Sun Control and Shading Devices

by Don Prowler, FAIA , Donald Prowler and Associates Revised and expanded by Joseph Bourg, Millennium Energy LLC Last updated: 05-23-2008 Within This Page Introduction Description Application Relevant Codes and Standards Additional Resources

INTRODUCTION
There are many different reasons to want to control the amount of sunlight that is admitted into a building. In warm, sunny climates excess solar gain may result in high cooling energy consumption; in cold and temperate climates winter sun entering south-facing windows can positively contribute to passive solar heating; and in nearly all climates controlling and diffusing natural illumination will improve daylighting. Well-designed sun control and shading devices can dramatically reduce building peak heat gain and cooling requirements and improve the natural lighting quality of building interiors. Depending on the amount and location of fenestration, reductions in annual cooling energy consumption of 5% to 15% have been reported. Sun control and shading devices can also improve user visual comfort by controlling glare and reducing contrast ratios. This often leads to increased satisfaction and productivity. Shading devices offer the opportunity of differentiating one building facade from another. This can provide interest and human scale to an otherwise undistinguished design.
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DESCRIPTION
The use of sun control and shading devices is an important aspect of many energy-efficient building design strategies. In particular, buildings that employ passive solar heating or daylightingoften depend on well-designed sun control and shading devices. During cooling seasons, external window shading is an excellent way to prevent unwanted solar heat gain from entering a conditioned space. Shading can be provided by natural landscaping or by building elements such as awnings, overhangs, and trellises. Some shading devices can also function as reflectors, called light shelves, which bounce natural light for daylighting deep into building interiors. The design of effective shading devices will depend on the solar orientation of a particular building facade. For example, simple fixed overhangs are very effective at shading south-facing windows in the summer when sun angles are high. However, the same horizontal device is ineffective at blocking low afternoon sun from entering west-facing windows during peak heat gain periods in the summer.

Exterior shading devices are particularly effective in conjunction with clear glass facades. However, highperformance glazings are now available that have very low shading coefficients (SC). When specified, these new glass products reduce the need for exterior shading devices. Thus, solar control and shading can be provided by a wide range of building components including: Landscape features such as mature trees or hedge rows; Exterior elements such as overhangs or vertical fins; Horizontal reflecting surfaces called light shelves; Low shading coefficient (SC) glass; and, Interior glare control devices such as Venetian blinds or adjustable louvers. Fixed exterior shading devices such as overhangs are generally most practical for small commercial buildings. The optimal length of an overhang depends on the size of the window and the relative importance of heating and cooling in the building. In the summer, peak sun angles occur at the solstice on June 21, but peak temperature and humidity are more likely to occur in August. Remember that an overhang sized to fully shade a south-facing window in August will also shade the window in April when some solar heat may be desirable. To properly design shading devices it is necessary to understand the position of the sun in the sky during the cooling season. The position of the sun is expressed in terms of altitude and azimuth angles. The altitude angle is the angle of the sun above the horizon, achieving its maximum on a given day at solar noon. The azimuth angle, also known as the bearing angle, is the angle of the sun's projection onto the ground plane relative to south. An easily accessed source of information on sun angles and solar path diagrams is Architectural Graphic Standards, 11th Edition , available from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Publishers. Shading devices can have a dramatic impact on building appearance. This impact can be for the better or for the worse. The earlier in the design process that shading devices are considered they more likely they are to be attractive and well-integrated in the overall architecture of a project. In ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1 "Energy Efficient Design of New Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings" (on which the Federal equivalent 10 CFR 435 is based), the degree of window shading is a major consideration. Both the projection factor (PF) for exterior shading and the shading coefficient (SC) of glass must be evaluated when using the Alternate Component Packages envelope design approach.

Designing Shading Systems

Given the wide variety of buildings and the range of climates in which they can be found, it is difficult to make sweeping generalizations about the design of shading devices. However, the following design recommendations generally hold true: 1. Use fixed overhangs on south-facing glass to control direct beam solar radiation. Indirect (diffuse) radiation should be controlled by other measures, such as low-e glazing.

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7. 8. 9.

