Natural light streaming through your windows is beautiful, but unfortunately, it is also damaging to your home’s interior. In many cases, windows can even act like a magnifying glass that concentrates the sun’s harmful UV rays.
Short of limiting sunlight by closing curtains and blinds, by adding awnings or by planting trees in front of windows, there is an effective modern option that will have a significant impact on the amount of damaging UV rays that can come through your windows without decreasing the natural light filtering in.
Short of limiting sunlight by closing curtains and blinds, by adding awnings or by planting trees in front of windows, there is an effective modern option that will have a significant impact on the amount of damaging UV rays that can come through your windows without decreasing the natural light filtering in.
What Can Be Damaged
Think Lion King: “everything the light touches.” The sun’s UV rays will, over time, fade, dry, dull and even warp everything in your home that is exposed to direct sunlight. Your floors and furniture will fade and dry out (leather is especially vulnerable); UV rays are particularly damaging to older pieces and antiques and can decrease their value. Wood or vinyl floors can warp and change color dramatically over time. The color of your photographs, sculptures and paintings will fade quite quickly when exposed to the sun’s UV rays (think about a museum – the painting galleries themselves rarely have windows for this reason). Your draperies will also fade when exposed to direct sunlight; even your walls will dull from sun exposure.
What You Can Do
Your best bet for keeping UV rays out is low-e (low-emissivity) glass. If you replace your windows with impact-rated, low-e windows, you will block 99.9% of UV rays. Glazed with an ultra-thin metallic coating thinner than a human hair, low-e glass reduces glare and filters out most of the UV (directly damaging) and infrared (heat) portions of the light spectrum while allowing the full amount of visible light to pass through. Emissivity refers to how your window handles the heat it absorbs. Low-e glass can also filter 40 to 70 percent of the heat that is normally transmitted through standard window glass by reflecting that heat rather than absorbing it. This spectrally-selective filtering not only blocks UV light but also reduces solar heat gain (read: cheaper electric bills).
Bonus Tip
This has nothing to do with windows, actually. But if you’re looking to avoid UV damage to your home’s interior, stick with LED lightbulbs instead of traditional incandescent bulbs. LEDs give off almost no UV rays compared to their conventional counterparts. While incandescent irradiance is certainly far less than that of sunlight, switching to LED bulbs wherever possible is a much safer option for your furniture, artwork, textiles, paint and flooring.
Natural light can help give your home its personality and is considered one of the most valuable characteristics of a space. Don’t shy away from beautiful windows flooding your home with light simply to avoid the sun’s damaging UV rays. Upgrade your windows to low-e glass, and you can have the best of both worlds – a bright and airy home without the caustic effects of direct sunlight. Plus, as an added benefit, low-e glass is extremely energy efficient and will save you money each month on utilities. (We’re just full of bonuses today!)