Glass Houses …

BY: HANK ETHIER

What is the function of a window? Traditionally, they were installed in houses to let light in because we had no electricity. This explains why small, old houses, have so many windows, relative to their wall size.

They also provide ventilation, a view, and more and more, as an architectural design feature. Those first homestead windows were wood framed, single pain units that had almost no insulation value.

They were augmented in winter by storm windows, which were extra windows mounted on the outside to decrease air leakage and frosting on the inside window panes.

Seventy years later we had the aluminum framed double-paned sliding window with felt seals to keep out the drafts. These were no better than their wooden ancestors, so many people added acrylic insulating windows to the inside of the window frame to serve the same purpose as the old storm windows.

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Now we have the low e, triple glaze, argon filled, no maintenance and highly weatherstripped versions.

These are high tech and very expensive. We install them in our R-20 to R-30 insulated walls and comfort ourselves with the thought that we are saving energy.

We think they are so good in fact, that we are once again using up large percentages of exterior walls with them. We forget, however, that they do not even come close to the R-value of the wall itself.

We also convince ourselves that we gain passive solar heat from the south facing units. While this is somewhat true, passive solar gain is a complicated formula.

In January, in Saskatchewan, the amount of daylight hours contributing to solar gain is quite small and must be weighed against heat loss thru these massive windows when the sun is not shinning thru them. That would be most of the day and solar gain is not a factor on the North side of the house.

So, what about ventilation,light and a view?

People want “the view” a large window offers but then spend as much or more than the cost of the window on drapes to keep people from looking in.

Our new houses are so air tight they require dedicated combustion air intakes for any unit using a flame to produce heat. How often do we open a window to get fresh in?

Never in the winter and certainly not when the neighbors would be able to hear what we are saying. Therefore, we install heat recovery ventilators to take care of the ventilation. So that leaves light, which does come in, even thru those expensive drapes. How many of us have the lights on anyway?

Could we not install skylight tubes in the ceiling that would allow light in no matter where the sun was shinning?

These are basically an aluminum tube polished to a mirror finish that sticks up past your roof line. They usually have a reflector to direct the sunshine down the tube and into your house.

There is an acrylic dome at the top and bottom to seal it. Installed properly, these do not leak or sweat as regular skylights do. They come in different diameters and install between you rafters so no special framing is required and can be installed as a retrofit. If you don't like the look of the dome on the inside you can have a custom cover made to fit over it. These capture sunshine no matter where the sun is in the sky so even the rooms on the north side of the building would get adequate light thru the day

. They even glow in bright moonlight, no need for a night light. There are many manufacturers of these units. Just Google skylight tube and see how many come up.

Perhaps it is time to spent less money on large high tech windows and more on solar panels and skylight tubes. At least there is no loss from them during the night.