To the greatest extent possible, limit the amount of east and west glass since it is harder to shade than south glass. Consider the use of landscaping to shade east and west exposures. Do not worry about shading north-facing glass in the continental United States latitudes since it receives very little direct solar gain. In the tropics, disregard this rule-of-thumb since the north side of a building will receive more direct solar gain. Also, in the tropics consider shading the roof even if there are no skylights since the roof is a major source of transmitted solar gain into the building. Remember that shading effects daylighting; consider both simultaneously. For example, a light shelf bounces natural light deeply into a room through high windows while shading lower windows. Do not expect interior shading devices such as Venetian blinds or vertical louvers to reduce cooling loads since the solar gain has already been admitted into the work space. However, these interior devices do offer glare control and can contribute to visual acuity and visual comfort in the work place. Study sun angles. An understanding of sun angles is critical to various aspects of design including determining basic building orientation, selecting shading devices, and placingBuilding Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) panels or solar collectors. Carefully consider the durability of shading devices. Over time, operable shading devices can require a considerable amount of maintenance and repair. When relying on landscape elements for shading, be sure to consider the cost of landscape maintenance and upkeep on life-cycle cost. Shading strategies that work well at one latitude, may be completely inappropriate for other sites at different latitudes. Be careful when applying shading ideas from one project to another.

Materials and Methods of Construction

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the variety of shading devices and glazing available for use in buildings. A wide range of adjustable shading products is commercially available from canvas awnings to solar screens, roll-down blinds, shutters, and vertical louvers. While they often perform well, their practicality is limited by the need for manual or mechanical manipulation. Durability and maintenance issues are also a concern. Require A&E professionals to fully specify all glass. They should be prepared to specify glass U-value, SC, and Tvis and net window U-value for all fenestration systems. The shading coefficient (SC) of a glazing indicates the amount of solar heat gain that is admitted into a building relative to a single-glazed reference glass. Thus, a lower shading coefficient means less solar heat gain. The visible transmittance (Tvis) of a glazing material indicates the percentage of the light available in the visible portion of the spectrum admitted into a building. See also WBDG Windows and Glazing. When designing shading devices, carefully evaluate all operations and maintenance (O&M) and safety implications. In some locations, hazards such as nesting birds or earthquakes may reduce the viability of incorporating exterior shading devices in the design. The need to maintain and clean shading devices, particularly operable ones, must be factored into any life-cycle cost analysis of their use.
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APPLICATION
Among the primary types of buildings that can benefit from the application of shading devices are: Barracks and other multi-family housing projects, especially in temperate or warm climates;

Offices, administration buildings, and other structures employing daylighting; and, Nearly any structure in warm, sunny climates.
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RELEVANT CODES AND STANDARDS

Energy Policy Act of 2005 (PDF 1.9 MB, 550 pgs) The Construction Criteria Base is the source for the full text of all federal construction documents including Department of Defense Unified Facilities Guide Specifications (UFGS), Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) and Federal Publications and Standards. It is available on CD-ROM and DVD from the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), 1090 Vermont Avenue, NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005-4905; phone: (202) 289-7800; fax: (202) 289-1092.
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
WBDG
Building / Space Types Applicable to all building types and space types Design Objectives Aesthetics, Cost-Effective, Functional / Operational, Historic PreservationUpdate Building Systems Appropriately, ProductiveAssure Reliable Systems and Spaces, ProductivePromote Health and WellBeing, ProductiveProvide Comfortable Environments, Secure / Safe, SustainableOptimize Energy Use Products and Systems Section 07 92 00: Joint Sealants, Building Envelope Design Guide: Fenestration Systems, Glazing,Windows, Curtain Walls, Sloped Glazing, Atria Systems Federal Green Construction Guide for Specifiers: 01 91 00 (01810) Commissioning 03 30 00 (03300) Cast-in-Place Concrete 03 40 00 (03400) Precast Concrete 05 05 00 (05050) Common Work Results for Metals Project Management Project Planning, Delivery and Controls, Building Commissioning Tools LEED Version 2.1 Credit / WBDG Resource Page Matrix , LEED-DoD Antiterrorism Standards Tool

Publications
Low-E Glazing Design Guide by Johnson, Timothy E. Boston: Butterworth Architecture, 1991. An excellent discussion of high-performance glazings and their specifications including shading coefficients. Simplified Design of HVAC Systems by Bobenhausen, William. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994. An excellent source for information on the basics of solar geometry and sun angles. Solar Control and Shading Devices by Olgyay, Aladar and Olgyay, Victor. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957.The classic source for information and examples of sun control and shading devices. Sun Protection: An International Survey by Danz, Ernst. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. Out-of-print, but worth finding, it offers many provocative photographs and illustrations of shading devices from around the world.

Training Sessions

Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) offers a series of workshops on the use of renewable energy sources in federal buildings. This includes a segment on shading design. Contact FEMP for workshop dates and locations. Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC) offers Designing Low-Energy Building workshops that feature the use of ENERGY-10 software. These workshops include segment on shading design.

