Inspecting Insulation for Energy Efficient Homes : Window Labels & Home Insulation

Tips on checking insulation in windows and skylights in making sure your home is insulated and energy efficient in this free home improvement video.

Expert: Joshua Lindsey
Bio: He has been in construction for eight years and was introduced to building science three years ago.
Filmmaker: Mark Sullivan

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Closed Caption:

Hi! This is Joshua Lindsey with CFM Building
Science Solutions. On behalf of Expert Village,
we are doing a frame walk and insulation inspection
on this home. Every window that you have is
going to have that label that you just saw
on it that is going to talk about the U-Factor.
It is going to talk about the Solar Heat Gain
Coefficiency as we call it the SHGC of a window.
What you are looking for is you are looking
for the lowest of those that you can possibly
get. The U-Factor of a window is simply an
invert to R-Value. So earlier we were talking
about R-Values and what your R-Values need
to be in each window. So when you invert the
U-Factor, you get the R-Value of the window.
You are really looking to get your R-Value
as high as possible so therefore at this stage,
we are looking for the U-Factor and the Solar
Heat Gain Coefficiency to be as low as possible.
Now having said that, that is for this climate.
This climate we need the low as possible.
Okay if you are in a much colder climate,
you are going to want to have a higher Heat
Gain Coefficiency because what you are going
to want to do is capture that sun outside
and use the suns energy to heat your home.
Here as we are in a warmer climate, we want
to keep that sun out because we are attempting
to cool our home most days of the year so
we want to keep that sun out because we are
attempting to cool our hot most days of the
year, so we want to keep that sun out. Therefore,
our Solar Heat Gain Coefficiency we want it
to be as low as possible. Point 37 is okay,
it is mediocre. We can get a lot better than
that. The U-Factor of .60 is on the same basis
and want to get them a lot lower than that.