27
Energy Saving Week 2011
It’s Energy Saving Week this week and today (Thursday 27/10) is ‘energy efficiency in the home day’. The Energy Saving Trust website gives lots of advice to homeowners about roof and wall insulation but unfortunately not enough, in the Superheroes’ opinion, about thermally efficient windows and doors. So they decided to write about it here!
Unlike other household energy efficient products such as washing machines, dishwashers, boilers and other electrical items, triple glazing does not have a operational carbon footprint as such i.e. the use of windows does not directly cause CO2 emissions. They do however have an embodied carbon footprint which is the amount of CO2 used during the manufacture and installation of the replacement triple glazed windows and doors. All products have an embodied carbon footprint, to a greater or lesser extent.
However because of the vast amount of energy and carbon emissions that homeowners can save as a result of having thermally efficient triple glazing, it’s actually possible that the embodied carbon footprint of the windows and doors will be repaid/offset in less than two years after installation. Bearing in mind that triple glazed windows and doors from the Triple Glazing Superheroes come with a 20 year guarantee, homeowners can confidently keep these windows in-situ at thier home for 20 years which means that they could potentially be saving energy for 18 years, once the embodied carbon footprint has been offset within the first 2 years.
As a result, homeowners who invest in replacement triple glazing could save in the region of £10,000 from their heatingbills and up to 30 tonnes of carbon emissions over 20 years. And that is why the Triple Glazing Superheroes think that triple glazed windows and doors are an important consideration when thinking about energy efficiency in the home.
This topic is also touched upon in previous blog posts about loft and wall insulation and energy price increases.
