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Needing the best energy-efficient curtains, the market has to offer points to conserving heat in your household. This means there is a high chance you will need this type of curtain, although it fulfills the basic features of a curtain, during the winter, when you heat your homes, and need the heat to stay and circulate, for as long as possible.
The window area of the house is said to be responsible for the most heat loss in a home, despite accounting for just 15% of the walls.
Although they can be efficient in helping to reduce the temperature in a room, they can also be a liability when it comes to conserving the temperature in the same room.
Therefore, there is a need to have blinds over the windows to help increase ventilation, consequently helping reduce the temperature or reduce heat loss, helping to maintain the desired temperature, depending on your desire.
In this article, you will have the best energy-efficient curtains that you can use in your home to conserve as much temperature as possible, reducing the cost you incur in heating your home and providing the privacy and aesthetic you desire. However, it is also important that you have a good knowledge of what an energy-efficient curtain should have as features before you purchase it.
Energy Efficient Curtains – How Do They Work?
Energy-efficient curtains are not very different from the regular curtains you have in your home. Chances are you already have one over your window, but it is not practical because you are using it wrongly. However, it can still function well when you correct some things, such as its proximity to the window.
These curtains are made of fabric that suits the purpose they are intended for. In some cases, if the energy-efficient curtain is needed to help conserve heat in the house and reduce the cost of heating the home during winter, curtains that are dark and are made with medium to the heavy-weight fabric are best used. They efficiently absorb heat from the internal environment of the homes due to their color. They do not release the heat to the external environment due to the nature of their material.
In other cases, energy-efficient curtains suitable for hot weather and regions help reduce the cost of cooling the home by blocking the entry of sunlight. The more sunlight that gets into the home, the higher the temperature and the resultant energy needed to bring the temperature down to a level of comfort. The suitable curtains for this case usually have bright-colored fabrics lining the curtain materials that can either be light or medium-weight. The bright-colored lining helps to reflect the sunlight coming from the external environment, helping to maintain the temperature of the internal environment.
For both cases, a blackout curtain works perfectly. However, for each of these cases, the lining of the curtain has to be considered as it determines if the heat from the exterior gets in the room and if the heat in the room is allowed out of it.
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Properties of Energy Efficient Curtains
To get the best energy efficiency from your curtains, there are specific properties they must possess, and they can be seen in the physical attributes of the curtains. While any curtain material can provide a level of energy saving, these properties make the curtains you should choose more efficient at saving energy. They are:
Curtain Material Weight
The weight of your curtain influences how much heat passes through it. It also determines how well it absorbs heat and releases it when the need arises. For rooms with more heat, a suitable energy-efficient curtain will have a medium to heavy-weight curtain material that helps keep the room temperature at the desired level.
With this type of curtain, you will save on the amount spent on continuously heating the room as you generally need less heat since the available heat isn’t wasted by passing out of the room through the window. Also, if you need to keep the temperature down, it can easily be modified to keep the temperature outside, reducing the cost you have to incur in cooling the room.
Curtain Material Color
The color of the curtain material is as important as the weight. A bright curtain material reflects light to the external environment when it is used to line the curtain. This helps to reduce the amount of light that comes into the room and, consequently, keeps the room’s temperature minimal.
However, if the color is dark, it absorbs heat from the external environment and may be helpful during winter to supply more heat and prevent heat from escaping to the outdoors.
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The Best Energy Efficient Curtains
The best energy-efficient curtains should combine both properties to give you the best value for money. In essence, you can only consider a curtain one of the most energy-efficient if used during summer and winter. This is because they have satisfactory material weight to hold heat during winter and are a blackout curtain that absorbs heat and prevents entry of light rays. Also, they should be lined with bright-colored materials for adaptability in the summer.
Here are some of the best energy-efficient curtains you can use in your home.
Middle-Weight Curtain With Transparent Overlay
This curtain is a full-length curtain that effectively stops the escape of heat and light rays from a room into the external environment and stops the influence of the external environment temperature on that of the room. It is best suited for rooms that are brightly colored and effectively reflect light rays to the room. This helps to keep warmth in the room during cold spells.
The curtain consists of an excellent background that is usually made of polyester. The material helps to conserve heat further and prevents the escape of light rays from the room, and acts as an effective blackout curtain, even though its color may suggest otherwise. It also stops light rays from the outdoors from getting in the room, making it an excellent curtain choice for energy efficiency in the summer.
The overlay is usually extremely light cotton, which adds aesthetics to the entire drapery set-up. It is transparent, helping the patterns on the background cotton to be visible. Also, due to its color, it reflects some amount of light to the room. The curtain can easily be rolled back for a more outdoor experience.
Monochrome Cool Energy Efficient Curtain
In a cold climate, the importance of keeping the temperature up dictates that the interior of your home should be brightly colored since it helps to reflect light rays from your fireplace and bulbs back to the room, increasing the temperature in the room.
This monochrome energy-efficient curtain is best used in a room with walls that have a shade relation. For instance, a white wall room and a grey monochrome curtain. It affects its aesthetics and conserves a tremendous amount of heat. It can be used for full or half-length windows.
The curtain is a simple design that comprises a pair of cool full-length curtains. It is usually middle-weight and has the same color on both sides. The excellent color allows for a considerable amount of light rays to be absorbed, heating the room a bit, and it also disallows the entry of sun rays into the room during summers.
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Monochrome Bright Energy Efficient Curtain
While most of the curtains used to conserve energy in homes, especially during winter, are dark-colored, blackout curtains fulfill the same purpose even though they are bright-colored. This emphasizes that your color options are not limited, especially if your interior favors bright colors more.
This curtain, in its simplicity, helps to conserve energy by reflecting light rays to the environment they are coming from. For example, if you are heating your living room, the bright curtains bounce the light rays off themselves instead of absorbing the heat. If the room is brightly painted, the light rays keep bouncing around, keeping the heat in the room. Also, in the summer, the light rays from the outdoors bounce back to the outdoors, helping you conserve the cost of cooling the living room.
It is suitable for use in all types of rooms with any wall color characteristics. In addition, it can be combined with sheer transparent materials, preferably dark but very light, for better aesthetics.
Royal Ballroom Energy Efficient Curtains Combo
While you may not realize that your curtain has the potential of being energy efficient, the size of the window it covers must tell you that you lose a tremendous amount of heat from there. So for large rooms with large windows that constantly need heating, the Royal ballroom curtains combo may be the best option.
The curtain comprises a white, transparent background embossed with patterns that match the other aspects of the curtain. The brightness helps to reflect light rays and maintain the internal temperature of the room. However, when the room has to be heated, the middle-weight silky curtains, either bright or dark-colored, can be let down. In addition, drafts are discouraged from entering the room due to curtain scarves and valances at the top of the curtain.
This curtain is a perfect choice for switching between limited and no privacy while being energy efficient, depending on the prevailing climatic character.
Conclusion
Heat losses through the windows in a house are more than you can imagine. To reduce the cost, you incur on keeping your home cool or warm, you need to consider covering your windows with the appropriate blinds without sacrificing the aesthetics they provide.
Blackout curtains are the general go-to curtains for energy efficiency; however, different styles and types make up the list of the best energy-efficient curtains, as you have seen in this piece. So give one that suits you a try and conserve energy and cost.