Skylight Design Considerations

Before choosing a niche for your home, you need to determine what type of skylight will work best and where to improve energy efficiency in your home. Energy performance First, it’s a good idea to understand the energy performance assessments of skylights if you do not already. You can then determine what energy performance assessments you need for your skylight based on your climate and home design. For labeling energy-efficient skylights, ENERGY STAR standards established minimum energy performance rating by climate. However, these standards do not account for the design of a house. Therefore, if you are building a new home or doing some remodeling large, you should also take advantage of this opportunity to insert your own design and choosing a niche as an integral part of your complete home design approach for the construction of energy- efficient home. The size and position The actual size of the skylight greatly affects the illumination level and temperature of the space below. As a general rule of thumb, should be the size of an aperture never be more than 5 per cent of the floor area in rooms with many windows and no more than 15 percent of the total floor space of the room spaces with few windows. You should also consider the position of niche if you want to maximize daylight and I or the potential negative solar heating. Skylights on the roofs of buildings facing the north provide lighting fairly constant but cool. Those facing east and on the roofs to provide light and solar maximum heat gain in the morning. Western facing skylights provide afternoon sunlight and heat gain. South- facing skylights provide the greatest potential for winter negative unwanted solar heat gain more than anywhere else, but often allow unwanted heat gain in the summer. You can prevent unwanted solar heat gain by installing the skylight in the shade of the leaves of trees or add shedding movable window covering on the inside or the outside of the skylight. Some private glass units that can help in controlling the heat of the sun. Skylight glazing When choosing a niche for your home, it is important to consider what type of glass should be used to improve energy efficiency in your home. Depends on the design niche various factors, such as orientation and your climate you. May even want different types of glass skylights in all different parts of your home Skylight glass usually consists of metal or plastic, either. Other glass technologies that are used to control the heat of the sun. Plastic glazing Glass, plastic is usually expensive and less likely to break than most other materials glass. However, these plastic surfaces scratch easily, and they may become brittle and discolored with the passage of time. Plastic also allow many more of ultraviolet (UV) rays in (unless coated glass with a special film), which increases the damage of furniture fading. Acrylic and polycarbonate are the most widely used plastic glass. Acrylic is weaker than polycarbonate, but less expensive. Although the offer high polycarbonate impact resistance, some yellow with age. Glass Usually found on more expensive glass skylights. Glass is more durable than plastic and staining. And must make every glass used for skylights of “safety glass”, a general term for Glass Tempered and laminated on both. Tempered glass is the greatest impact resistant. And fabricated glass coated with a thin layer of plastic embedded near the center of the glass. Both keep the glass from breaking into pieces, large sharp. Often made skylights with tempered glass on the outer side and part coated on the inner side. This arrangement gives the maximum impact resistance while protecting passengers from glass shards from falling.