Design and Analysis Tools

There are a number of building analysis and design tools that permit users to evaluate the effect of different sun control and shading strategies. DOE 2Description: Comprehensive hour-by-hour simulation; daylighting and glare calculations integrate with hourly energy simulation. IBM or compatible Pentium is advisable. Availability: Simulation Research Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Radiance 3.5 (2003)Description: A ray-tracing program that accurately predicts light levels and produces photo realistic images of architectural space in all sky conditions. Sun Microsystems, DEC, Macintosh with (AUX), CRAY or other UNIX machine. Availability: Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Energy Scheming (3.0)Description: A Macintosh-based design tool rather than an analysis or evaluation tool. Requires any Macintosh II or better with 2.5 MB of RAM using System 7. Availability: Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory, Department of Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon

Others
Shading Strategy, Tips for Daylighting with Windows (PDF 648 KB, 10 pgs) Solar Energy Industries Association and SBIC include member firms that manufacture shading devices.

Solar controls and shading

Provided by Nick Baker: Research Associate, The Martin Centre, University of Cambridge What, Why, When, How, Extras

What is it?
Daylight and sunlight are a single source of natural energy which we need to allow into our buildings through glazed apertures, as daylight for visual tasks, and sometimes as thermal energy for useful heat gains. Windows, also provide a vital connection with the world outside. However, the energy density of daylight and sunlight varies over a huge range, and it has to be controlled to prevent overheating and glare. All too often, the control defaults to on/off that is: if the sun is causing overheating blinds down and lights on. Artificial lighting is then being used when there is a surplus of luminous energy available. The problem is to modulate it, and possibly to re-distribute it spatially to provide a glarefree working illuminance for a minimum heat gain. This is what solar control should address, and it is achieved by elements in or close to the window opening that reduce the overall transmission of the window by obstruction or reduced transmission through transparent or translucent layers. It is important to understand that daylight (or sunlight) contains both visible and invisible radiation, in about equal proportion. When they are absorbed in the room, both contribute to the heating effect. Most shading controls do not separate the useful light from the unwanted invisible radiation. Only certain special selective glasses can do this.

Why use it?

Lighting energy forms a large proportion of energy consumption in buildings, so it is vital to use daylight whenever it is available. On the other hand, solar gains are the commonest cause of overheating in buildings, and if the building is air-conditioned, it creates a large cooling energy demand. Shading and solar control can resolve the challenge to get sufficient daylight into the building for the visual task, without the massive over-illumination, causing glare and unwanted heat gains. Direct sunlight typically carries between 5 and 10 times more energy intensity than diffuse light from the sky (between 300 and 800 W/m2); a window of 3m2 in an office for two people could easily generate 1.5 kW of heating effect. This is about 4 times the gains generated by the occupants and their equipment. Also, the room would be grossly over-illuminated with illuminances in the direct sun of 30,000 lux, 100 times higher than necessary! In warmer countries, where the penetration of direct sunlight is almost always unwanted, traditional architecture often demonstrates elegant solutions deep reveals overhangs, fins and louvres, and the correct use of them is often part of the unconscious culture. That they were part of the norm, before energy-rich mitigation in the form of air-conditioning became available, is a good indicator of their vital role in passive architecture.

When to use it?

Solar controls should be considered for all glazed openings exposed to direct sunlight. Solar control is particularly important on south to west-facing facades, since the solar gains will coincide with the hottest part of the day. Solar control is also vital for lightweight buildings with large areas of glazing. Ironically, the modernist buildings of the 60s and 70s were often like this, but didnt incorporate the 'encumbrance' of shading on aesthetic grounds.

There are some mitigating circumstances where it may not be necessary, even for exposed glazing. North facing glazing, receives direct radiation in summer in the UK, but it is very oblique and glass has low transmission at large angles. Heavyweight buildings with small areas of glazing, and low internal gains may be able to cope with little other than curtains.

How to use it?

