Hmm, does anybody have access to the full paper? I can only access the abstract but on the basis of that, my 'here be dragons' alarm is going off. So what follows is perhaps rather more negative than it deserves.

A single-glazed window has U=5.6 so 80% reduction means U=1.12, which is good double-glazing territory. And a double-glazed window is still a window you can see out of rather than a white hole in a wall that lets light in.

The abstract says:
"Payback calculations accounting for the inevitable thermal bridging from openable solutions such as roller shutters or pop-in secondary glazing suggest that a return on investment between 3.5 and 9.5 years is possible if products are consistently used over the heating season".

Without doing any sums, that seems to me that the aerogel must be cheaper than I expect. It also seems that they're saying you mustn't open the window, so I hope they've allowed for an MVHR system in their payback calculation.

Update: I've now found the paper at http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/6590/2/Fulltext.pdf but haven't read it yet (it's 21 pages)

Posted By: SteamyTeaAerogel filled windows for bathrooms

Interesting, the paper specifically discounts the possibility of using it in a bathroom due to condensation problems. No, I don't understand either.

I've skimmed the paper now and my summary is:
* using insulated shutters is a good idea
* people like to be able to see out of windows during the day
* people like to open windows but this is bad for energy performance
* using translucent shutters at night also works

My question is why? What benefit does a translucent material provide at night?

And they ignore what is to my mind the biggest, most obvious problem - the lack of commercially available insulated shutters and DIY kits.

Posted By: ikimikiWell, anytime one is adding a shutter or a secondary glazing unit like this, to the inside of a single-pane window, I would presume that the result will be condensation -- at least, in a humid air country such as the UK. Not only in bathrooms.

They also talk about airtight mounting of the panels, which eliminates the risk of condensation. And even an imperfect seal is good enough to reduce the amount of condensation to a manageable amount. You get condensation on single glazing even without a shutter. Slightly ventilating the outer glass also solves the problem. So I'm not sure what case they think is both serious and specific to bathrooms.

I'm afraid I don't see a 'pi' on my screen. I've edited the double 'p' out of the original post though.
Does that help?

done!

Have you tried Proctor's?

But since they source Aerogel in its other forms perhaps they may be able to point you in the right direction?

Have a look at damon HD's page at

http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-Spacetherm-aerogel-thermal-insulation.html

"Note that Cabot has an aerogel range called NanoGel(TM) for, for example, light-transmissive but high-R/low-U heat insulative building applications."

He had contacted them and they would indeed supply samples of granules for example.... and at least one supplier sold translucent windows incorporating aerogel as Steamy relayed, though I can't find a link for them at the moment (it may be on Cabot's own site)...

Here it is:
http://www.xtralite.co.uk/media/30904-Nanogel_brochure.pdf

I saw Kalwall at a show a couple of years ago, which sounds like what you are talking about.

Posted By: ikimikidone!

I'm sorry to keep going back to this as well :(

The RSS feed is still broken because there is still an illegal character in your first posting. On one browser I use, that character shows up as a small Greek letter 'pi'. On some other browsers, it is invisible, but it is still there.

I see that you have edited your original posting so it now appears to say "266 to 280" but the strange character is just before '280'. I've downloaded the file using wget and can see that the character is a control-backslash (034).

Could you please try again to remove it? What browser etc are you using to post to the forum?

Posted By: djhI'll need to do some investigation into what is the cheapest translucent insulation. Multiple layers of bubble wrap?

Bubblewrap gets used in greenhouses as temporary winter insulation.
UV degredation might be a issue if it were left in place for a significant length of time?

Conversely replace some or all of the transparent roof panels with solid roof panels as is the norm in much of mainland Europe.
There are some very tasteful ones available, some even with acoustic layers within the panel to minimise rain noise. One of the reasons for the fully glazed roofs on conservatories in the UK was that it used to allow a neat sidestep around building regs if the glazing was more than 75% of the roof area

Posted By: SaintConversely replace some or all of the transparent roof panels with solid roof panels as is the norm in much of mainland Europe.
There are some very tasteful ones available, some even with acoustic layers within the panel to minimise rain noise.

Right but with a solid roof it's not a conservatory, or so SWMBO says, and SMBO.

One possible product I found - TIMax GL-PlusF - comes with an acoustic reduction rating.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'solid roof panels' that would warrant the description 'tasteful' though? A solid roof is pretty much the same as another solid roof isn't it?

We were told that polycarbonate is widely used for conservatory roofs as it is much lighter than glass, and so the structure is much cheaper. We were told that a polycarbonate roof would not meet Building Regs for a heated room.

We went for a sunlouge instead, which as far as PP and BR are concerned is just a normal house extension that happens to have a lot of windows. So it has a slate roof with several 100 mm of insulation. It does have heating but TBH we only use it during the daylight when it heats itself solarwise.