If you work in a modern place then you probably have broad, expansive windows that give the room an airy, open feel and admit plenty of sunlight. This has a number of advantages. For starters, you cut down on lighting bills – and sunlight is far nicer than electric lights. It’s brighter, and the mixture of wavelengths is (by definition) more ‘natural’, meaning that people generally feel better in the sun than under filament lights. It also decreases heating bills. The problem comes when it’s summer, and the building can overheat. Then, you have a different situation, since you have to spend money you saved on heating on new air conditioning. Another solution is to retrofit a brise soleil, or glass louvres. External louvres can be an effective way of having the best of both worlds – allowing the sun to warm your premises in the winter, but not overheating them in the summer.
There are a number of variants on the theme, and the precise version will depend on your circumstances – your climate, for starters, but also where your building is positioned and which way it faces. Some louvres are movable, and can be controlled from minute-to-minute to react to conditions on the day. Others are fixed, though these can still be very effective. One of the most simple but helpful types is a ‘shelf’ which admits low-angle winter sun, or light at the earliest part of the day when the sun is still low in the sky. In the summer, or the middle of the day, when the sun tends to be overhead, the shelf blocks its light from the windows.
The brise soleil – French for ‘sun breaker’ – is a permanent sun blocking structure that can take a variety of forms. Sometimes it is little more than a horizontal surface projecting from the side of the building. On other occasions they are more complicated, perhaps being slatted to admit a proportion of the sun, or only sun at certain times of day or year. These, along with glass louvres (which can be used in conjunction with a sun breaker), are effective solutions to managing sunlight, which can result in big savings for your business. If this is something that your office finds a problem, then external louvres might be something to look into.
Please visit http://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.
http://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/
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