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Internorm: Order with solar glass, or apply external film later?


tanneja

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Hi all,

 

I have been able to get a quote for Internorm 3G with normal glazing, and with a solar grade glass called SKN 176 II (https://glassolutions.co.uk/en-gb/products/cool-lite-skn-176ii). 

 

I have not elected to get this on the large sliders as they are North facing, so to apply to fixed and T+T windows on the East and South elevations (approx. 17m2) costs an extra £1,500.  My instinct is that this is a worthwhile cost for a forever coating that should do well to ensure we have minimal solar gain but hopefully not to the detriment of the view (I have one persons personal experience who attests to it being minimal impact to perceived light, but dramatic solar gain improvement).  Presumably by comparison aftermarket films will have a reduced life expectancy?  Part of me wants to get regular glass and see if solar gain is really an issue before committing to handing over the extra cost, and giving away some of the intensity of light but by then film is my only option.

 

On a somewhat similar note, when ordering for company's like Internorm or others, for bathrooms, do people tend to spec for frosted glass, or apply this as an internal film themselves, or do people just use blinds and / or shutters these days?

 

Many thanks for any guidance

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Bear in mind that solar gain may be your enemy in summer (perhaps more so in late spring and early autumn), but your friend in winter. Any fixed or film coating will not recognise that.

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Yes @NSS, you are so right.  External shutters seem difficult to come by and if not electric (which likely has it's own problems), a forever time investment of operating them.

 

To be clear, you would go sage glass every day of the week, and weekends?  Seems to work amazingly for you.

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1 hour ago, tanneja said:

Yes @NSS, you are so right.  External shutters seem difficult to come by and if not electric (which likely has it's own problems), a forever time investment of operating them.

 

To be clear, you would go sage glass every day of the week, and weekends?  Seems to work amazingly for you.

Run it through a proper analysis first, and then ascertain the level of any 'issue' you actually NEED to address. Consider maybe just the south and leave the east / vice-versa whichever works in your ( the dwellings ) favour. I would certainly look again at external blinds on the south so as not to cut off your nose during winter, as you're only going to be using the blinds a couple of months of the year in all likelihood. If this was full on passive it would be a very different story, but this property will need all the help it can get in the winter time, especially with the added decrement delay after you add the EWI.

 

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Did you also consider the benefit of solar shading protruding from your wall above the window? Either fixed, or  a sail type removable option. The brise soleil I think works quite well if you don't mind the look as (depending on orientation etc) is effective against the higher sun position in summer when you need it and less so in the winter when you don't. Though if SW facing with a lot of afternoon/evening exposure that may not be so effective. I did a model (on here somewhere I think) of my calcs using data from an external database to help estimate solar gain per month 

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 I would say consider who is installing your internorn windows .  We used the Eco house internorm installers They dropped some of ours on installation in May and we still have no replacements - maybe beginning of Spetember. This  is holding up so much - rendering , plastering ,   still got the scaffolding up and the front drive is full of  2 massive internorm pallets with the broken windows on  which means our storage is very compromised !!

 

No idea about the solar glass ! 

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3 hours ago, tanneja said:

Yes @NSS, you are so right.  External shutters seem difficult to come by and if not electric (which likely has it's own problems), a forever time investment of operating them.

 

To be clear, you would go sage glass every day of the week, and weekends?  Seems to work amazingly for you.

 

Yes, it works very well for us, though we have nothing like your 17m2 of South-facing glass. For us it was the most apt and elegant solution but, as you'll have read, it comes at a cost. We were very fortunate as the first UK residential site to get a hefty discount. If we'd had to pay the full price we'd probably still have done so and almost 3 years of use has only made me more convinced it was the best solution for our particular situation. 

Edited by NSS
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3 hours ago, tanneja said:

Yes @NSS, you are so right.  External shutters seem difficult to come by and if not electric (which likely has it's own problems), a forever time investment of operating them.

 

I had pretty reasonable quotes for external Warema blinds from https://cornerstaraluminium.com and https://www.brightablind.com. I wouldn't discount them entirely.

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We are going with:

- Moderate overhangs

- External venetian blinds.

 

I'd be concerned about solar glass limiting solar gain and pushing up heating costs, but aside from that the house is just generally just to be darker inside wont it! We've actually gone for high g-value (0.6) glass on our windows, including south-facing!

 

Not sure i understand the concern about operating blinds or them being electic.  You can even automate them based on temperature and sun direction etc if you want to. If you don't like venetian blinds you can get fabric alternatives that are see though too i think.

Edited by Dan F
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3 hours ago, Dan F said:

We are going with:

- Moderate overhangs

- External venetian blinds.

