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Your window furnishings play a huge role in keeping your home cool in summer and warm in winter. The heat loss and gain through the windows in a property are responsible for approximately 30% of the household’s heating and cooling energy usage. If you are building a new home, renovating, or making some small improvements, it’s important to think about the role that window coverings can play in helping you passively heat or cool your home.
By making the right choice when insulating your windows with coverings and investing in quality products – you can cut your electricity costs, and keep your home at a more enjoyable temperature, all year round.
Here are our 3 top tips on what features or designs to look for that will not only keep your electricity bills to a minimum but also help turn your house into a home.
1. Welcome Honeycomb Shades into your home
Our Honeycomb Shades do a phenomenal job at stabilising the temperature transfer that occurs through a window (e.g. preventing cold air from coming in during the winter or going out during the summer). Norman utilises both unique construction and advanced materials, making our honeycomb shades the ultimate choice for maintaining comfortable interior temperatures, maximising energy-efficiency and lowering energy costs.
With Honeycomb Shades, you have a wide range of light control options, including sheer, light-filtering and room-darkening, you can even combine the light control options by choosing Day and Night Shades, which come with a sheer screen for during the day and block out fabric for extra light and privacy control at night.
Honeycomb Shades can reduce heat loss through windows by 40% or more, which equates to about 20% heating energy savings. In cooling seasons, cellular shades can reduce unwanted solar heat through windows by up to 80%, reducing the total solar gain to 15% or less when installed with a tight fit*.
Take advantage of the honeycomb technology to tackle the living areas in your home that require more comfort and unique design.
2. Meet home automation
One of the easiest ways to control the temperature in your home is to open or close your window coverings at the right time of day. For example, on a hot summer’s day, it’s best to lower your coverings early in the day and keep them closed until the temperature and air cools in the evening. This will prevent heat from entering your internal living spaces.
We offer our PerfectTilt option when it comes to the automation of your blinds, shades or shutters. This includes our PerfectTilt G4 Motorisation where your shades can be opened or closed with the touch of a button.
You can use either the Norman Dial remote to do this or an app on your smartphone or device. This allows you to set timers, even when you aren’t home, so your coverings open at a certain time in the morning and close at a specific time in the evening.
The complete control over the operation of your shutters dramatically helps with heat reduction, resulting in energy savings – and you don’t have to lift a finger!
3. Choosing an ideal location
Depending on the location of your windows, our furnishing recommendation may change. Below is the ideal location for each furnishing style.
Blinds
Interior blinds help reduce solar heat gain while maintaining desired light, ventilation and privacy. For example, when closed and lowered on a sunny window, reflective blinds (white or near white) are capable of reducing heat gain by 30%*.
To receive these energy-saving benefits, by reducing heat gain where you still want options for light, ventilation and privacy the best location for our SmartPrivacy blinds is your south and west-facing windows.
Shades
Depending on density of the material, colour and whether they are raised or lowered, they can help reduce both solar heat gain and heat loss. Shades are flexible, so any window orientation is suitable.
Shutters
Similar to our blinds, interior shutters help reduce solar heat gain while maintaining desired light, ventilation and privacy. For another option that reduces heat gain where you still want options for light, ventilation and privacy the best location for our shutters is your south and west-facing windows.
For more information or to book a consultation with your local Norman Retailer, contact us here.
*Source: energy.gov