You probably already know that window tinting is a custom option for many new cars. Did you also know that the windows of your home can be tinted for energy savings and glare reduction?
Residential Window Tinting
Thousands of homeowners around the country are moving towards what's called residential window tinting. Putting a film on your windows can give you more privacy while lowering the amount of cash you spend every month on electricity and cooling.
By letting in less sunlight, you can also sidestep having to replace old furniture as too much light can cause furniture to age prematurely and lose its color. For a fraction of what it would cost to replace your old windows with new ones, you can have a special film installed on your pre-existing windows to enjoy the same convenience and energy efficiency.
Energy Efficiency
Have you ever heard the expression "throwing money out the window"? In some ways that's literally true. Approximately half of heating and cooling expenses slip out through outdated windows that are no longer energy efficient. Heat and cooling efforts leaking out the window constitute literally the number one liability energy-wise for most homeowners.
A window film or residential window tint can help you restore your old windows to meet new energy-efficiency standards. By reducing the solar heat seeping in through your windows you reap benefits - that's money in the bank that you're not spending on AC and electricity every month. The year-on-year savings can be thousands of dollars.
Reducing Hot Spots and UV Light
According to 3M, residential window film allows homeowners to reduce hot spots and even glare while reaping the benefits of lowered cooling costs in the summer and lower exposure to UV radiation year-round. Window film can also help protect your home from break-in attempts and damage caused by extreme weather.
A quality ceramic tint added to your window can reduce the sun's infrared glare by eighty percent while reducing the amount of UV radiation that makes it into your living room by a whopping ninety-nine percent. This will keep your furniture and other furnishings looking fresh for years to come.
Technical Aspects of Window Tinting
The darkness of window tint is predicated on the percentage of visual light transmission. This percentage is calculated by looking at the amount of light that is allowed to pass through the window's tint versus the amount of light that stays on the window's surface.
A thirty percent window tint, for instance, allows thirty percent of the light reaching the window to pass through whereas the other seventy percent of the light is blocked by the residential window film. This means that the lower the visual light transmission percentage, the larger the amount of light that the tint is blocking from entering your living room.
This also means that a tinted window with a low visual light transmission percentage will typically appear darker and have more tint. So, at ten percent on the visual light transmission scale, ninety percent of the light reaching the window is blocked by the window tint.
Most older windows have a visual light transmission percentage of around thirty to forty percent. This percentage is seen as a good balance between glare reduction and the amount of heat let into the room, on one hand, and windows that still look presentable and allow in ambient light.
There are even some companies that offer DIY options for window tinting. The aim is to give homeowners the chance to affordable reduce glare and reap the benefits of energy efficiency without breaking the bank.