At this year’s BAU, the Swiss company presented its range of services, with which it supports architects, planners, window manufacturers and insulating glass manufacturers.
A scientific study now shows with concrete figures how much heating and cooling costs can be reduced with plastic spacer bars in the insulating glass in heat insulating windows.
In modern heat insulating windows, after the glass and frame, the spacer bar is the third important component in terms of the energy performance. The spacer bar is now really becoming the centre of attention. A highly efficient warm edge, as used in the study, has a linear thermal conductivity of 0.14 W/(mK). The value for stainless steel is 0.6 and for the aluminium spacer bar, it is a massive 160 W/(mK).
The new study by the Passive House Institute was the first to investigate the influence of the spacer bars on the annual heating requirements of buildings: The study compares aluminium, stainless steel and plastic spacer bars in the windows of common houses that meet the requirements of the French energy standards in three different climate zones. The results: If high-quality plastic spacer bars are used instead of aluminium spacer bars, in the cool-temperate climate in Nancy, 5.9 per cent of the total heating energy can be saved in a standard French house with double glazing. With a conventional house with ever more commonly used triple glazing, as much as 7.9 per cent can be saved, and in a building following the Passive House standard, the savings are nearly 18 per cent.
The study was commissioned by SWISSPACER, one of the producers of warm edge spacer bars. “With the scientific investigation by an independent research institute, we wanted resilient data for the market,” stressed Andreas Geith, Managing Director of SWISSPACER.
The complete study is also available for download on SWISSPACER’s website