A significant portion of Florida's residential building stock consists of single-family homes with clear, single-pane, aluminum frame windows. Such windows can lead to considerable heat gain during the hot Florida summer. A side-by-side field test in two identical homes was conducted to evaluate the impact of high performance windows on space cooling demand under realistic conditions.
FSEC, in conjunction with Mercedes Homes and Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG), is currently studying the effects of installing super-efficient windows in new homes.
In order to correctly measure the energy savings from the improved windows, two identical houses were built in Melbourne, Florida: one with conventional single pane, zero tint windows and one with super-efficient windows, Sungate 1000 windows.
The two houses share identical floor plans, orientation, color, and are located with 500 feet of one another. During the initial phase of the experiment, the two houses will be unoccupied for three summer weeks with the air conditioners set to maintain equal interior temperatures. During the secondary phase, the two occupied houses will be monitored for one year.
The Photos
section has pictures of both the base and improved houses, including
pictures of the interior, exterior, attic, and datalogging equipment. There
is also an example of some of the infrared photos that were taken at the
experimental site.
The Instrumentation
section has details on the sensors and datalogging equipment that is
installed in the two houses.
Finally, the Results
section has results from the experiment including comparison plots and
tabular data.
Transmittance |
Reflectance |
U-Value (Air) |
|||||||
Ultraviolet % | Visible % | Total Solar Energy % |
Visible Light % |
Total Solar Energy % |
Winter Night Time |
Summer Day Time |
C.O.G. Winter Night |
C.O.G. Summer Day |
|
Standard Windows |
73 | 76 | 83 | 9 | 8 | 1.23 | 1.16 | 1.11 | 1.03 |
Improved Windows |
16 | 60 | 35 | 12 | 33 | 0.47 | 0.49 | 0.33 | 0.35 |
Inside Surface Temp (F) |
|||||
Shading Coeff. |
Solar Heat Gain Coeff. | C.O.G. Solar Heat Gain Coeff. |
Winter Night | Summer Day | |
Standard Windows |
0.90 | 0.77 | 0.85 | 16.9 | 89.6 |
Improved Windows |
0.42 | 0.36 | 0.39 | 51.3 | 86.9 |
C.O.G. : Center of Glass