At home, we cannot run away from the sun. If you are in a car, you could drive to a shade or park indoors for protection from the sunlight.
But a house is built on a fixed location, facing the sun every single day. The only time it gets shielded from the sun in Malaysia is perhaps during a cloudy or a rainy day.
Air conditioner is part of an essential need in Malaysia due to our year long sunny climate unlike countries with 4 seasons.
Tinting your house windows helps in protecting the house from more heat entering through the glasses.
Simply put, the more protected it is, the less electricity you use and the more money you save.
To understand how we save money, we have to understand a little about the heat load and how an air conditioner works.
Heat from the sun or commonly known as heat load enters our house via a few methods.
Firstly, through air gaps, open doors, ventilation and windows which bring in air from the outside that are usually hotter than inside.
This is why when we turn our air conditioners on, we tend to close off any possible way for air outside to enter or in other words ensure no cold air escapes out.
We can only do so much to ensure heat transfer from outside is minimal.
Next, another way for heat to enter is through the walls and surfaces of the house. During the evening, you may notice your interior walls are warmer.
This is due to the long hours of exposure to the sun, that it transfers heat through these materials.
In simple terms, thicker and more heat resistant materials reduce the transmission of heat into your house. We cannot control much of these as well.
Lastly, heat transfers through windows. Windows are transparent which allows more heat to enter easily.
Other than the sun glares, ultraviolet rays and infrared waves of heat are also transferred into our house.
Depending on the window size and direction it faces, it is arguably the highest contributor to the heat in your house.
This is the part where we could control the amount of heat entering by tinting our windows. A good tint blocks out enough heat entering through the windows.
This is where we need to understand how an air conditioner works. It basically cools the air inside to your pre-set temperature usually shown in your remote controller.
If you set on your controller a 24 degrees celsius, the air conditioner will continue working hard in order to cool your room to a 24 degrees.
When your room reaches 24 degrees, the air conditioner then slows down the hard work and tries to maintain the room temperature.
If your windows are not tinted, there is more heat coming in through the windows causing your air conditioner to work harder and longer to achieve the temperature you want.
If the heat load from the windows is too much, your air conditioner may not even be able to cool your room so it is stuck in a constant cycle of hard work.
The goal is to reduce the work of your air conditioner and it utilizes less electricity to cool your house.
If you have it all calculated from the start, a good tint may even allow you to reduce the air conditioner horsepower size, so you don’t have to buy an expensive larger size air conditioner right from the beginning.
So if you want to save some electricity at home, installing a tint on your house windows would certainly help.
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