Indications of a Green Future: Sustainable Window Treatments

Dave Stockton, an 19 year veteran and Vice President of Project Management for Window Interiors, has his LEED Accredited Professional designation<, LEED for New Construction 2.2v.  The LEED rating system course and exam tests competence in relation to green building practices and technical requirements for earning LEED credits towards LEED project certification.  Dave is also a member of the Central Florida Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. Dave has worked on more than 20 million dollars in commercial construction, healthcare, hospitality and facility projects over the last 19 years. 

Stockton is in charge of the estimating and project management daily functions and staff.  Dave’s project accomplishments include:

• The 1.1 million, automatically-controlled window treatment package for Adventist’s Health System’s new Ginsberg Tower @ Florida Hospital located in downtown Orlando, Florida. This facility features a 15 story tower with custom solar shades for the lobby, laboratories, corridors, icon tower and five floors of patient rooms. All patient rooms are equipped with individually motorized solar shades. The icon tower features conference rooms that are equipped with energy-saving solar shades as well as blackout shades operated by an advanced AV system on timers to highlight the buildings night-time effects. Installed in the escalator lobby are 448” solar shades controlled by state-of-the-art photo-cell activated sensor system that adjusts according to light intensity.

• The $500,000.00 window treatment package for the new Daytona Live Facility.  One of this facilities unique features is the five-stories of auto-controlled solar shades that graphically depict a racing scene visible from international Speedway Blvd in Daytona Beach, Florida.

• The $600,000.00 window treatment package, technical design and installation of the new Shands Cancer Center at the University of Florida In Gainesville.  The 550,000 SF, eight-story, LEED Gold project features private patient rooms with bedside, hand-held controls.  Manual solar shades were installed in all common areas and corridors. Motorized double-shades, with solar and blackout fabrics, were used in conference rooms, executive offices and training rooms. Motorized Solar Shades were also installed in the elevator lobbies and dining area to provide heat reduction, glare reduction & visual light control. These areas are controlled by the Building’s Automation System (BAS), which can activate these shades with light sensors, timers or by temperature of the facility to gain maximum energy efficiency at all times.

At Window Interiors, our clients recognize the long-term, sustainable benefits of solar shades. In fact, some clients have already recognized that windows are the greatest source of wasted energy in commercial spaces. That is because heat always moves from warm to cold areas. In many climates, the sun beating down on a building escapes easily through windows, demanding up to 50% more energy usage from air conditioning units. 

Here are some green FACTS to consider when retrofitting:

• Energy efficient window treatments are the best way to conserve energy and reduce a buildings overall energy usage.
  
• In fact, a government study concluded that “In most cases, solar shades are more cost-effective than replacing windows or other more expansive renovations and should be considered first.”
  
• Solar shades act as a barrier to heat-flow, trapping air between the shade and the window and in return save you money on energy costs.
• Window Interiors has commissioned our own independent study on overall effectiveness of solar shades.  Studies indicate improved concentration and increased productivity of employees, students and building occupants.

Solar Shade Study Accounts for
Reduction in Energy Costs

By Bill Graney, Jr. P.E.
Principal, KTD Consulting Engineers, Inc.
Published April 2009

We simplified the Thermoveil analysis by modeling a nursing home room in Tampa, Florida with a through-the-wall unit.  KTD ran the numbers to determine how much cost could be avoided with the use of the Thermoveil Shade Cloth.  We chose not to run an operating cost, just simple HVAC load usage.  To run our analysis we used product data from MechoShade Systems and compared ¼” double insulated glass with and without the Thermoveil Shade Cloth. The product used was a straw colored dense basket weave with an openness factor of .05%.  This resulted in a shading coefficient of .32 vs .60 for the double pane glass only.  The load runs were done for a south and west facing rooms, since these are the most demanding orientations. The south orientation peaked at 3:00pm in September and the west peaked at 4:00pm in August. Both the south orientation and the west orientation resulted in over a 13.8% reduction in peak load.  While this might not seem significant, it is. The building HVAC system can account for 40 % to 50% of a buildings energy use and the loading from the windows has a large impact on this. In this analysis, a central energy plant would have to be used to take advantage in the reduction of load. We intend to do an Op Cost Analysis on a larger facility in upcoming features. We will show results as this unfolds