The front of our house is south facing and on sunny hot days we get the sun directly on our windows. This is a good thing in winter but in summer it can get very hot. With weather like the last couple of days perhaps getting more frequent, I'm wondering vaguely about some sort of external shutters or shades for those windows. Has anyone got anything like that? I'm in the UK and AIUI the shutters you sometimes see around are basically just decorative.
I guess it’ll depend strongly on your building design as to whether external shutters will work. Ours are almost flush with the external walls and so shutters are more difficult than in buildings in France for example.
We fitted microlouvre to our house. A slightly different approach.
https://greenefire.com.au/app_prod_cat/microlouvre/
Just look over the north sea. The Dutch and Belgians have all sorts of these things. Such as:
https://sunshade-experts.com/drop-arm-awnings
We have pertian type external shutters with mosquito nets on the pertian parts so we can open the windows at night. The last few days that's got the temperature down to 24° in the morning and the house heats up to 26° late evening. Outside it's been 18-23 in the morning and 32-33 in the afternoon. In the Winter I board to epertian parts to improve insulation.
For the glass front door I've made up an external curtain and for the Velux I drape an aluminised camping mat over it.
We got triple glazing fitted with the solar reflecting glass. It’s very effective.
Thanks all. I hadn't thought about the triple glazing /solar reflective approach. The other thing I've come across is external venetian blinds.
@Daffy good point about what your windows will actually allow when they weren't done with shutters in mind
As well as windows, consider what the floor and walls excellent externally are doing. Lots of planting, on pots even, a climber up the wall, replacing the 'junction' between a hard floor like patio and hard wall with a hedge can make significant difference.
Why don't you just put up internal blinds? Our blackout blinds keep the room cool and they fold down when not required.
Why don't you just put up internal blinds? Our blackout blinds keep the room cool and they fold down when not required.
Internal blinds let heat into the building before you then want to reflect it back out. They are just behind window panels designed to keep heat in. They are less effective than external blinds.
External blinds also allow you to leave windows open for airflow.
Edit: https://kensingtonblinds.uk/external-blinds-vs-internal-blinds/
Internal blinds let heat into the building before you then want to reflect been out. They are just behind window panels designed to keep heat in. They are less effective than external blinds.
True, but they're lot cheaper than new triple glazing or external shutters and seem to work for SE England temperatures.
I'm seriously considering eyelet rawlbolts with a catenary wire between them externally over two of my bungalows windows, id then hang a white dust sheet off it on the few days of crazy heat we do get
We got triple glazing fitted with the solar reflecting glass. It’s very effective.
We have tripple glazing but with normal glass because solar gain is quite handy in Winter. On the part of the building I've built myself I calculated the roof overhang so the windows get no sun between May and August but only 10% of the glass is shaded in December - warm in Winter cool in Summer.
s facing, big windows, and irritating house design (cladding above windows so limited mount point options. - would do a sort of motorhome awning with pull out legs if better mount facilties) we already have full size pull down rollers inside which work fairly well.
I looked at the cheaper/bodgier options (it is only x days a year, where x is low but increasing)
- hooks and a sheet etc as above
- cheap outdoor roller blinds and brackets so I could clip the entire blind in and out
- they do sideways pull outdoor screens /windbreaks, so clip mount them
- cheap, large (3 x 4m) swivel/tilt patio umbrella but I don’t think that will quite cover all angles but will be handy for sitting under.
We’ve also got shutters on our patio doors and mesh, the shutters can be fully down or slightly up so it touches the floor but there are ventilation holes you can then have the door open with a mesh.
I was speaking to my m8 about this and reckon the cost for something like it in the U.K. would be pretty frightening but the Spanish prices were very very good.
Sort of thing you’d ship over pre Brexit.
(Not DoDs actual house 🙂 )
Surrey. Victorian house. Internal blinds everywhere - make no difference. Holiday let in Spain had external ones - made a big difference. Suspect fitting such in the UK would be ££££££££ on older houses.
I'm seriously considering eyelet rawlbolts with a catenary wire between them externally over two of my bungalows windows, id then hang a white dust sheet off it on the few days of crazy heat we do get
Such as this, there are cheaper ideas.
Long term though, I can see huge new business opportunities in external blinds in the UK.
The Spanish ones (persianas)are part of the window frame unit and they tend to build the hole in the wall bigger on the inside than the outside.
The gray is protective plastic but you would see it as a panel above the window in the room side with the bit you pull to put it up or down on the side
Some have internal netting you can slide down or a slide .
