How Important is Glazing?

Everyone loves windows.

When daydreaming about their perfect home, their perfect office, who doesn't imagine a floor to ceiling view? A city skyline, a glittering sea, endless bushland... whatever it is, you don't want it interrupted by boring wall, right?

While it's no argument that natural daylight and pleasant views have a positive impact on our health and happiness, there are extra factors that come into play when it comes to designing a space that complies with thermal comfort requirements.

Unfortunately for all of us, windows aren't great at keeping us physically comfortable. Right in front of a window is always the coldest spot in the house on a cold night, and the hottest spot on a hot day. That's because when it comes to heat transfer, a window is barely better than a literal hole in the wall. Devastating, I know.

Why is this? Well, glass just does a terrible job of keeping heat where it is, and heat is always looking to escape! (More accurately, it just wants balance. Can't really fault it for that.) So on a hot day, the heat is looking to get into your nice cool house to balance the temperatures, and on a cold day the heat is looking to get outside for the same reason. In addition to this, most typical frames for windows are made out of aluminium which doesn't perform any better - basically both parts of your window aren't made to give you any protection from temperature fluctuations.

But there's good news! Science understands that you want your gorgeous vista and want to be a comfortable temperature, and it's found a solution for you. As technology improves, we've found ways to improve the thermal performance of windows, meaning you can have more glass without it rendering your building non-compliant. With double or triple glazing, argon filled gaps, films and engineered frame materials, windows can go from being basically a hole in the wall to an-almost-but-not-quite-wall, thermally speaking. The catch is that these windows aren't the cheapest on the market, but with more time and more demand, this will slowly change.

So if you are absolutely set on that perfect view, you're in luck. Aesthetics and comfort are meeting in the middle.