Thermal comfort Films

Window film prevents solar energy passing through the glazing of buildings entering the building. This helps control workplace temperatures, improves the thermal comfort inside that supports well-being of you and your family.

Are you too hot in your office sitting in the sun? Wishing the air conditioning would work better? The problem of offices overheating on sunny days is found across the world.

Employees who are happy and comfortable are an important factor to business competitiveness and efficiency. One cost-effective method to reduce solar overheating is using the micro-thin, high performance technology offered by solar control window films.

What is Solar Overheating?

Heat flows from hot to cold by radiation, conduction or convection, or by a combination of these processes, for example:

• The sun warms the earth by radiation – its temperature is about 5500º C compared to less than 40º C for the earth.

• A metal bar heated at one end will become hot at the other end because heat transfers to the other end of the bar by conduction.

• A wind will occur when one part of the earth is warmer than another – the heat is transferred by convection via the air. Buildings gain heat from many sources including lighting, electrical equipment, building occupants, and the sun.

We all know the power of solar energy – it is so strong that buildings can reach high temperatures after a short period of time.

Air conditioning systems can reduce the problem but then building managers can find themselves in the predicament that part of the building is at satisfactory temperatures but other areas are too hot or too cold.

Added to this, direct solar energy causes surface temperatures – doors, walls and furniture – to become particularly hot.

Worse still, people sitting in direct sunlight experience the full force of the sun, heating both them and their surroundings

The Effects of Solar Overheating

There are three aspects to consider:

• Building occupants prefer stable workplace temperatures of typically 20-23º C.

As workplace temperatures rise above 24º C workers concentration drops by 30-50%; in factories, above 25º C, staff can become more vulnerable to accidents and mental performance declines, causing productivity and quality to suffer.

Trade Unions and staff organisations may draw the attention of managers to the high room temperatures, adding to the impetus for a solution to solar overheating.

• However, not only is a reasonable room temperature needed, but it should be realised that comfortable workplace conditions are also influenced by changes in temperature and by the speed of such a change.

In real life, environmental conditions will always be changing, so buildings will never be at constant temperatures.

If the temperature is acceptable and then a change in environmental conditions is slow, or if the change is small, then workplace comfort will change slowly or not significantly and people will generally remain content.

But a fast and large change in room temperature will also cause workplace comfort to change quickly.

The Solution

Reducing solar energy transmitted by glazing before it enters the building by installing solar control window films is often the best solution.

This helps to reduce solar heat gain, workplace room temperatures, and the rate of temperature change.