. However, I did not consider that I might have to make some changes to my home in order to make it suitable. On the first day of my new life working from home, I realised I would need much more natural light, so I had new windows installed. I then realised that I would need a larger work table to work on my cut out designs. In the end, I made hundreds of changes and I learnt an awful lot about home improvement.