4 Energy Efficient Innovations for Autumn | Glaze & Save

The weather outside is certainly not frightful, but there’s no denying that the chill in the air spells the changing of the seasons. Now is the perfect time to start investing in energy efficiency innovations for your home or workplace that will pay dividends in the coming colder months.

Energy efficiency isn’t only for saving money and providing comfort in your home or business, although that is a very important benefit! Currently Europe’s buildings; homes, businesses and public areas, use roughly 40% of all energy in circulation. This is more than either the industrial or transportation sectors, which use 32% and 28% respectively.

“This translates into about 20 exajoules of energy per year - the rough equivalent of 3.5 billion barrels of oil - and means our buildings are responsible for about 36% of the continent's carbon emissions.”

Never before has it been so important to curb our appetite for energy, and our buildings seem to be a great place to start making some significant savings.

Intelligent Lighting

As the darker nights draw in it’s only natural that we would want to use artificial lighting more and more. After all, it is not only more comfortable, but safer to inhabit a well-lit environment. And while automatic lighting is not a new thing, there are new advances that develop this concept even further.

Several new developments in lighting such as Li-Fi, the use of indoor positioning to track location, and the increase of recycled materials in lighting have all firmly put lighting in the tech sphere.

However one of the main developments is that of good old LED lighting. According to the US Department of energy, swift and extensive adoption of LED bulbs over the next two decades will save an astonishing $265billion , while also eliminating the need to build 40 new power plants and save hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.

Which? reported last year that the average UK household could save £232 per year by switching their halogen bulbs to LEDs, making this innovation a must have for your home as the dark nights set in.

Staying insulated

It mightn’t be sexy, but insulation is vital to ensuring that your building stays thermally efficient. While you may be aware of developments in commonly used insulators such as insulating concrete forms and structural insulated panels, there is a new development that has been causing something of a stir in the insulation industry.

“A new type of insulation, which employs a different thermal principle, has been creating a small sensation in the field since its emergence a little more than five years ago. Unlike typical insulation that traps air in pockets, often between strands of fibrous material to resist the flow of heat, phase-change materials (PCMs)absorb or discharge heat as they change back and forth from a solid to liquid state. In a sense they "melt" and "freeze" at conditions close to room temperature and draw in or release heat in the process.”

There is also a natural alternative to some of the more environmentally concerning PCMs on the market. Unfired clay boards may provide a more natural alternative , simulating PCM-type properties while regulating moisture levels, providing acoustic insulation and absorbing smells.

Geothermal Heat Pumps

2018 has been the year of the efficient heat pump, with recent innovations placing the humble heat pump in the perfect space to provide more heating and cooling facilities to more homes. Recent developments include new utility programme designs with an eye on escalating the uptake heat pumps for both water and space heating; increased access to geothermal heat pump systems through the development of cheaper drilling techniques, and the increased consensus by the research community that air source heat pumps are “cost effective and cold climate ready” .

An international team of researchers has joined forces through the GEOTeCH project, where they have used advances made geothermal heat pump technology to develop a novel dual-source heat pump unit for heating, cooling and domestic hot water production. The pump is being demonstrated and monitored in four sites across Europe, one of which is UK project partner De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) .

InvisiTherm®

Existing secondary glazing solutions are often limited in their capabilities, offering little for areas with multiple issues, or where internal aesthetics is a key driver. That’s where an innovative solution like InvisiTherm® comes in.

InvisiTherm® is the most efficient energy saving secondary glazing on the market, giving a U-Value as low as 1.7.

InvisiTherm® is constructed from sophisticated slimline polycarbonate, coupled with our long life non-polarity magnet. InvisiTherm® can achieve a draught free and soundproofed environment with an efficient heat repelling system; all of which deliver outstanding results. Best of all, Glaze & Save InvisiTherm® is virtually invisible.

As Glaze & Save InvisTherm® is a warm product: we will eradicate condensation, giving you back your views, and prolonging the life of your existing windows, reducing the need for cleaning or painting.

It’s no wonder that with all of these benefits (and more) that we call ourselves the all-in-one window solution.

Protect your windows and experience a warmer, cozy and more thermally efficient home with InvisiTherm ® the all-in-one window solution. Reduce heat loss by 63%, Reduce noise by a minimum of 48%, eradicate condensation and draughts, and completely eliminate ultraviolet fading, all without the need for any permissions. Retain your original windows and full working shutters while turning your single glazing into double glazing. Contact today on 01738 562 068 or via our contact formto find out more and arrange your free survey.