You know how great living in Irvine, CA can be. You also know how quickly summer and winter can ramp up your heating and cooling costs. In the summer, the heat and humidity can drive the price of air conditioning through the roof. In the winter, the colder weather can find you spending far too much keeping your home warm. The price of keeping your home at a comfortable temperature can be hard on your checkbook. However, you can help reduce the cost if you understand thermal bridging.
Thermal Bridging
Thermal bridges are materials in your home that facilitate the easy travel of heat from one place to another. That can be incredibly useful if you are trying to heat your house, so your interior walls might need to be thermal bridges. However, if your house is built of materials that serve as effective thermal bridges, you might find that you are paying far more than you should for internal temperature control.
Common Bridges
Knowing what materials act as a thermal bridge will help you keep your heating and cooling prices low by keeping the cool air in and the warm air out during the summer and the warm air in and the cool air out during the winter.
Doors are common thermal bridges. Wood transfers some heat, but if the wood is thick, you should be able to maintain a desirable temperature. However, patio doors, especially glass ones, work just like windows when it comes to transferring heating. They are actually massive glass windows; so they transfer massive amounts of heat into and out of your home.
Windows are one of the most common thermal bridges. When it comes to heating and cooling, thick drapes or curtains are a great way to keep your windows from transferring heat. Blackout curtains also help. These are curtains that block sunlight. They are incredibly useful when it comes to keeping sunlight from heating up your house.
Solutions
Many of the best sliding patio doors in Irvine are optimized to reduce the heat transfer. They help maintain the temperature in the house so that you spend much less energy heating or cooling the house. When heat escapes, you have to pay even more money to keep a house warm. During a typical Southern California hot spell you’re cooling costs go up with every hour you are forced to run your air conditioner.
Sliding patio doors are usually the largest thermal bridges in the house. Making sure that they are a high quality product that meets the requirements of your area is essential to saving money. In addition many glass doors from the best retailers come outfitted with screens or wooden doors so you can block cold air or warm sunlight from hitting the glass. During the summer preventing the hot sunlight or cold air from hitting the glass door, allows you to keep the temperature inside from being affected by the temperature outside. When you can insulate your doors and windows as much as possible, you can save the most money. Click here for more information.