- January 15, 2022
- Glass and Mirror Products Info
How to choose the Glass for Skylight/Rooflights?
There’re a variety of glass options that can be used in Skylight
It is often confusing to decide what kind of glass to be used in terms of safety, thermal and solar performance, and balancing cost with the benefits.
Let’s see what’s the type of glass for the skylights.
Double Glazed Insulating Glass
The double glazed unit used in glass skylight should be toughened glass or heat strengthened glass.
The inner panel may be toughened or laminated depending on location and height above ground.
If the rood skylight height doesn’t exceed 5 meters, double insulated glass is the most economic option, If the height exceeds this, then laminated glass should be used for the inner pane.
To increase the glass performance, several factors need to consider:
1. LOW-E Coating
Low emissivity coating on the glass surface will decrease the thermal insulation performance, especially the U value from 2.8W/m2.k to only 1.6W/m2.k, when combining with argon, the typical U value of the glass center will decrease to only 1.2W/m2.k.
According to the U value, SC requirement, to choose Single Silver Low-E, Double Silver Low-E, or Triple Silver Low-E Glass.
2. Tinted Anti Sun Glass
This body-tinted tempered glass is usually used as the outer pane, the solar coefficient of body-tinted glass is 0.6-0.8.
But the price is only slightly higher than normal float glass, which gives the added benefit of reducing solar heat gain in the summer season at a reasonable cost.
3. Reflective Glass
Coating the solar control film on the surface of clear float glass or tinted glass to achieve low transmittance, high reflectivity, reduce the SC value of the glass, and achieve the effect of shading.
4. Large Panel Rooflights
The most common insulated glass use 4-6mm thick glass, but when the skylight is too big, for example, 2000*3000mm or even larger, thicker glass shall be considered, 8mm,10mm, and even 12mm.
This requires specialist manufacturing and installation by experienced companies with the necessary handling equipment and expertise. Much thicker toughened & laminated glass won’t deflect easily and can resist higher wind load, snow load, and live load.
Triple Glazed Insulated Glass Units
Compared with double glazed units, Triple glazed units has better thermal insulation performance, when double piece low emissivity coatings glass are used, the U value can decrease to only 0.60W/m2.K Consideration.
However, the glass thickness, glass costs are much higher than double glazed units.
Neutral Solar Control Reflective Glass
This has a special coating that provided improved solar control and appears more neutral in color, this coating allows maximum light transmittance but with a good U value.
It’s recommended to use cold areas, such as northern Europe and Canada.
Eliter Glass is an excellent provider of professional solutions for building glass and decorative glass applications in China.
Contact us learn to more.