Schuco Solar Heat Gain efficiency

[tdrewk11]

It seems most people have a very favorable opinion on the Triple Plane Schuco's, but I didn’t see much mention regarding their Solar Heat efficiency ratings. Are the Schuco's well suited for the climate and heat protection needed in the Southeastern U.S.?

[av]

Here are the NFRC ratings for one of their windows. Any window with a combination that includes Low-E coatings seems to have a fairly low SHG. Some have very low SHGs (0.22), but those come at the expense of very low visible light transmission rates (30%).

[randy]

If you get the triple pane glass unit, the SHGC is good, however, if you get the double pane glass unit, the SHGC is not good. This is because the triple pane glass unit has Low-E coatings on two glass surfaces.

Also, Schuco has fairly strict size limitations on their triple pane units. Here in Houston, I found that many of my jobs had windows that were too large for triple. Selling the double was not a good value for my customers, so I no longer offer the Schuco line.

IMO the Schuco line is best suited for climates where heating costs are considerably higher than cooling.

[tdrewk11]

Thanks for that information, very helpful. What line of windows would work best in the Southeast to lower air conditioning costs?

[av]

I don't quite get the good/no good classification depending on double or triple pane. Their best double pane has an already low SHG of 0.29. Their tripple panes have SHGs that range between 0.22 to 0.25. It is better, but it doesn't make the double panes "no good."

But I agree that the tripple panes are hard to justify.

Very low SHGs are easy to achieve with extra dark tints, and some manufacturers provide that. But the easy was has a price in siginificantly reduced light transmission.

tdrek11, I can't recommend you specific brands, but if you want very low SHG rates with only minimal penalty in light transmission, go for a LoE3 coating.

[tdrewk11]

I certainly don’t want much penalty in light transmission, so double Low-e it is. The additional cost for triple pane on my quote was just less than 15% compared to the dual-pane, so I'm happy to go with the triple-pane. Even though they aren’t impact rated, I figure the extra pane may also help with storm protection. I'm sacrificing storm resistance for efficiency.

[randy]

It's been more than a year now, but I recall the SHGC jumping from .29 to .34 or .35 when going to the double glazed unit.

If Schuco has a .22 on the triple, and a .29 on the double, then something has changed. It has been more than a year since my experience with the product.

[av]

Perhaps they have moved to more efficient low-E coatings?