When you look at the whole exterior of your home (the walls, roof, and foundation), windows only comprise about 7% of this building envelope on average, but they are responsible for nearly half of heating and cooling losses. Improved windows can save American homeowners $600 per year on utility bills or $17.5 billion nationwide.
If you’ve got old windows and you are tired of the drafts, glare, and that “too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter“ feeling, you are not alone. High-performance windows topped the list of “desirable” and “must-have” features in the National Association of Home Builder’s 2024 annual survey of what home buyers want.
High-Performance Window Options
New ENERGY STAR-rated high-performance double-pane and triple-pane windows might be just what you need to make your home feel more comfortable. Field studies show replacing clear-glass double-pane windows with thin triples yields:
- 10-20% annual HVAC savings
- 15-30% average peak electric savings
- Eliminates interior condensation.
Thin-triple windows that use three panes of glass with a center pane of thin glass can provide triple-pane performance in the thickness of a double-pane window so, depending on what type of window you have, you may be able to keep your old frames in place and just drop in the thin-triple glazing units.
There are also many options available for improving the performance of your existing windows.
Residential Storm Windows – Modern, low-e storm windows offer an economical alternative to window replacement and reduce home air leakage by 10%-20% while saving 5%-15% on a home’s gas and electric bills.
Insulating Shades – Insulating cellular shades provide insulation and solar control benefits. Research has shown savings of 5%-10% on heating bills and 25% lower home air conditioning use with cellular shades. Many shades can be motorized and automated to optimize year-round performance.
Exterior Shades – Field studies have shown that exterior solar shades substantially reduce solar heat gain and can yield:
- 10%-20% cut in air conditioning energy use,
- 10°F cooler indoor temperatures,
- 15%-20% peak electric savings.