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Environmental issues, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and saving energy are all important, influencing factors in many decisions made by a large number of industries and the building industry is no exception. Buildings, both domestic and commercial are major energy consumers, so reducing energy loss is of growing significance to architects, specifiers and homeowners.
Buildings lose energy through numerous areas and the lack of sufficient insulation and thermally efficient products results in a higher usage of energy for heating, in turn increasing the carbon dioxide emissions, the main gas responsible for global warming. The UK government has committed itself to huge reductions in CO2, emissions within the Kyoto Agreement and has also set a target for all new homes to be “Zero Carbon” from 2016. This can only be achieved by significantly reducing the energy use of houses.
Government, consumers and specifiers are focusing more and more on the energy efficiency of building products. Windows are one of the prime components of interest. It is estimated that approximately 20% of energy lost from a building is through its windows and doors so improving their energy efficiency gives a large improvement to energy efficiency of the building as a whole.
Windows are in place for a long time and efficiency gains achieved by fitting high performance windows are effective for the life of the product. This will significantly reduce fuel bills, improve comfort and reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the life of the window installation.
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