Reduce A/C load by tinting your house windows!
 

That's right, an inexpensive retrofit solution to helping reduce your A/C load and electricity usage is to tint your house windows.

A window tint professional has access to many great films out there that will give you up to 80% reduction in heat gain through a window and carry a residential lifetime warranty.

You can even opt for high end films like ceramics and similar films. These will allow the majority of natural light in (up to 70% of light) and still reject over half the heat. This way you can get maximum daylight usage instead of relying on artificial light.

Just recently several window film manufacturers have gotten their products NFRC Certified! A huge step in helping provide accurate numbers for energy savings.

Check out:

Geoshield Architectural Window Film

Window Film - V KOOL USA: Your Ultimate Sun Barrier Commercial & Residential Window Film Treatme \ Residential Window Film

Nanotechnology Window Film - Huper Optik USA provides decorative, privacy, stained glass, security, hurricane, solar and safety window film technology

Global Window Films

Pretty neat! I've been thinking about something like this since I know my mom's windows aren't very good, but we don't have the money to replace them all.

Other ways to keep you house cool in summer are to use silver-sided window shades or outside awnings which let in diffused light, but not hot, direct sunlight.

Get the right sized ones, and they will let in light directly in the winter, but not the summer.

Do a web search for "passive solar" for more info than you will ever need to know. Typically, passive solar design needs to be built into a house, but much of it can often be done with just some awnings.

http://www.nesea.org/images/overhang.gif

I'm interested:

A few questions:

1) isn't there some issue with tinting double pane windows?
2) do you happen to have any similar info on car window tints (energy saving wise) or does this transfer straight over?

Ben:
I had a customer who's home was setup to be passively solar heated it worked super well, he even had to put a vent up top to let heat out during the day in the winter. Supposedly during the summer it didn't affect his cooling much.
The fact that the place was designed + built by a pair of recent architecture grads living in a school bus in the early 70's made it super cool to start with .

Hello -

I am testing this non-MPG Coroplast mod right now. It is intended for a first story, West facing window that can't be shaded with overhangs :

Outside
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/9...eoutkm1.th.jpg

Inside (Diffused Lighting)
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/5...einsur8.th.jpg

I did it like this :

1 - Cut Coroplast to fit over the outside window.

2 - Make sure there is some metal on the window frame that will attach to magnets (not aluminum, which is common in window frames). In my example, I had to create little metal tabs that I folded over the aluminum framed bug screens.

3 - Epoxy powerful Neodymium magnets *into* coroplast panel to match the "magnetic points" on the outside window frame. Since the coroplast is just like cardboard, the magnets will have plastic layer on the front and back.

4 - Put on when sun starts to come through window.

Benefits :

- 100% Reversible.

- Lightweight. As long as the window isn't too big, the magnets are enough to hold the cover on the window.

- Lightweight. It is easy/low maintenance to put on and off.

- Safe. If there is a wind powerful enough to yank it off, it will just fall to
the ground without hurting anything.

- Allows ambient light through, while keeping the sun from getting in. Stops the sun on the OUTSIDE, where it needs to be stopped.

- Improveable. Could have aluminum/reflective sheath in situations where it wouldn't reflect onto the neighbors.

CarloSW2

Yeah, but you live in NH, where the sun is needed to heat the house 6 months a year, and you probably only use the air (if you have it) 3 months out of the year. You're better off getting white shades or drapes to reflect the sun when you don't want it in the house.

Not to mention that it's more relective than dark tinting, thereby absorbing and trasferring less heat. Of course, relfective tinting might be different.

Residential window films are designed to be put on dual pane windows. There's a chart that window tinters follow that takes into account all kinds of factors to determine if the film is safe in that situation.

Yes, there are regular films and high heat rejection films for cars. However, they aren't very energy saving. After all, the only time you would save energy with the car are those rare days that allow you to completely turn off the A/C and drive with the windows up because the tint is rejecting enough heat to make it comfortable.

Typically the darker you go the more reflective the tint is. Something like Silver 20% rejects 80% of heat and only absorbs about 38% into the glass.

Also, the TSER (total solar energy rejection) specification of window tint takes into the consideration of absorption, convection, etc.

Without testing your system to get the shading coefficient, TSER, and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient we really don't know how well yours works.

Not to mention your CP is blocking the view. Something none of my customers want.

However, you may want to look into solar screens. They can stop up to 70% of heat (but they only allow 30% of light) and work on the same principle. I'm also curious as to what the light transmission of the CP is.