glass

Climate Sensitive Glass Choice

Choosing the best glass for your needs

Glass is omnipresent in modern homes. Much of the success of our homes depend on the correct selection of glass to keep our families comfortable and safe. Here is a brief summary of what glass to choose in your home or renovations.

Safety Glass

Anywhere there is risk of impact onto glass, safety glass must be used. There are two main types of safety glass; laminated, toughened and wired. Laminated glass is the most popular type, consisting of an interlayer of flexible plastic sandwiched between two panels or ordinary glass. The interlayer strengthens the glass, aiding for example in providing safety from flying debris in storms. It also helps in protecting homes from attempted burglaries, as it will not break as easily as standard glass, thus deterring potential intruders. Toughened glass is heat treated so as not to break into sharp shards, it ‘crumbs’. Once manufactured it cannot be cut and has to be made to size. All glass handrails and structural glass is toughened glass.

Climate Sensitive Glass Choice

Single pane glass is almost completely transparent to heat and cold, pretty much just keeping out the breezes. So to make a house more comfortable focus on the type of glass in the windows (after insulating the roof and walls properly) is the next best use of your money. The design and placement of glass in specific areas of the building can be used to improve energy efficiency by using it to take advantage of natural light. For example, it is common to see more glass located along on Northern elevations to capture the winter warming sun rays and keep summer heat out more easily with simple eaves overhangs. .

In warmer climates, toned glass can be used to minimize solar heat gain and help control glare. Toned Glass intercepts energy from the sun and converts this to heat, a portion of which is released to the outside, but some still enters the building. The darker the tone, the less light it will allow in to the building.

Reducing heat loss can also be achieved by using various types of glass. For example, double glazing has two panels of glass separated by an air space, with the air space acting as an insulator against heat loss or heat gain. Very high efficiency double glazing often has an inert gas fill in the cavity as well such as argon. Double glazed windows provide meaningful thermal benefits in virtually all Australian climate zones, especially when you want larger areas of glass than are permitted under the singled glazing requirements within the National Construction Code and the NatHERS home rating scheme. Double glazing can be retrofitted with some difficulty, or it can be easily fitted using a specially designed a retro-fitting system like Magnetite.

Danpalon polycarbonate glazing as an alternative to glass, is a translucent or transparent multi-glazed system with good thermal insulation, water tightness and impact resistant while blocking UV radiation.

‘Low E’ glass is modified single pane glass that has a molecule thin, transparent metal coating applied to the glass surface that can be used by itself to improve heat loss of a single pane system or in double glazing to increase its efficiency even further. Low E glass is most useful in cold climates.

Click here, to see the list of Glass and related products on Ecospecifier website.

Explore more about the product ranges that have been eco-certified and listed by Ecospecifier, by using the Product Search Engine on Ecospecifier Global: http://www.ecospecifier.com.au

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The health benefits of correct lighting

The quality of light affects people in many different ways. Studies have shown that appropriate lighting layouts can increase the attractiveness of homes, correct room lighting can sometimes make the difference between happiness and sadness and correct lighting is needed to do anything past sunset without creating health impacts of some sort.

Lighting is also the third largest generator of greenhouse gas emissions in the home so has an impact on our personal ‘climate change’ impact. Given that we all know how important that we take action on climate change immediately, this is at least one factor that you can have immediate impact on. So…with such an important issue as lighting, how do you decide on the type of lighting most suited for you and best for your family and the planet?

Fortunately Ecospecifier.com.au has an extensive range of products that are all verified or certified against sustainability standards so next time you are shopping, think Ecospecifier and explore through our listings of green products and technologies.

The hardest step is always the first step, so let’s make this step towards sustainability a little one and begin with lighting.

The traditional incandescent light bulb used to be the typical light bulb in any given home environment, but was basically banned some years ago by the federal government. However fancy and coloured bulbs are typically still incandescent and today more ‘efficient’ versions have been created, but they are still poor by comparison to other types. These light bulbs use a large amount of energy required for its operation due to its inefficient nature and relatively short lifespan (only up to 1000 hours), they can also be dangerous as the temperatures on the bulb can reach in excess of 140 degrees Celsius!

Therefore, there are several benefits to completely eliminating the use of incandescent and tungsten light bulbs in your home. Foremost is the direct financial savings in your power bills; you will also be doing your part in reducing the effect of manmade climate change and reducing the emission of serious toxics like mercury that are emitted alongside the carbon dioxide when coal is burnt.

