Hello,
Could anyone help me. We plan to build a house extension later this year and one part of it is a new living area/playing room. Our house is on the side of a hill and it's got nice open views in west-north directions. I plan to put 2 windows on the west 5 m wall and 2 windows on the north 6 m wall of the extension, all of the same size, 1800x1200 or 2100x1200.
First, I thought to use double glazed windows with e-glass. We live in ACT and it's cold in winter here. However, I am not sure that it's enough. Now I am thinking to buy external electric roller shutters to block the sun in summer. Most likely they will be OZroll brand from rollershutters.com.au, so I can install them and our electrician will wire them up. How are the thermal properties of Ozroll electric external roller shutters ? Do we also need double glazed windows or it's an overkill ? I am not sure whether single glazed windows + roller shutters would be enough for cold Canberra winters. The price is also a problem with both double glazing + roller shutters.
I alsotalked to our designer last week and he advised against UPVC frames. He was saying that they will deteriorate quickly under the hot sun. In addition, with a daily change of 20-25 degrees in ACT they can cause other problems due to the high PVC expansion/shrinkage with temperature. Is this really a problem ? I see many UPVC double glazed windows advertised around.