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General: Suspended film glazing - why put a low-e coating on the film?

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    Playing around with Window it looks like you could get very good u-value results with a triple glazing suspended film with no coating on it, and low-e coatings on the glass facing the gaps i.e. one "flipped".

    When suspended film was first introduced, low-e glass was expensive and not widely available, so two low-e layers on the film made a lot of sense. Now low-e glass is widely available with very effective soft coats, I don't see the point of using the inferior coatings (e=0.110) that can be applied to the suspended film. (I'm assuming only one film in a triple glazing configuration.)

    Using film selected purely for its durability would make suspended film glazings cheaper, and more competitive. Companies could make suspended film glazings without having to source special film. I'm assuming manufacturing the glazing units is not hard compared to making the film?

    Thoughts?
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    Hi, have you calculated the contribution that the low e coating makes to the u-value?
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      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeOct 22nd 2012
     
    You're talking about Heat Mirror e.g http://www.shardaglass.co.uk/heat-mirror-insulating-glass.html ? (very little co.uk stuff comes up in Google - esp since the Albo re-shuffle). Are there any other makes?
    • CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeOct 22nd 2012
     
    @passivhausfan, what you say sounds plausible to me. One other aspect of the films apart from their effect in the infra-red may be their effect in the visible spectrum. i.e. Do the plastic films generate more noticeable reflections than glass, and does the film help control them?

    @mike, the suggestion is to move the films from one surface to another, not to add or remove films, so the effect on the U-value should be minimial I would have thought.
  5.  
    @djh: Maybe, but I've never heard of any such problem with acrylic, and it doesn't go yellow or otherwise degrade as far as I know.
    • CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeNov 19th 2012
     
    Posted By: passivhausfan@djh: Maybe, but I've never heard of any such problem with acrylic, and it doesn't go yellow or otherwise degrade as far as I know.

    I don't know lots about the films, but they aren't acrylic are they? You can't generalise from one type of plastic to another; they can have quite different properties.

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