What is Low-E Glass?

When buying windows for your home, there are a lot of things you need to consider. Some of these considerations include energy efficiency, cost, durability, maintenance, size, color, design, technical factors, size, among others.

There are also a lot of terms in the windows industry, and one of the terms is low-e glass. This is an unfamiliar term to most people. In this article, you’re going to learn what low-e glass is and everything that you need to know about it.

To understand what low-e glass is, you have to first understand the basics. What does the “e” stand for? The “e” in low-e glass stands for emissivity. What is emissivity? Emissivity is the ability of a material to transmit and radiate heat.

Material can either absorb or reflect heat. This, however, depends on the type of material it is. Highly reflective materials tend to reflect away heat and these materials have low emissivity. High emissivity materials tend to absorb heat and light. These materials are made of dark colors.

Low-e glass is glass made of thin layers of coating that reflect away light or limit the ultraviolet rays from passing through. If you stand near a window that has a standard pane of glass, you may feel the heat coming through the glass. This is the reason why low-e glass coatings are developed. They will reduce heat transfer through the glass.

Low-e glass coating that is on windows allows light into your home just like other windows. However, you have to limit heat transfer through the window on the non-visible spectrum.

How is Low-E Glass Energy-Efficient?

Low-e glass coating works in two different ways. They are:

1. Low-e glass coating prevents heat from entering your home through the glass during hot days.
2. Low-e glass coating prevents heat from escaping your home through the glass during cold days.

How is this possible? Usually, windows with low-e glass coating have these coating on the inside and outside of your window glass panes. The low-e glass coating on the inside of your window allows the glass to reflect heat to your home during cold days. This reduces the amount of heat lost during cold days.

The low-e glass coating on the outside of your window glass pane reflects heat away from your home, reducing the amount of heat that comes through the glass during hot days.

This is how low-e glass is energy efficient. Low-e glass coating ensures that your home remains at a consistent temperature in any season. This helps avoid cranking of your heaters and coolers that are intended to keep your home’s temperature consistent.

Advantages of Energy Efficient Windows

1. With energy-efficient windows, you don’t have to crank your heaters and coolers during the different seasons. This will improve the life expectancy of your heaters and coolers as well as reduce the cost of frequent repairs and maintenance.
2. With energy-efficient windows, you reduce your utility bills that would have been high with the use and rely on your coolers and heaters.
3. With energy-efficient windows, you eliminate the drafts and cold spots in your home., This increases the comfort of your home.

Types of Low-E Glass Coating

There are two types of low-e glass coating. They include:

1. Passive Low-E Glass Coating

This is known as the hard coat. Passive low-e glass coating is responsible for maximizing the amount of solar heat entering your home. To form the hard coat, a thin ribbon of hot tin is poured onto the glass sheet to form a strong bond between glass and metal.

2. Solar Control Low-E Glass Coating

This is known as the soft coat. Solar control low-e glass minimizes the amount of solar heat entering a home which keeps your home cooler.

A soft coat is created by combining zinc, tin, and silver in a vacuum chamber filled with inert gases that are electrically charged. The vacuum sputters the metal onto the glass, and that’s how a soft coat is created.

Advantages of Low-E Glass

1. Improved durability of your window.

The extra layer that is added to your window increases the strength of your window which reduces the chances of window breakage and scratching. When your window is strong, its durability is also increased.

2. High energy efficiency

This is the main advantage of low-e glass windows. As we stated earlier, low-e glass windows ensure a consistent temperature in your home despite the season or weather. This increases energy efficiency in your home.

3. Protection from ultraviolet rays

Ultraviolet rays can damage your health as well as your property. The rays damage your furniture by causing your fabric to fade, damaging the quality of material and flooring.

4. Complement aesthetics

Low-e glass coating does not affect the design, color, look and feel of your window glass. This is an advantage for the aesthetics in your home since they are not affected by the coating.

5. Allows additional window features

Low-e glass coating does not prohibit additional features to your windows such as the easy-to-clean technology, security, or noise-proofing.

For details about steel windows and doors in Sydney, reach out to our support team at Sydney Steel Windows.