Cooling down in the office – too hot at work 1 – Blinds/Shades

Which blinds do you use?

At this time of the year, the amount of heat being generated in your house by sunlight is far more troublesome than the benefits from lighting it gives. This means that you would actually be more energy efficient during the summer if you had no windows. As this isn’t a possibility, the solution is blinds/shades. Lots of people think blinds are just there to cut our glare on computer screens, but no… they also can have a significant role on keeping heat out. Different blinds have very different effectiveness at this though.

There are two main types of blinds that people use. The first type are simply a sheet of fabric rolled up above the window which can be lowered as required to stop the light as required. The second use a series of parallel shades (louvers) which can be rotated to an angle suitable to reflect light out of the room, or onto the ceiling of the office, as required.

Well from the point of view of cooling your office down, the idea is this… reflect light back out of the office. If you allow it to be absorbed in the office, the majority of it will be transformed into heat, which is the problem.

So… The principles are

Dark blinds are bad, as dark things absorb more light, and so convert it to heat, that bright ones do

Shiny/reflective things are better as they are better at reflecting the light. Mirror would be best

So with these ideas in mind

Parallel shades are better as they are more reflective.

Dark, or perforated shades are a bad idea.

The wider the parallel shade the better, as it has more chance of reflecting out the sunlight