 

I'd be concerned about solar glass limiting solar gain and pushing up heating costs, but aside from that the house is just generally just to be darker inside wont it! We've actually gone for high g-value (0.6) glass on our windows, including south-facing!

 

Not sure i understand the concern about operating blinds or them being electic.  You can even automate them based on temperature and sun direction etc if you want to. If you don't like venetian blinds you can get fabric alternatives that are see though too i think.

 

Okay, but blinds will also make it darker inside, surely, and when closed you can't even see out of the windows.

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18 minutes ago, NSS said:

 

Okay, but blinds will also make it darker inside, surely, and when closed you can't even see out of the windows.

Is that not the case with the Sage when tinted?

 

edit : when fully tinted

Edited by Nickfromwales
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22 minutes ago, NSS said:

Okay, but blinds will also make it darker inside, surely, and when closed you can't even see out of the windows.

 

Only if they are down, and you can control this as needed. Solar glass is there all day/year..

 

In our case I expect blinds to be up all winter and nearly all of early spring and late autum which will mean we get useful solar gain during this season but also the house should also we very will naturally illuminated.

 

(Our motivation for high-g glass wasn't to improve numbers in PHPP spreadsheet, although it did, but rather to get light transmission closer to double glazing numbers to ensure things are nice and bright inside)

 

 

Edited by Dan F
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36 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Is that not the case with the Sage when tinted?

 

edit : when fully tinted

Nope, you can still see out clearly, just through a tint.

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41 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

Only if they are down, and you can control this as needed. Solar glass is there all day/year..

 

 

But I'm not talking about Solar glass, but SageGlass and when not tinted you'd be hard pressed to see any difference in the view out between it and ordinary glass.

 

Edited to add pic. Full tint (96% of Solar Gain blocked) v clear. 

 

image.png.6f8999bf07f496f1f0db0c65448577e1.png

Edited by NSS
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2 minutes ago, NSS said:

 

But I'm not talking about Solar glass, but SageGlass and when not tinted you'd be hard pressed to see any difference in the view out between it and ordinary glass.

 

Fair enough. Original question was about use of solar glass coating/film, so this is why I was comparing this to blinds.

 

SageGlass seems like a great alternative to blinds, my only two concerns would be i) price ii) low g-value as it seems that even when "off" the g-value is 0.38 versus 0.5 for standard triple glazing.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

Fair enough. Original question was about use of solar glass coating/film, so this is why I was comparing this to blinds.

 

SageGlass seems like a great alternative to blinds, my only two concerns would be i) price ii) low g-value as it seems that even when "off" the g-value is 0.38 versus 0.5 for standard triple glazing.

 

 

Why would you see that as an issue in a well insulated, low energy house? Bear in mind I live on the South Coast not the frozen wastelands north of Winchester ?

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36 minutes ago, NSS said:

Why would you see that as an issue in a well insulated, low energy house? Bear in mind I live on the South Coast not the frozen wastelands north of Winchester ?

 

For the same reason I wouldn't use any glass that reduced light transmissions and solar gain.  Different build have different requirements, but for our build we wanted to maximize light transmission (to ensure its nice and bright inside all year) and ensure we get good solar gains in winter to reduce heating demand.  (or course this means that temporary shading is a must)

 

Interestingly the coating the OP mentioned still transmits 70% of light (more than Sageglass with no tint) yet still reduces g-value to limit solar gain.  Of course it's not adjustable though, which is the really nice thing about SageGlass.

 

Typical Double Glazing:                      83% Light Transmittance, 0.8 g-value

High-g Triple Glazing:                          77% Light Transmittance, 0.6 g-value
Typical Triple Glazing:                         71% Light Transmittance, 0.5 g-value
SKN 176 II Coating Triple Glazed:     70% Light Transmittance, 0.37 g-value

Sageglass (no tint) Triple Glazed.     54%  Light Transmittance, 0.34 g-value. 

 

Edited by Dan F
to add values for sageglass triple glazed
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2 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

For the same reason I wouldn't use any glass that reduced light transmissions and solar gain.  Different build have different requirements, but for our build we wanted to maximize light transmission (to ensure its nice and bright inside all year) and ensure we get good solar gains in winter to reduce heating demand.  (or course this means that temporary shading is a must)

 

Interestingly the coating the OP mentioned still transmits 70% of light (more than Sageglass with no tint) yet still reduces g-value to limit solar gain.  Of course it's not adjustable though, which is the really nice thing about SageGlass.

