Britain’s famously unpredictable weather hasn’t been at its best the last few months. When it hasn’t been grey and wet it’s been bitterly cold, with the occasional sudden pile of snow just to make sure nobody forgets it’s winter. That should all be over soon, though. The trees are waking up, the sun is appearing through the clouds more often and spring is definitely in the air. Now we can all start looking forward to summer – especially if we’re lucky enough to have a conservatory. If you want to keep your own conservatory cool this summer please read on for more information.
Conservatories are great. They let you enjoy the sunshine without being bothered by wind, traffic noise, the smell of the neighbours’ barbecue or anything else that’s going on outdoors. You get all the summery brightness of sitting in the garden, without the annoying insects. There’s only one problem with them. If it’s a nice sunny day – you know, the kind of day that makes you want to sit in your conservatory – they can get very warm in a hurry.
The Real Greenhouse Effect
That sunlight that floods into your conservatory doesn’t just make it bright and cheerful; it also carries a lot of energy through the glass, and then dumps it inside as heat. The glass then prevents that heat escaping, so the temperature inside will rise rapidly as you experience a literal greenhouse effect. You can keep it comfortable with air conditioning, but conservatories can let in so much heat that your cooling system will often need to run at full power to hold the temperature down. With electricity prices the way they are now, who wants to have the aircon running full blast every time the sun comes out?
If you want to continue enjoying your conservatory without running up a national debt-sized electricity bill, it’s time to look at another option – heat-reducing window film. Adding a layer of film to glass isn’t a new idea, but if you’re having visions of old-style, heavily tinted film that turns your bright, sunny conservatory into a gloomy cave, relax. The technology has come a long way, and while you certainly can get heavily tinted or even reflective film, those are intended for privacy. If you want to let the sun in, but keep the heat out, you can do that with a film that’s so lightly tinted it’s almost impossible to tell it’s there.
How Does It Work?
When we talk about sunlight we think of visible light, but in fact the sun is radiating energy over a wide part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As well as visible light there’s a lot of ultraviolet, radio frequency energy and infrared. The one that heats up the inside of your conservatory is infrared.
If you can block that infrared radiation, you can radically reduce the amount of heat the sun dumps inside your conservatory. Heat reduction films do this by including a layer of tiny metal particles. These particles are too small to see, and don’t block much visible light, but they reflect infrared frequencies. That means your favourite space stays sunny, but it will accumulate a lot less heat – and you’ll be turning on the air conditioning a lot less.
Modern window films are an affordable upgrade that will make your conservatory a more pleasant space in summer and save you a fortune on cooling bills. They’re available in a variety of colours and levels of tint, and when professionally fitted they provide a neat, long-lasting finish. If you enjoy sunning yourself in the conservatory, but just wish it didn’t get so hot, give us a call and let us help you to keep your conservatory cool this summer.
We are now taking bookings, but places are filling up fast. Feel free to contact us for a completely free no-obligation quote today!