Everyone wants a home with large windows that enable a significant amount of sunlight to penetrate the room. A room flooded with light is often a calming and pleasant aesthetic that many homeowners are eager to embrace.
However, many homeowners do not understand the risks that come with having such a design. The biggest complication is that these large windows can turn your house into a hotbox in the warm summer months, increasing the average temperature by almost 10 to 11 degrees. When this happens, most families or homeowners tend to opt for blackout curtains.
While they are entirely able to block the sunlight, blackout curtains cannot give you a view of the outside, turning your home into a gloomy and dark area, even during the bright daytime.
So what is the answer for individuals who want to see their surroundings while also protecting their home from the sun’s harsh rays?
The simple answer is window shades.
Window solar shades are one of the most useful and effective options for window coverage. They are completely unobtrusive and are generally an inexpensive way of keeping your home cool, even in the harsh summer. Here is a guide to choose them.
Understand Your Requirements
Solar shades can block up to 95% of the UV rays that would normally penetrate through your windows. This is important because UV rays are the primary heat-causing rays of the sun that can even cause damage to your furniture and floors.
An ideal way to check the blocking strength of a solar window shade is to check its label. Any new solar window shade will have a label that explicitly lists the percentage of UV rays that a specific shade can block out. If the shade has a very high UV rating, then it means that it will allow lesser heat to enter the room through the windows.
However, if you go with solar shades that have incredibly high UV ratings, then you should keep in mind that while they will keep your home cool in the summer, they can also have the counterintuitive effect of preventing the sun from warming your room in the winter.
Look for Openness
Openness is a factor that plays a significantly crucial role in how solar window shades operate. The term openness refers to the intensity of the tightness with which the solar shade fabric is woven. If the solar shade has a low openness level, the fabric weave is extremely tight. A tighter fabric weave means that the solar shade is capable of blocking the sun to a greater degree.
Select the Right Fabric Weave
If you go with a looser fabric weave, you are looking at a higher openness level, which would block a significantly lower portion of the sun’s rays. You may feel that the smartest option is to go with a solar shade with the lowest openness level possible.
However, it would help if you kept in mind that the lower the openness levels of a solar shade, the lesser the visibility. In other words, your visibility of the outside world will be significantly diminished, and you will be able to see much less of what is outside the window. This is because the fabric weave is so tight that it barely allows any light from the outside to come to the house’s interior.
Conversely, if you go with a looser fabric weave, it will block lesser light, and as such, will grant a higher level of visibility to the outside. A typical ranging scheme goes from 0% to 14%. With 0%, you are providing the least visibility, and 14% ensures the most. There are multiple options in between for you to choose from.
Depending on the kind of climate your home is more conducive to, you can pick the solar shade with the right amount of openness to perfectly suit your requirements. Even then, the most commonly recommended level of openness for solar window shades is 5% to 7% for most American climates.
Buy Window Shades from a Reputed Seller
It is ideal to go with window shades that are crafted by reputable and reliable providers. A reputed provider will ensure that the quality of the weave is perfect. Quality providers also create window shades in a large variety of colors and options for you to choose from. It enables you to pick a brand or a pattern that would go best with your home’s existing decor.
Make the right selection for durability, comfort, and sun protection inside your home.
