Conservatory Conservationists Choose Low-Emissivity Glass
Energy efficient Gardinia conservatories & windows reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions and save on heating costs.
With climate change being classed as a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism, local company Gardinia Windows have come up with an innovative way to help us all become more energy efficient, benefiting not only the environment but also our pockets.
The General Manager of the Leeds Road based company, Allan Hinchliffe, says: "We've changed the profile of our PVC frames and the double glazed units. It's, basically, two products that we've developed specifically to increase thermal benefits for the customer and to be environmentally-friendly, as well as giving structural integrity. The profile, which is the PVC frame, is called Ultimate 2 and the glass is Climat-Gard (XL)."
Manager Stephen Halstead continues: "The Ultimate 2 profile is a five-chambered system; between the inside and the outside you've got six walls of PVC and, obviously, the five air chambers, so it improves the thermal efficiency considerably. It has been designed to move along with future developments in building regulations, which have been in force since 2002. They're looking now to 'up the ante' to improve thermal efficiency so this product will meet the next stage, whenever that may come along. In addition, the Ultimate 2 is structurally stronger because of the amount of chambers. Another benefit is that there are no lead additives. If you go back many years, the original profiles contained cadmium, which was then banned so manufacturers switched to lead. One of the problems in the past with PVC products was the recycling of them, because of the lead content but this product is totally lead-free, making it green.
"It's the same with the glass; because the glass area is the largest part of the window that's where you lose the most heat. Again, building regulations in 2002 set the thermal efficiency, well Climat-Gard (XL) takes things a step further. The coating that is on the inner side of the glass helps Climat-Gard achieve an extraordinary 240% improved efficiency against a standard double glazed unit; it's filled with Argon gas, which is a better insulator than just air. And also, since coated glass came into the building regulations, they gave a tint to the glass, but on this new product the coating is virtually transparent so it looks more like what we would call 'normal' glass than the current ones. The spacer separating the two panes of glass is a revolutionary structural foam super spacer, which reduces heat loss around the edge of the double glazed unit compared to traditional aluminiun spacers"
Allan concludes: "This represents really good news for our clients, as these impressive efficiencies translate into major savings on heating bills. Not only this but Ultimate 2 and Climat-Gard are helping the environment by enabling less energy to be required to heat properties, therefore helping to cut down greenhouse gases. It's not just a gimmick it does work."
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