 

Typical Double Glazing:   83% Light Transmittance, 0.8 g-value

High-g Triple Glazing:      77% Light Transmittance, 0.6 g-value
Typical Triple Glazing:     71% Light Transmittance, 0.5 g-value
SKN 176 II Coating:         70% Light Transmittance, 0.37 g-value

Sageglass (no tint).         60%  Light Transmittance, 0.38 g-value

 

 

But again, if you have lots if glass then the need for a high percentage light transmittance is less of a problem.

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1 minute ago, NSS said:

But again, if you have lots if glass then the need for a high percentage light transmittance is less of a problem.

 

Yes, thats fair.  I'm not arguing against Sageglass, just highlighting that if you want high light transmittance and good amount of solar gain in winter (like we do) then temporary shading has it's advantages.

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11 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

Yes, thats fair.  I'm not arguing against Sageglass, just highlighting that if you want high light transmittance and good amount of solar gain in winter (like we do) then temporary shading has it's advantages.

 

Fair enough, but the OP has 17m2 of south-facing glass so I don't imagine getting a good amount of winter solar gain or good light transmitting will be an issue regardless of the glass type. 

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By the way, I'm not suggesting SageGlass is the right solution for @tanneja, just one that he/she may not have considered. Our requirements were unusual due to the need to avoid having to night purge making SageGlass the perfect (if expensive) solution in our case.

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On 30/07/2020 at 23:30, tanneja said:

Hi all,

 

I have been able to get a quote for Internorm 3G with normal glazing, and with a solar grade glass called SKN 176 II (https://glassolutions.co.uk/en-gb/products/cool-lite-skn-176ii). 

 

I have not elected to get this on the large sliders as they are North facing, so to apply to fixed and T+T windows on the East and South elevations (approx. 17m2) costs an extra £1,500.  My instinct is that this is a worthwhile cost for a forever coating that should do well to ensure we have minimal solar gain but hopefully not to the detriment of the view (I have one persons personal experience who attests to it being minimal impact to perceived light, but dramatic solar gain improvement).  Presumably by comparison aftermarket films will have a reduced life expectancy?  Part of me wants to get regular glass and see if solar gain is really an issue before committing to handing over the extra cost, and giving away some of the intensity of light but by then film is my only option.

 

On a somewhat similar note, when ordering for company's like Internorm or others, for bathrooms, do people tend to spec for frosted glass, or apply this as an internal film themselves, or do people just use blinds and / or shutters these days?

 

Many thanks for any guidance

We have solar glass on our South facing Internorm windows and it works really well. Only yesterday I was next to one of the windows whilst it was 28 degrees outside and there was hardly any noticeable difference in temp next to the glass.

 

18 hours ago, Red Kite said:

 I would say consider who is installing your internorn windows .  We used the Eco house internorm installers They dropped some of ours on installation in May and we still have no replacements - maybe beginning of Spetember. This  is holding up so much - rendering , plastering ,   still got the scaffolding up and the front drive is full of  2 massive internorm pallets with the broken windows on  which means our storage is very compromised !!

 

No idea about the solar glass ! 

Not sure what to suggest here as your comments remind us of our nightmare with Internorm. Sadly they (Internorm)are not bothered about the problems their inadequacies create and so although the product is great, the service and most definitely the after service leave a lot to be desired. What people need to understand with Internorm is whenever there is a fault, be it a mis measure, damage etc it always takes approx 3 months to correct the mistake. There is no rushing an order through to get the job done, they are a massive world wide company and your damaged window will get replaced when it goes through the normal system like everything else. My windows are still not right and my original installation was late 2017. I have just received a new trim and seal for roof terrace door as apparently it is the wrong type of door for my location. There is no one to fit it so it is being left to me as my original window company no longer deal with Internorm  and sort of went bust. 

 

 

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On 31/07/2020 at 13:23, Nickfromwales said:

Run it through a proper analysis first, and then ascertain the level of any 'issue' you actually NEED to address. Consider maybe just the south and leave the east / vice-versa whichever works in your ( the dwellings ) favour. I would certainly look again at external blinds on the south so as not to cut off your nose during winter, as you're only going to be using the blinds a couple of months of the year in all likelihood. If this was full on passive it would be a very different story, but this property will need all the help it can get in the winter time, especially with the added decrement delay after you add the EWI.

 

Sorry for being dense, but are there any free online tools I can use to model this, or rather is this something you pay some for / purchase a tool?

 

My current thoughts are to have the upstairs east and south elevations in the SKN176 to protect them from un-shaded sun, while leaving downstairs as normal triple glazing, as they are the windows you look out of during daylight hours, and have some tree shading for part of the day / time of year.  If an analysis would be fairly realistic with determining whether we would have a summer gain issue, it feels like something worth purchasing, and put this external shading / window tinting to bed.

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