Blind date
Posted on - November 14, 2018Seeing is believing the old adage goes.
And seeing as we are not strangers to the problems of excessive sunlight we thought we’d give you a few pointers on how to manage glare.
Even during the colder months of the year — particularly due to the low angle of the sun — conditions in your home or workplace can be blinding.
Helpful Durable tips:
4 Ways to reduce glare
1) BLINDS
You can use blinds of course. They tend to ruin the effect of the glazed environment. You have all those lovely windows and fantastic view — but have to keep the blinds pulled right down in order to bear being in the room at all. It’s not ideal. And can be very costly.
Constantly messing with the blinds so they prevent the glare — but don’t block out all the natural daylight — is a pain. And if they do need to be pulled all the way down, what’s the point of a conservatory!
What you’re doing with blinds then is effectively creating an indoor tent, blocking out the view and turning up the heat. But hey, at least you can watch TV now, right…?
Blinds also create a gap between themselves and the glass. Throughout the day the air in this gap will heat up — creating further discomfort and turning the room into a sauna.
2) RE-ROOFING
All that glass. And it seemed like such a good idea to go the whole hog and have a beautiful fully glazed roof too. Gazing up at the stars at night. And it looks fab!
But – when the sun beats down and hits all that glass the heat and glare are magnified. There is nowhere to hide.
Again, blinds can be employed to control this, and can look very attractive too.
A better solution, though a bit more extreme, is re-roofing.
It seemed like a great idea to have an all-glass roof — but in reality it’s just not practical. So, replace the glass with other traditional roofing materials that don’t let the light through.
3) SUNGLASSES
Don’t laugh. This is a perfectly reasonable solution to issues of glare. Not only are sunglasses very economical and easy to install, they are stylish, allow for individuals own taste, portable (so can be used in more than one trouble-spot) and are easy to use.
High Tech developments even allow you to use lenses that react to the light — so controlling the glare is automatic.
Simple and effective. Bono has been using this method for years.
4) WINDOW FILM
Now you’re talking. With this solution you can not only reduce the glare — but also cut out the heat by up to 70%. It’s simple, elegant and cost effective — and doesn’t change the look or feel of your conservatory.
Hi-Tech Window Film, professionally installed, prevents the transference of heat through your glass so stops the room heating up in the first place. You don’t need to cool it down — it’s pleasant enough already.
No need to pull the blinds, or re-roof — or splash out on designer sunglasses.
Surprise, surprise
You can use the room perfectly as intended. And its not just the spring and summer months that benefit. Window film can help in the winter too — the sun is lower in the sky but can still be very bright and shine directly in to your eyes or line of vision.
Result!
This lovely customer constantly had their blinds pulled closed due to the excessive brightness of the sun.
It was a classic ‘glare’ scenario.
Blinds up — Lovely bright room but totally unbearable due to glare from the sun.
Blinds down — no glare but dark and hardly any natural daylight at all.
What to do?
Call Durable of course!
The window on the left has been treated with a film that reduces the
brightness by 94% and the other reduces the brightness by 87%.
The blinds may still need to be pulled down on some particularly bright days to provide added protection – but its far nicer than looking at a
closed blind 260 days a year!
(that’s the UK’s average annual working days per year).