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Spectral Select vs Ceramic


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I'll let others talk about the tech details...

 

As far as glare reduction, darkness, etc... Yes, in order to have decent glare reduction you need at least a medium film. With my presentation, that would be a 35% film. If the home owner is agreeable, a 25% film would be much better. Glare = light... so the more light that is reduced, the more glare will be reduced.

 

Darkness is very person specific... what one person finds dark, another won't think it's dark. I've put up light shades on windows and some people are like - wow... it changes it so much... and then I've done dark shades and others are like - wow.. .you can hardly notice it's on.

 

:krazy

 

Makes it tough to recommend films... but like was mentioned - to cut glare, you need to cut light. ie. darker.

 

Everything is a tradeoff... there isn't any perfect film that will do everything someone is looking for. You just gotta decide what is more important in terms of benefits.

 

 

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TSER and SHGC figures both account for and include absorbed and re-radiated solar energy. Films either reflect energy, absorb energy or do a little of both. A high absorber will "feel" warmer in the immediate vicinity of the glass surface but when you factor in the reduction in absorbed IR by interior surfaces then you can start to understand why the total energy transmission figure is equal or better than its lower absorbing counterpart.

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Quick update:

 

So had an installer come in to put up some mocks. It was HO C30, HO C40, and CX35. Thinking of going darker to cut glare.

 

In general the HO has more of a greenish grey tint vs the CX has a bluish-grey tint. Spec-wise they are really close so it seems to come down to personal choice. CX is a bit cheaper.

 

Optically it seems HO is a bit sharper with more contrast, it's almost like putting on polarization sunglasses on. CX is not bad but not as sharp as HO.

 

One issue I just noticed which I didn't see at first, is that the HO seems to have a lot of subtle bubbles. I only noticed it now in full sunlight and looking at a certain angle. It maybe just a bad install, but I see the bubbles in both the HO C30, C40 mock-ups but not in the CX35. So this leads me to conclude that because of the double-ply of the HO C30, C40 the install requires a bit more work to make sure it lays flat.

 

In other words does it mean the HO C30, C40 require more skill to install so it looks right vs the Panorama CX? The C30, C40, CX35 mock ups were all installed by the same guy, but only the C30, C40 is showing this bubble issue. I actually weren't there to see the install, so not sure if he just slathered all them on and placed the tint up. 

 

Again, I didn't notice it at all for the last couples days, but now I can since it's bright sun shining through the tint. 

 

I'm thinking it's an installer issue, at which point I probably won't pick this particular installer. But it does make me rethink if I should go with HO if installation is more complicated and one more thing to worry about. I hate to get 8 panels installed and then later find there's bubble issues which requires them to be redone. I also don't want to be leering over the installer when it's going up to make sure there's no issues.

 

The installer actually recommended HO, so don't think he intentionally was trying to do a bad install mock-up. It was an overcast day so probably not obvious, again I only started to notice in full sun. Although, if I run my fingers over the film I can actually feel the bumps but never saw them before in lower light conditions. 

 

Was leaning toward C30 but now that I see this issue, thinking more CX35 which doesn't seem to have that issue plus cheaper.  

 

My specific concerns:

1) Is this something common on C30, C40 mock ups since they are thicker films? Again didn't see it in any of the other film mock ups I have up.

2) On the actual install, a good installer will be paying very close attention to the application to make sure there's no air bubbles? How to insure this without bugging the hell out of the installer?

3) Does HO C30, C40 installation require a higher skill level to get right?

 

Thanks!

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VQ has actually covered more ground than the norm and as always pointed and accurate. My recommendation would be HO Drei for your situation, as well.

 

I would add that the numbers of layers above one has little bearing on longevity of product. Most high quality architectural film products are 2-ply (or 2-layers) in construction. There are few that are constructed as single ply save those found in DIY store shelves.

 

As for the bubbles seen under one film versus another, this can be attributed to installer fatigue or laziness and or the construction of the product and technology used to deposit solar control elements to the polyester surface. In the industry, all window films have what is known as a 'water vapor transmission rate' (WVTR). Some have high rate, some low. This determines how well moisture used to install migrates through all layers to evaporate away. A gorilla can install a low and a mid-level WVTR side by side under the same conditions and the product having the lower WVTR will show residue pooling of the installation solution (bubbling or blistering) more so than one with a higher WVTR.

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On 10/13/2017 at 9:32 AM, Roach said:

I'll let others talk about the tech details...

 

As far as glare reduction, darkness, etc... Yes, in order to have decent glare reduction you need at least a medium film. With my presentation, that would be a 35% film. If the home owner is agreeable, a 25% film would be much better. Glare = light... so the more light that is reduced, the more glare will be reduced.

 

Darkness is very person specific... what one person finds dark, another won't think it's dark. I've put up light shades on windows and some people are like - wow... it changes it so much... and then I've done dark shades and others are like - wow.. .you can hardly notice it's on.

 

:krazy

 

Makes it tough to recommend films... but like was mentioned - to cut glare, you need to cut light. ie. darker.

 

Everything is a tradeoff... there isn't any perfect film that will do everything someone is looking for. You just gotta decide what is more important in terms of benefits.

 

 

As a homeowner, the best means of determining what film is best in terms of light, dark or medium is to take 8 x 10 samples one at a time, wrap them around your face as makeshift sunglass and view the window you wish to have it installed to. If a small piece is installed to the glass it will appear darker than its appearance when covering the entire opening. The remaining untinted area allows brighter light to stream in making that small sample seem dark.

 

Few installers apply film to an entire pane due to costs involved and if there were another adjacent pane, you would still be comparing bright light intrusion to reduced light, again making the tinted panel appear darker than it would appear if both were tinted. The above sunglass trick works very well when clients are struggling with VLT choice. They can even capture part of the room in their viewing to determine what the room would look like with the window tinted.

