If you work in a modern office then you probably have big, expansive windows that give the room an airy, open feel and let in plenty of sunlight. This has a number of advantages. For starters, you decrease lighting bills – and sunlight is far preferable than electric lights. It’s brighter, and the mixture of wavelengths is (by definition) more ‘natural’, meaning that workers generally feel better in the sun than under strip lights. It also decreases heating bills. The problem comes when it’s summer, and the office can overheat. Then, you have a different problem, since you have to shell out money you saved on heating on new air conditioning. Another solution is to retrofit a brise soleil, or glass louvres. external louvres can be an effective way of having the best of both worlds – allowing the sun to heat your premises in the winter, but not overheating them in the summer.
There are a number of variants on the concept, and the exact version will depend on your circumstances – your climate, for starters, but also where your building is positioned and which way it faces. Some louvres are movable, and can be controlled from minute-to-minute to fit to conditions on the day. Others are fixed, though these can still be extremely effective. One of the most simple but helpful sorts is a ‘shelf’ which admits low-angle winter sun, or light at the beginning of the day when the sun is still low in the sky. In the summer, or the middle of the day, when the sun tends to be at a steeper angle, the shelf blocks its light from the windows.
The brise soleil – French for ‘sun breaker’ – is a permanent sun block that can take a variety of forms. Sometimes it is hardly anything more than a horizontal surface projecting from the side of the building. On other occasions they are more sophisticated, perhaps being slatted to admit a proportion of the sun, or only sun at certain times of day or year. These, along with glass louvres (which can be used in conjunction with a sun breaker), are handy solutions to managing sunlight, which can result in great savings for your business. If this is something that your office finds problematic, then external louvres might be something to look into.
Please visit http://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.
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