Fig 1: A light shelf obscures sunlight to the front of the room whilst reflecting light to the back of the room. The unwanted energy is represented by the area between the two curves i.e. the solar gain is reduced by at least a half without compromising the minimum daylight levels. (Click image to enlarge) 1. Solar control devices can have two functions: a. They reduce the total amount of radiation entering the room by reflection and absorption. b. They improve the distribution of the light in the room (See figure 1) 2. Types of shading: Shading can be placed into 4 categories Type A Retractable - shutters, roller blinds and louvres A moveable device which can adjust the total transmission of the glazed opening by partial obstruction and or diffuse reflection, e.g. louvres or roller blinds. This allows the relatively fixed demand for light within the room to be matched to the widely varying incident radiation intensity. They may also improve the distribution of light within the room allowing a lower total, for a given minimum (at the back of the room). At times of low sky brightness they can be withdrawn from the aperture completely. Type B Fixed redistribution devices overhangs, lightshelves etc. A fixed structure obscures part of the sky through which the sun passes, e.g. reveals, overhangs, fins and light shelves. It is selective due to the geometry of the device in relation to the facade and its orientation. Lower intensity and more diffuse light is allowed into the room. Even the simple overhang improves daylight distribution since at allows a greater proportion of ground reflected light to illuminate the ceiling and thence the back of the room. However, it also obstructs a brighter part of the sky in diffuse conditions, and since it is fixed, this has to be compensated with a larger glazing area. Type C Fixed reduced transmission devices fixed grids, perforated sheets, tinted, reflective and fritted glass.

This category is where the glazed opening is made to have permanently reduced transmission. This achieves no more than simply having a smaller opening in the first place since it cannot be modulated, nor is it selective in the part of the sky it allow light from. Although it can be found in the work of notable architects, it is not to be recommended. Type D Selective high performance glazing.

A relatively recent development is glass that has a lower transmission for the invisible part of the spectrum, than for the visible. This has the effect of improving the luminous efficacy of the daylight, rather in the same way that light from a florescent lamp has greater luminous efficacy than a tungsten lamp. The use of this is beneficial, but on its own it cannot respond to the wide variations of illuminance from the sky. It is best to be used in conjunction with Type A or B. Note that conventional tinted and reflective glass are not selectively transmittive to the visible light. 3. Location of shading devices: Three options are possible: external, internal and mid-pane; they all carry advantages and disadvantages. The term greenhouse effect was coined long before the application of the term to global warming, and refers to the mechanism whereby short wavelength solar radiation (visible and invisible) enters the room through the glass, to which it is transparent. The radiation is then absorbed by the room surfaces warming them up, and re-radiates, but due to the relatively low temperature the radiation is of long wavelength, to which the glass is opaque. Thus the energy gets trapped behind the glass.

Fig 2: A comparison between external and internal shading. (Click image to enlarge) External shading devices are the most efficient thermally because they intercept the solar energy before it has entered the room. Thus, even if energy is absorbed by them, it is not trapped behind the glass. They carry the disadvantage of having to be weatherproof and are more difficult to control from inside, figure 2. Internal shading is generally much cheaper to install and is easy for users to control, but is less efficient, for reasons outlined above, see figure. It is also vulnerable to damage. Mid-pane shading devices have become more popular as technical problems have been overcome, and now can be installed in sealed, gas-filed double glazing units. Control of the louvres can be achieved through magnetic linkages. Or, they may be installed in much larger non-sealed cavities found in so-called double skin buildings. They carry some of the advantages

of both (the above), and are particularly effective in double skin buildings where they are protected, but the cavity is large enough to be independently ventilated, to remove any absorbed solar gains. 4. Related strategies and conflicts: It is important that the design of shading devices is closely linked with the design of the daylighting. The window, shading devices and room system must be seen as a single system for delivering daylight, view, minimising unwanted heat gains in summer, and (possibly) maximising them in winter. It is quite likely that the window will also be expected to provide ventilation air, and shading devices may interfer with this as well. Figure 3 shows how different kinds of shading device affect view and ventilation. Figure 4 shows how different blind materials have quite different optical and thermal performance.

Fig 3: The impact of shading types on vision and ventilation. (Click images to enlarge)

Fig 4: The optical and thermal performance of different types of blind material. (Click images to enlarge)

We have already mentioned that shading devices can improve the uniformity of daylight distribution, which is an essential part of daylight design. Figure 1 shows the effect on the daylight profile of a light shelf reducing the overillumination at the front of the room, without diminishing it at the back. There is growing evidence that view is a very important function of windows and this can be seriously compromised by fixed devices, in particular medium scale grids and perforated sheets. Bearing in mind that these are often the least effective ones i.e. Type C, this is indefensible. We have combined some of the many conflicting properties of different shading options in Table 1 . Note that orientation refers to the suitability for shading on a particular facade, and is related to the sun angle and selectivity of the geometry where it is present. Finally, shading and solar control devices have a great potential for architectural expression, adding to the texture and modulation of the facade. They also have the potential (and should) respond to the orientation of the facade, thus visibly reflecting the buildings place in the natural world as well as its urban setting.

Table 1 - shading options