Energy Matters Forums

[Jamie]

Hello,
I have recently built a home designed by a specialist in solar passive design.
It has a lot of north facing windows which are working well at capturing heat in winter.
Due to the house being very noisy and echoing a lot we had to use carpet in the northern rooms.
i am now finding the winter sun is fading my carpet and furnture.
I think I need a tint that will let the solar heat in but stop the UV rays.
All tints I have seen stop the heat getting in which I think is not ideal
Any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated as I dont want to have to curtain these northern windows in winter

Thank you

[bpratt]

I heard glass alone prevents the flow of a lot of UV.... obviously not all of it though for it to fade your carpets and the like.

[Gordon-Loomberah]

That is true, most types of glass have very low UV transmission. You need clear quartz to let much through- as used in CCD camera windows on astronomical telescopes observing in UV light.
Adding another layer of glass would knock out most of the little UV that does hit the carpet, but double glazing would be an expensive option... although it would have insulation benefits.

[superman1]

I purposely built as many windows on the north for winter (and spring/autumn) sun too. But I don't let one bit of sun in because of fading.

I use vertical blinds on all these windows, even toilet and bathroom, which you can adjust for no sun but heat only. Of course closing that room's door increases warmth dramatically. In my open plan I put on a hall door for that, and even in that big space it warms up well.
Just need adjusting once a day or so for morni or arvo.
Just have that pesky inevitable side gap some times of the day, which is not not big, and is managable.

I imagine venetian blinds will do the same, maybe better: I've thought if you set those tilting up, maybe they won't need adjusting any time of the day.

Don't need curtains, just some form of blind that can filter out sun but not heat.

[Smurf1976]

I let the sun shine in all day and fading has never been a problem.

The sofa is very slightly faded but at the rate it's going I'll get 15 years out of it easily before it's a problem. Likewise the bed sheets on one side. But who keeps their sofa or bed sheets longer than 15 years these days anyway?

There are windows on all sides of the house and I leave the blinds open to let the sun in during the day. It's not a passive solar house as such, but it's 12 degrees outside right now and 20 inside. Enough said - I'm saving quite a bit of energy by using the sun to heat the house.

[Cherokee Solar]

Hi Jamie,

I have seen this too, but only with synthetic materials which are the real culprit in this situation. You'll find that they are off gassing - ie converting to a gas. Wool based carpets don't tend to suffer from this problem. You didn't mention what material your furniture and carpet was made from.

I rented in a new housing estate whilst building my house and noticed that over the course of 2 years, the synthetic carpets faded in the sun and by the end of 2 years they looked like they were moth eaten (it was sun damage). There was a clear difference in the colour of the carpets between the bit in the sun and the bit not in the sun.

Regards

Chris

[offgridQLD]

Our home is much the same although we only have carpet int he bedrooms and a huge open plan area with timber floors. You can see the areas when you move furniture the timber has darkened or gone a golden warmer in tone. One set of expensive charcoal grey sheets did fade in a matter of weeks dramatically

I am all for natural products, they tend to age gracefully compered to synthetic options. We just purchased a large cow skin rug from a local place . I am very surprised at just how durable they are. In fact they have several on display outside all the time that are in the full sun all day and I was even more surprised to see them still on display in heavy rain.

I would take the sun and faded carpets over a cold a dark musky home any day .

As for the noisy echoing rooms I have the same problem but just love the practicality of timber so have settled for rugs and wall hangings.

Kurt