Its sliding windows you can take out from inside with double glazed units
You can automate them as well , they are very common and well priced
Internal blinds are still better than nothing, it's still reflective-ish and if wavelengths made it through the glass one way, they'll make it back the other so you're just left with however much of the energy the blinds absorb and transfer to the air in the room. And are definitely going to be a lot cheaper than an engineered solution and look a lot neater than your old bedding on a jerry rigged washing line.
We've got Velux blackout blinds and they keep the sun out but they get red hot. You can feel the heat blasting off them like a radiator. Our top floor is unliveable in this weather.
I'm waiting for some cheap silver window tint to arrive. That will hopefully be a short term relief.
External blinds would definitely work on our house if we could find something suitable.
In th eday I leave the window open and put a chunk of 140mm polyurethane insulation in place. At night that gets repalced with a mosquito net. Given it's 34° this afternonn I think 27° inside is quite good.
External blinds would definitely work on our house if we could find something suitable.
I have external mesh blinds on my velux windows, they do noticeably reduce the temperature of the glass on a hot day. Fitting is DIY, I usually pull them down during the first hot spell of the year and retract them in September.
A decent overhanging eave is really useful.
We don't have a/c or heating in our place - a white roof, lots of insulation, overhanging eaves, high ceilings with dc fans and microlouvre (keeps the heat out but still allows light in, which blinds and shutters don't do). We don't even have double glazing apart from one room that is least shaded.
We had electric external blinds added to two South-facing rooms (a company called lexblinds). About £1500 for two windows.
Electric, driven from the mains, with a remote control.
It keeps the sun out but it does mean you can't open the windows more than a crack. The windows have trickle vents of course.
They used to get ragingly hot; so far this year they do feel cooler but I don't have any temperature measurements to really prove that.
I'm still awake at 4am but mainly because the sun is already up, and the pigeons and blackbirds in the garden are so ridiculously loud.
We have a massive tarp at the rear of the house, which covers the patio sofa and stops light coming directly into the kitchen, it stays up all summer. Also a decathlon tarp over the rooflight.
Neither any use at the front,
On the 40 degree days we had a couple of years ago I taped cardboard to the windows.
You could hang a simple slatted shutter with hooks, and eyelets. Just hang and remove each day, and store in the winter.
Otherwise glue a photo of some nice Mediterranean blinds onto celotex and push fit that over the window.
It keeps the sun out but it does mean you can't open the windows more than a crack. The windows have trickle vents of course.
Indeed most UK houses have outward opening windows.
Up here in Scotland you get more 'tilt and turn' inward opening windows.
A cheap win is planting to create shade. Internal blackout blinds are better than nothing. I have solar reflecting glass too. Q comfortable as heat rises and I live downstairs.
You could just tape up white paper inside of glass. A tenant puts up the foil coated insulation as he s s facing and WFH...looks like he s growing something tho.
It keeps the sun out but it does mean you can't open the windows more than a crack
Isn't the advice that you should cover and keep closed windows during the day to reduce heat in a house.
The cheapest temporary bodge is possibly just greenhouse shade paint. Generally white but I think there are coloured versions if there's an artist in the house to help make it look a bit nicer.
Drop arm awnings and reflective glass here in the snowy wasteland of sweeden.
Also a large wind out awning at the front (north facing), which is useful in the spring
I looked in to this in some depth a few years ago as we were planning a self build house.
I even started a thread on here
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/off-topic/european-style-external-roller-shutters/#post-12832487
There really does seem to be a big gap in the market in the UK for a supplier of these kind of things that are common in continental Europe.
I found a few super high end places, and plenty of shop security type shutters, but nothing comparable to the low tech cord operated manual inbuilt ones that go above the lintel (either hidden or surface mounted) in the UK, of the type you can easily pick up at any builders merchant or even Leroy Merlin (same owner as B&Q) in France.
I also became a bit conscious of the actual perceived security of them, given how uncommon they are in the UK. Nobody really thinks twice about a house with shutters down in many European countries, but in the UK shutters down for a long period might suggest a house is unoccupied.
In the end, we designed the house to have large overhangs to the ground floor to reduce solar gain in the summer. All windows are triple glazed, and those unshaded have a coating to prevent solar gain.
For new build houses now, Part O of Building Regs is quite stringent on insulation, glazing sizes and solar gain. The main reason why many mass-built new builds have tiny windows, as it is the easiest way to comply with Part O. We chose to not decrease window size, but use other measures (as described above) to comply. Spendy, and more design work, but ultimately we think it is worth it.
However.... We have used tilt/turn inward opening windows on some areas, so that we can fit external blinds in the future if the market develops.