Edited by Tintguy1980
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We install all the brands you are looking at, your observation of superior clarity on the HO is correct. Once it dries 100% .. The "bubbles" you are seeing will evaporate and disappear. We are installing C30 on a very high profile project right now and we spent months doing mock ups and having the glass viewed under all conditions. ( day, night, sunny, cloudy, etc ) .. The HO product really is impressive. 

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Thanks everyone for their reply!

 

We had our final consultation which was a HO dealer which showed us Ceramic, Drei, and Fusion.

 

I do agree that overall comparing with all the other film samples we have HO has some really nice optics. At first I thought my wife (boss) wanted clear view and visibility as the top priority thus was focusing on ceramic and spectral select but after she saw the Fusion, she likes the idea of privacy and now wants me to look at DR films (argh!!!).

 

Drei is an option but it's really expensive, C40 is already a premium and Drei on top of that just pushes it way out of budget. If I had an ocean view or canyon hills view maybe but this is just looking out in a backyard garden plus my wife/boss is now changing her mind where she wants more privacy (pulling my hair out at this point and might just get some roller shades).

 

The other snag I ran into is that we can't go down to C30 as we're double-pane low-e glass. This was the only rep that inspected our glass etching, looked up the compatibility guide and said for ceramic we can only go to C40. So was super impress with that as no other installer mentioned this or checked. I had another installer that said C30 would be fine. I pointed out the guide I found online and they said they talked to their rep (who said no problem) and would get it in writing, but never heard back from them -- shrug.

 

So the rep showed us the Fusion 10 which is also a nice film (plus cheaper to boot), my concern is that it's too dark and from reading other threads it seems better suited for businesses. I see for residential more people recommending 20 or 30 instead. I guess I can do the "sunglasses" test but will need to get more samples, my installers are going get super annoyed with me :).

 

So now I shifted to focusing on these three DR films now:

- HO Fusion 10/20/30

- Panorama Slate 10/20/30

- Vista Ultima V14, Celeste V18, Luminance V28

 

So my questions are:

1) For privacy (outside looking in) what min level of ext. reflectance should I aim for? 30%+, 35%+, 40%+? I imagine that the exterior reflectance becomes a bigger factor where I actually need a high enough ext. reflectance so people can't see in and I have privacy. Is there any rule of thumb for what to look for? I have a sample of DRDS-35 which has a ext reflectance of 18% on the spec sheet which I tested and does not provide enough daytime privacy my wife/boss wants. I have a Fusion 10 sample which boosts an ext reflectance of 51% which does provides lots of privacy but pretty mirror like from the outside. What's the happy ground? 

2) I live within a HOA community so is there an ext. reflectance to keep below to stay below HOA complaints? Again this is more real-world experience. I read my CC&R but didn't see anything specific so reached out to our HOA rep for exact clarification. I do know my neighbors have done medium level tints w/o issue. 

2) What VLT is most commonly recommended for residential daytime privacy? I understand this is highly subjective and likely a need some mocks and samples to really tell. But wondering if there's a rule of thumb. 

4) Among those brands any comments? I understand that HO is superior for optics especially in the the ceramic film but as I shift more to DR for privacy does it still translate? Also understand that both Vista and Huper are both owned by Eastman Chemical but Huper Optik seems to be a higher class to Vista and the Panorama is SolarGard's equivalent.

 

Again thanks so much, this has been a wealth of information!

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FWIW.. 10-30 VLT on a home is really...really dark. I guess if you don't mind walking around with a flashlight all the time you will be fine.. As far as gaining a bit of privacy.. a DR 35 ish type of film will offer basically the same daytime privacy as any darker option.. and exactly the same nighttime privacy ( zero ) as a darker one. If you have not seen Vista V45 yet.. that is a very popular residential film for us and a good balance of performance/ cost/ visual clarity and neutral privacy from the exterior. 

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Some more context: my conservatory room is 10’ x 16’ with 8 80” tall windows on three sides with over 122 sqft of glass. This faces SSE so in the morning it heats up like a suana. It connects 16’ wide opening into the rest of the house which is a completely open floor concept of an area of over 1000 sqft which has good amount of light already coming in so the conservatory area is a relative smaller area to the rest of the house.

 

The consultant looking at my setup said going to a low VLT would work since it’s not a closed off room where I’m tinting all sides plus it’s actually a lot of glass. It’s just a matter how low to go to get the daytime privacy desired.

 

At V45 I rather just pick C40 for the better TSER. But my aim now is to see if I can get daytime privacy this looking at DR. Nighttime I know I get zero and it’s no different then what I have now. If I want nighttime privacy then will get roller shades.

 

Thanks!

 

Edited by PenguinTint
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If you tested DR 35 on just one window or used a small sample on one window, it will not give the same effect of privacy due to the light being more equal on both sides of the film. You will only know how well it provides daytime privacy after 'all' panels are tinted. It would give a fair amount of privacy so long as you are not standing up close to the glass in your birthday suit (within 2 feet).

 

If you have lowE glass and it is not older than say, 7-9 years, chances are good you have hi-performance lowE2. Standard lowE is a bit restrictive with many films however, hi-performance lowE2 can take on any of the before-mentioned films without issue. This is because lowE2 effectively reduces the amount of solar energy transmitted through the glazing unit whereby, standard lowE does not (it is mostly effective in retaining internal man-made heat or far infrared energy).

 

HOA would certainly be a buzz-kill in your situation. The only hope would be that this glass is on the backside of the dwelling and accepted by HOA as not being seen well from a front view aesthetics perspective.

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