Keeping Your Room Warm with Shutters
Window shutters are excellent sound and thermal insulators which makes then an ideal solution for cold window insulation.
Window Insulation – Sound & Noise
Sound pollution in a room is created when an external sound source (often low-frequency vehicle noise) causes the glass in the window to vibrate, also at low frequency. This, in turn, causes the
air in the room to vibrate. When timber shutters are put in front of the glass, they interrupt the vibrating air and prevent it from penetrating the room.
Window Insulation on Cold Windows
Solid shutters are often requested as sound and thermal insulators. However, solid shutters have one big drawback. They block all the light coming into the room. Which is fine at night when you want to sleep. But during the day, it’s necessary to wrap the shutter panels back to introduce light into the room. And the moment you do that you lose all the sound and thermal insulation properties.
A much better bet (with very little loss in soundproofing and thermal insulation capabilities than solid shutters) is louvred window shutter panels. By day it is possible to let light into the room without having to wrap the panels back. If a horizontal intermediate rail is fitted on each panel, then it’s possible to let light into the room and still have a degree of sound and thermal insulation. This is done by opening the louvres in the top section of each panel. This lets light into the room while keeping the louvres in the lower part of the shutter panel closed. The coldest part of a window is always at the bottom.
We have an integrated noise-reducing thermal blind fitted to the back of the shutter assembly for the ultimate in sound and thermal insulation.
References:
Historic England: Research into the Thermal Performance of Traditional Windows: Timber sash windows
Historic Environment Scotland: Sash windows: How to reduce heat loss
