Passive House Solar Shades
The Passive House is designed to achieve maximum solar heat gain by orienting its largest windows with southern exposure with the intent of providing at least 50% of the building’s heating demand. While this works well in the winter months when the low angled sun radiates heat into the space, this solar radiation becomes excessive during the summer months and needs to be shaded. InSync Solar provides both exterior and interior shades with the needs of the Passive House in mind.
The most effective way to prevent too much solar heat gain from entering through the windows is with exterior window shades. Exterior window shades are an excellent solution because of its superior performance in reducing solar heat gain. The graphic below tells it all. A space with no shades allows 80% solar heat gain to enter a space. An interior shading solution offers better results blocking over 50% of the solar heat gain. However, for maximum results nothing beats an exterior window shade, which blocks over 85% of solar heat gain.
InSync Solar offers a wide selection of shades, blinds and shutters for the Passive House. Below are some of our most popular exterior and interior shading solutions:
Cable Guided Exterior Shade:
This gravity assisted exterior solar shade is elegantly designed and very versatile for both residential and commercial projects. The aluminum cassette is powdered coated in a range of standard colors or can be custom finished. The side cables are able to be mounted to the wall or floor as well as be integrated into the building façade. Read More
Zip Shade Exterior Shade
The Zip Shade is a breakthrough design that is revolutionizing the window shade industry. We call it a Zip Shade because a zipper-like locking device is welded to the fabric edges. The zipper slips into a side channel that keeps the fabric from falling out. The bottom hem-bar is weighted so when the shade is completely closed the fabric provides a drum like cover to the window. Read More
Interior Shades for The Passive House
Even though exterior shading solutions are preferred, they may not be possible for a variety of reasons, such as, “we never planned for exterior shades, now it’s too late”, or “we don’t have a budget for motorized shades”, or just simply “we don’t want exterior shades, we want interior shade”.
This incredible performer has a thin metallized coating on the street side of the fabric. This allows the sunlight to reflect off the fabric and back out though the glass. The result from the reflective backing is low transmittance, highly reflective and good absorbance numbers. Read More
