CPFilms EnerLogic Low-E Window Film
Jan. 27, 2011 — Baby, it's cold inside. OK, well, maybe not for our Arizona readers, and we'll get to you in a minute, but from the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest and even down in unusually frosty Florida, this has been one frigid winter. (And let's not hear any "global warming" jokes — the "warming" part refers to trapped heat leading to overall climactic extremes. Semantics don't change science.) Keeping co-op and condo common areas heated to a reasonable temperature is hard enough — even double-paned windows let a certain amount of ambient cold in and radiant heat out. One possible fix: Film it.
No, we don't mean make a movie. We mean cover your condo / co-op windows in reflective window film. And while there are many window films that help keep summer heat out (see? We told you we'd get back to Arizona!), here's a new product that helps keep interior heat in.
The EnerLogic window coating from the St. Louis firm CPFilms, offers energy savings across the seasons by redirecting solar and radiant energy back to their sources. "Low-e" is short for "low emissivity," an industry term meaning something that emits and absorbs relatively low levels of radiant thermal energy. When professionally applied to the inside surface of your existing windows, this particular low-e, microthin film reduces heat transfer through standard windows by 43 percent, the company claims, in addition to blocking harmful UV rays.
Statistics are whatever, of course, but the point is that such reflective coating lets very little of the radiant heat emitted by a room interior pass through glass to the outdoors. This means your co-op or condo's heating generator, whether it uses oil or natural gas, doesn't have to work as hard or consume as much fuel. The EnerLogic window coating can also add up to nine LEED points toward Green Building Certification, and may even provide a tax credit. Because let's face it: No matter how cold it gets outside, none of us have money to burn.
CPFilms Inc., a subsidiary of Solutia Inc. • 575 Maryville Centre Drive, St. Louis, MO 63141 • (314) 674-1000 • toll-free (800) 345-6088 • Vista-films@cpfilms.com