How Low-E Coating Benefits Your Home

Ensuring your home is comfortable, safe, and efficient is a high priority for all homeowners. An excellent way to maintain the utmost comfort indoors is through proper insulators and shields to block harmful natural elements. Low-E coating on windows was created to do just that– add an extra shield and protect your home from harmful light rays while allowing your home to be more efficient at the same time.

What exactly is Low-E coating?

Low-E stands for “low emissivity,” which means that the window is coated in a metallic (or metallic oxide) layer and is able to effectively reflect heat while appearing transparent to the naked eye.

This type of coating is especially popular in homes with big or many windows that let in a lot of natural light. Low-E coating actually significantly helps to prevent your home from overexposure to the sun. UV rays through your windows and doors are especially damaging to your furniture, carpets, and can even reach and affect your skin indoors.

Low-E coating also helps your home stay efficient throughout all the seasons as it helps to control infrared light. Every material emits heat through infrared energy that depends on its temperature. Windows are particularly capable of emitting radiant heat, so when the window’s ability to emit heat is reduced, it’s insulating abilities are drastically improved.

Low-E coating can be applied as a “soft coat” to the inside of the pane of glass or as a “hard coat” to the outside of the pane of glass. A soft coat has the excellent ability to reflect and makes the coat very energy efficient but it cannot withstand any rough natural elements. A hard coat is much more resistant but reflects less heat thus making it less efficient than a soft coat.

A Low-E coating can also be placed between two panes of glass, suspended to provide its reflective abilities while also acting as an insulator. Argon gas can also be added between these double panes, helping to prevent drafts through your home and allow for greater comfort overall.

Through its excellent reflective abilities, Low-E coating is able to bounce infrared light back into your home as it enters through your windows and allows you to heat your home less through your heating system, making your home more efficient.

And what happens during the warm summer days? There are special Low-E glazes available that not only reflect the infrared red light back into your home to keep it warm, but can also selectively choose not to allow parts of the light spectrum into your home, thus allowing your comfort systems to work less at keeping your home cool.

Omega Homes believes in providing all our customers with specialized care, planning and products to make your dream home a reality. Our experienced professionals are fully qualified to complete any project you wish, so don’t hesitate to contact us today for more information or any questions you may have.