Cost of taking action: £/$/€ MOD
Scandinavian style triple glazing can save energy, money and carbon emissions
This is an action to take if you are considering replacing any windows in your house; it could be worth investing in super-insulating triple glazing to reduce your energy use and carbon footprint.
Efficient glazing helps to keep you warm when the temperature outside drops, and with the right glass can help keep you cooler in the summer months too. So you save on both heating and air conditioning bills and energy use.
Adding a second pane of glass to single glazed windows to make double glazing has proved an effective way of making homes more efficient. Adding a third pane to make triple glazing brings even more benefits. Triple glazing has proved popular in Scandinavian countries as a way of keeping out the cold.
They are more expensive to install, and so you will need to balance that with the savings you will make and your environmental impact, but it doesn’t cost anything to learn more about it and maybe ask your glazier for a quote.
Why is this important?
Reducing energy use is paramount if we are to get carbon emissions under control and have any chance of limiting global warming. The reduction in energy demand from an action like this means you are burning less gas, or reduces the need for your electricity company to generate power using fossil fuel (gas, oil or coal). Both of these limit the emissions of CO2, methane, and pollutants.
What is Triple Glazing?
By adding a third pane of glass to traditional double glazing, you have triple glazing. Between the 3 panes are 2 pockets of gas, which most of the time is either argon, xenon or krypton.
Benefits
Adding an extra pane of glass to a window might not sound like it would bring too many benefits to your home, but it could actually make quite a big difference. The additional pane will reduce levels of noise from the outside and increase the efficiency of your home by not allowing as much heat to escape. Here are some of the ways your home could benefit from triple glazing:
- Reduces your energy carbon footprint – Yay!
- Noise reduction
- A warmer home – less heat loss
- Increased efficiency and lower energy bills
- Reduce condensation
- Harder to break, more secure
- Add value to your home
Triple Glazing vs Double Glazing
Double Glazing is cheaper, lighter, but has a lower efficiency rating.
Triple Glazing is heavier, more expensive, but is stronger and has a higher efficiency rating.
Heavier windows require a stronger fitting to take the weight so that the wall is not damaged. This isn’t the hardest problem to solve thanks to modern fittings being extremely reliable and your installer should be able to advise.
The additional efficiency can typically add 2 degrees to the room temperature near the window, reducing heat loss by about 75% compared to double glazing.
You can expect to pay more to install triple glazing, but this will depend on your house and the savings you can make. However, quotes cost nothing!
The action
If you are thinking of replacing any windows, why not ask the glazing company for a quote for triple glazing as an option, and their estimates of how much energy and money it would save. You can then weigh this up and perhaps opt for the more efficient windows.
Improving the energy efficiency of housing stock all over the world is recognised as an important way of reducing the risks from global warming. This is one way of doing that, and we discuss many more in this library of actions.