COMPOSITE WINDOWS CAN HELP TO ACHIVE AN ENERGY EFFICIENT AND SUSTAINABLE HOME
Sustainability and reducing our impact on the environment is an increasing concern for many of us, not only to lower household bills but to ensure we’re doing everything we can to help the planet. We’ve put together some useful tips on how to make your home more sustainable.
AROUND 21% OF THE UK’S CARBON EMISSIONS COME FROM OUR HOMES*
To make your home a safe and comfortable living space involves using energy to heat or cool your property, generate hot water and power your appliances and devices. Whether you’re building a new home or simply updating your current property, a few considerations can make the world of difference to the sustainability of your home:
- Reduce your home heat loss – install or improve wall, floor, roof and loft insulation, insulate tanks, pipes and radiators, draft proof your windows and doors.
- Renewable energy systems – these can be retro-fitted to existing homes, or installed in your new home and include: solar panels, biomass boilers, ground source heat pumps and air source heat pumps.
- Consider the fabric of your building – if you’re embarking on a new build you have the luxury of building sustainably from the ground up, where your choice of materials and components for the build and the positioning of the windows and doors can have a huge environmental impact.
- Rainwater harvesting – Collecting rainwater to use elsewhere in your home can help to cut down on your mains water usage – this can be as simple as installing water butts to water your garden, or more complex domestic systems that filter the water for use in your home, such as flushing toilets and washing machines.
- Update your windows with energy efficient triple-glazing – not only will this reduce your heat loss, your home will feel warmer, more comfortable and you’ll reduce condensation and noise. Low maintenance aluminium timber composite windows are an ideal choice (see below).
HOW SUSTAINABLE ARE ALUMINIUM TIMBER COMPOSITE WINDOWS?
Westcoast are committed to using only energy efficient sustainable materials that can be recycled or disposed of by environmentally friendly methods:
- PEFC certified wood – guarantees that our timber comes from renewable sources.
- Windows built to last – the external aluminium of Westcoast composite windows provides very significant additional strength and robustness to the overall construction of our products. It significantly reduces maintenance requirements and extends the anticipated service life to over 50 years; thereby reducing life cycle costs. The aluminium parts are manufactured from a minimum content of 15% recycled material and are 100% recyclable at the end of their service life as they contain no thermal break components.
- Environmentally friendly finish – the low maintenance aluminium exterior of our composite windows is finished in a powder-coated colour which is environmentally friendly and virtually pollution free.
- Energy efficient glazing – the double and triple glazed sealed units installed in Westcoast windows and doors are supplied with the latest high performance low emissivity coatings, argon gas filling and composite insulated super spacers for maximum thermal insulation performance. Harmful heavy gases such as SF6 are never used in our products.
- High performance, low heat loss – the Westcoast triple-glazed Design series has U-values as low as 0.9 W/m2k, ensuring minimal loss of heat (the lower the U-value the better the insulation). From June 2022, the U-values for windows and doors in new dwellings must be a maximum of 1.2Wm2. Read more about the recent Part L building regulation changes here: LATEST CHANGES TO PART L BUILDING REGULATIONS
- Sustainable manufacturing – at the Westcoast manufacturing facilities in Sweden, residents and commercial businesses benefit from many years of investment into sustainable energy technology. The local heating system recovers excess energy from industrial activities which is recycled and complemented with local biomass production to heat the whole city. Westcoast waste timber contributes to this renewable energy source. Power generation is principally from Trollhättan’s own hydro-electricity plant, supplemented by local wind farm and solar energy sources with occasional nuclear support at times of exceptional demand.
- Zero carbon, code level 6 – Westcoast window products can be specified for ‘zero carbon’ developments that are required to achieve Code level 6.
For more information about Westcoast Swedish aluminium timber composite windows visit our MADE IN SWEDEN and STYLES & OPTIONS pages.
