When the temperature starts rising, you might find that you are having a hard time keeping your house cool. If you can manage to keep your house cool, then you are probably having a hard time keeping your energy costs low. That is the trade off, low temperatures for high bills. It has always been this way. Does it have to stay that way? The short answer is no, it does not. Exciting new features in home construction are allowing customers to keep their houses cool in the summer while also keeping their costs low.
Thermal Bridging
Thermal bridges are areas of your home that allow heat to pass back and forth like a bridge. In the winter, these bridges allow cold air outside to move to the lower-density warm air inside. That causes your house to cool down. In the summer, the opposite happens; cool air inside moves outside through these thermal bridges. What are thermal bridges? One of the most common is a window; as much as 30% of your home’s cool air can be lost through heat coming from your windows. In warm climates like southern California, this gets expensive quickly.
Milgard is one of the few companies that has a positive solution to this problem. Low-emissivity windows are glass windows treated with a clear coating that blocks almost 80% of harmful UV rays. Blocking these rays keeps the sunlight from heating up the air inside your home in addition to blocking the cool air in your home from getting out through contact with warm air on the other side of the glass.
In addition to keeping your house cool, UV blocking also protects your carpet and furniture from fading due to sun exposure.
Advantage over Curtains
All of this fancy engineered clear coating is going to require more energy to manufacture than a set of curtains. A set of thick curtains will block out UV rays and also insulate your home so you can reduce your heating or cooling costs. That is pretty simple and has been the solution of choice for millions all across southern California. So what advantage is offered by Milgard in San Diego and other sunny areas?
Well, keeping energy costs low is not only about your air conditioner; you should think about lighting as well. Whenever your lights are on, you are spending money. But, if you could pull back the curtains and let all that natural light in, you could seriously reduce your light bill. To do that and still save money, you need the clear-coated windows that let light in but block heat and UV rays. That is what milgard offers with its low-emissivity windows, light without the heat.
If you are in a sunny climate and looking to cut your energy costs, you cannot go wrong with low-emissivity coating for your windows. Click for info.
