InSync Solar

“Engineered for Performance”

A few years ago, I coined the term Engineered Shading Solutions. This is defined as “…sustainable systems for interior and exterior window coverings, which engage the latest technologies to control heat, glare, and light”. While a great deal of the technologies are concerned with the hardware and control systems, the third leg of these engineered solutions are the fabrics. For it is the fabrics that actually control the heat, glare and light.

Engineered for Performance 
Solar shade fabrics are a good place to start with the challenge of controlling solar heat gain into a room. In winter, we want the shades raised to allow the solar radiation to heat up the cold spaces. In warmer months, the solar heat gain needs to be controlled.

Solar shade fabric fights solar heat gain on several fronts: openness of weave, color of the fabric, and innovative reflective material. Let’s start with openness. Solar shade fabrics are manufactured with a variety of openness, such as 3, 5, and 10 percent open. A 5 percent openness means that 95 percent of the cloth is closed. As you can imagine, the tighter the weave, the more solar heat gain protection the fabric provides. 

In choosing openness, the decision is influenced by the orientation of the windows. Northern-facing windows need the least protection (10 percent openness as suitable). For exposures with direct sunlight, 3 or 5 percent is required to effectively reduce solar heat gain.

Openness of Fabrics from 0% to 14%

We recently completed a project that included Lutron motorized shades custom built pockets. Below is a great display of the custom motorized shades coming down directly from the ceiling pockets. Due to the construction obstructions we used aluminum fascias in a white finish as you see below.

Lutron Sivoia QS Triathlon Shades are the most fashionable, flexible and affordable motorized shading system available today. This battery-powered solution offers industry-leading battery life for easy installation and maintenance, perfect for retrofit applications.

Lutron Sivoia QS Wireless Roller Shades create the perfect light for any space or activity with an offering of sheer, dim-out, and blackout fabrics. Choose a sheer to maintain view while diffusing UV rays that may damage furnishings. Dim-out fabrics provide privacy while blackout fabrics are 100% opaque to eliminate all daylight. 

Lutron also offers tensioned shades for skylight, angled, and bottom-up applications, as well as cable guided shades for angled windows up to 20^o and areas of high velocity airflow.

How do window shades and in particular exterior solar shades play a role in “sustainable design”?  To understand the role that these shades play, we need to understand what is sustainable design. A good definition comes from the AIA website where it states that “sustainable design is a collaborative process that involves thinking ecologically— studying systems, relationships, and interactions—in order to design in ways that remove rather than contribute stress to systems”.

The last part of that statement – in order to design in ways that remove rather than contribute stress to systems – has an important association to exterior solar shades. This next generation in window coverings succeeds as a sustainably designed solution because it removes stress to systems by reducing over 85% the amount of solar energy entering a space and thereby reducing the amount of energy required for cooling. This is a certain qualifier for making the exterior solar shade a sustainable solution.

It is true that putting any type of solar shade fabric on the exterior side of a window can reduce solar heat gain. However, the critical question to ask is: What type of exterior solar shades are the best at reducing solar heat gain as well as, withstand high winds, have a long useful lifespan, is easy to maintain and provides a quick return on investment? Let’s examine these challenges to determine the three best exterior solar shade solutions.

Below is a interesting article from Fox news and posted on houzz on Pergola exterior shading systems that we wanted to share – below is a link to the article and see below http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2016/03/17/which-pergola-is-right-for/

Whether you’re planning an outdoor entertaining area or want to improve the one you have, a covered pergola could be the missing ingredient that creates a versatile space you can use no matter what the weather’s doing. These inspiring options will have you transforming your own outdoor room before you know it.

The Passive House shade revolution has arrived and it’s the future of all residential and commercial design. However, many of the underlying concepts would be very familiar to our ancestors who lived in a world without access to abundant energy. Houses had window awnings, large wrap around covered porches, high ceilings with fans, and tall double hung windows with bulky floor to ceiling drapes. The list goes on but all of these ideas were an answer to a need to create comfort without lots of energy.

The idea was simple when it came to windows. Get the light without the glare and heat in the summer while capturing the warm winter sun when it was low in the sky. It worked and was purely passive in design. Interior window coverings were needed to cover over the windows at night when it got too cold or to block out the intense sun during the summer. The solution often resulted in an all or nothing designs where the underlying window was completely hidden by the coverings. Fancy drapery designs were developed to compensate for this short coming.   

As a thirty-year veteran in the window covering industry I have seen many exciting products come and go. Nothing has ever compared to the Model Systems Italia’s TF51 Motorized Bottom Up Solar Shades. TF51 stands for tension force and this is the magic behind the system. Tension force means that the gravity defying hem bar provides the constant tension to the fabric and as you will see below works great as a bottom up shade system. 

The previous way of achieving tension on the fabric was with two rollers: one roller with the motor and the other roller with a spring to provide the tension. This system falls short of the TF51 because it requires an extra bulky roller, less tension, which means more sagging and functions only on smaller dimensions.

The new line of Exterior Awning Systems provides a variety of sophisticated shading options that inspire and enhance any outdoor setting. From the sleek inconspicuous casing of the highly sought after Shan Awning to the outspoken nautical elegance of the Defense Shade Sail, custom shading systems are an essential presence in outdoor living and shading design. Below you fill find the different types of custom Pergolas systems available. For more information and pricing contact us today.

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