What is R factor and how does it apply to energy efficiency and replacement windows and doors.
Do you dread getting your heat or electricity bill each month? It shows up in the mail and you hesitantly open it, fearing those huge numbers which have been only increasing in the past few years. Depending on the age or your home and the quality of the windows, doors and insulation in your home, you may be used to high utility bills. In tough economic times like the ones we're living in today, you need to look for ways to save money on your home heating and electricity bills and the good news is that it's well within your control to lower your utility expenses. We will attempt to explain r factor and try and get you to understand how to make things more energy sustainable in your home.
Older home with poor insulation and old, inefficient windows and doors will be expensive to heat in the winter and cool in the summer if you don't take action on making the home more efficient. The easiest way to make your home more energy efficient is by replacing your windows and doors with new, energy efficient windows and doors.
Once you decide that you need to do something about your rising energy costs, you immediately begin to search for replacement windows and doors and you're bombarded with information. How do you go about choosing which ones to purchase? One of the most common terms that you should learn about is called the R Factor or R Value. In general terms, the higher the R factor, the better. What the R factor does is use a numeric figure to determine how much energy escapes through the windows and doors in your home. The higher the R factor, the more energy efficient your home will be once you install the new windows and doors. Often the R factor simply refers to the thickness of a material, so the thicker the material, the better it is able to insulate, but this is not always the case.
One of the problems with older windows and doors is that originally, even though they were quality materials, they will deteriorate over time, leaving you with an inefficient home. It's this inefficiency that causes your home to be cool in the winter, which in turn causes you to turn up the heat and spend more of your hard earned money.
The R factor refers not only to windows, but also to the insulation in your home, which may also need to be replaced as it ages. New advances in technology give new insulation many advantages over older insulation and can make your home more energy sustainable. All Builder Series Vinyl windows and doors come standard with a high performing Low E insulating glass. Which means this glass will aid in the reduction of your energy costs. There is also the option for Low-E 366 glass that will give you additional protection against heat gain and greater energy savings.
Energy sustainable are words that are tossed around quite a bit today. The general idea behind the concept is to make your home take less energy to heat and cool, thereby reducing our dependence on fossil fuels as a way to heat and cool our homes. If your home were more efficient, meaning that it kept the cold air inside in the summer, and kept the warm air inside in the winter, we would all use less natural gas and other fuels used to heat and cool our homes and our planet would be much cleaner. A cleaner planet ensures that we provide our children and grandchildren with a safe place to live and clean air to breath, so you can see why it's so important to check to make sure your windows and doors are up to the task.