Today there are many highly efficient lamp alternatives that are equivalent in light output to all conventional lighting types, including ‘low voltage’ tungsten lamps. Do note, however, that ‘low voltage’ does not equate to energy efficient – these lamps are almost as bad as incandescent and usually there are a lot more used in any given area.

Fluorescents and compact fluorescents are now relatively cheap and energy efficient, but come with a toxic load of mercury in every one. Please note that broken fluorescent tubes or bulbs can emit a mercury containing toxic powder and formally all fluorescent lamps must be either recycled at the Council depot or disposed of in a hazardous waste dump, with terrible consequences for the environment.

However examples of clean, highly efficient new Light Emitting Diode (LED) light technology are easily found and can be seen in ‘View Lights’ –LED Down lights and ‘Bright Green’ D900 Cube and other super efficient LED lamps and fittings (listed on Ecospecifier.com.au). View Lights are an energy efficient LED down light, and perfectly suited for residential applications.

Consuming significantly less energy than halogen or incandescent lighting, LED lighting contains no mercury and also produces significantly less heat than comparable lighting systems to have an overall efficient green lighting scheme for any home.

Current third generation LED Lighting has come far from earlier LED technology – that meant consumers once had to choose between an effective light and a ‘green’ light. Fortunately, this is no longer the case if you choose wisely. Choosing green no longer results in low quality lighting and indeed brings many benefits. There is really no excuse to delay any longer and converting to these wiser and greener choices. They are a little more expensive, but the energy pay back is worth is, as they last 50 -100 times longer than any other form of bulb (50-100,000 hours).

Explore more about the product ranges that have been eco-certified and listed by Ecospecifier, by using the Product Search Engine on Ecospecifier Global: http://www.ecospecifier.com.au

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Like, Comment and Share our blogs and posts on your social media pages … and we will send your name out to more than 15,000 subscribers via our monthly Ecospecifier Global Newsletter.

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glass technology

Glass: How It Affects You, Your View And Your Energy Bills

Part 1 … Glass Technology

Glass is generally transparent and so common, most of the time we forget that it is even there, but glass can have a major impact on your home’s light and heat levels, making it dark or light, hot or cold, just as a result of the glass choice during construction or renovation. So how do we choose the best glass for our needs? Its best to first understand the basics.

Made from three of earths most basic materials glass is an advancing technology that is constantly taken for granted. The most common glass today is single pane float glass. It is very clear, but also very poor thermally, so homes with single glazing will generally be hotter and colder or use more energy than homes with more advanced glass.

Glass technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years. When fitting out the home or office, there is an array of choices depending on your preferences and needs: if you want to limit sound, increase warmth or keep cool, reduce UV penetration or require safety glass there are literally hundreds to choose from. Glass not only allows natural daylight inside and allows occupants to view out, but the choice of glass can influence energy consumption, personal comfort, the success of indoor plant life and has a large potential cost impact.

It is also important to understand the full lifecycle of glass to identify its impacts on the environment. Different to ‘bottle glass’, the three raw materials used in window glass consist of sand, soda ash and limestone. Glass grade sand is one of the fundamental ingredients in glass and is typically mined in ecologically sensitive environments.

Glass dust, a by-product of manufacturing, can be hazardous to humans if inhaled. However; after manufacturing, glass does not emit any toxics or pollutants and is potentially recyclable (although not often is). Some glass (usually with a slight green tint or darker) contain recycled glass content. Every 1000 kg’s of glass waste recycled into new products saves 315 kilograms of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere during the process of creating new glass.

Explore more about the product ranges that have been eco-certified and listed by Ecospecifier, by using the Product Search Engine on Ecospecifier Global: http://www.ecospecifier.com.au

Join us in more conversations about green products and sustainability issues on our social media pages:

Follow Ecospecifier on Facebook

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Join our Social Media Honour Roll – support the switch to green products

Like, Comment and Share our blogs and posts on your social media pages … and we will send your name out to more than 15,000 subscribers via our monthly Ecospecifier Global Newsletter.

See which stellar individuals, businesses and networks made the latest Honour Roll on Twitter and Facebook HERE We salute you in helping us educate and help more people #MaketheSwitch to #EcoResponsible products.