Choosing Efficiency First

When you choose a window for you home, sticker shock can make you focus on choosing the least expensive window that you can afford. The impulse to save money is understandable, but in this case it is misguided. In order to save money on your heating and cooling costs, you need to choose energy-efficient windows. While buying the most energy-efficient windows on the market is not necessarily a cost-effective idea, you need to know how an energy-efficient window is constructed so that you can buy the best window available for the amount of money you have to spend. 

Multiple Panes

A pane of glass does little to insulate your home. Instead, as the heat from a furnace warms the window from the inside, cold air moving across the outside surface will sap heat from the window, which will cause heat loss. Adding more panes of glass can help, but it is important to remember that it is the space between the panes of glass that is important. By sandwiching a layer of gas between the panes of glass, window designers can isolate the inside pane. While triple-pane windows will have three panes of glass, they come with a much higher price tag than double-pane windows, so you are much better served to go with a noble-gas-filled window than a triple-pane window

Gas Fills

While gases do not seem to have much substance to them, some gases are denser than others, and the denser a gas is, the more it will do to stop heat transfer through your windows. Older windows are filled with oxygen or a combination of oxygen and other gases. Newer windows will offer either argon- or krypton-filled windows. Both gases are denser than air, and while krypton is denser than argon, it comes with a much higher cost. Thus, in terms of how cost-effective a window is, argon-filled windows are not much less efficient than krypton, so even if you have to pay little more to heat your home with argon windows, you will save money in the long run. 

Warm-Edge Windows

Another way that temperature can transfer through a window is through the spacers that hold the panes of glass apart. If you put heat-conductive spacers between the panes of glass, the heat from your home can travel through these spacers to the outside, and thus you can still lose heat from the inside of your home. Thus, you should look for windows that use non-conductive spacers or the money you spend on noble-gas-filled windows can be wasted. 

Now that you know something about how energy-efficient windows are designed, you are equipped to purchase windows for your home. Remember that this is one instance where you definitely have to spend money up front to save money in the long run. 

For window installation, contact a company such as Solar Shield Windows.