Soft Hard Coat - Low E: Is Low-E better with a soft coat or a hard coat?

Source Post: http://www.replacement-windows.com/windowbb/viewtopic.php?p=10079

JScott, I admit that I don't find the image of me on your back all that appealing - Shocked - so no worries there!!! Wink

Concerning LowE3 and various conterparts, as some of the old-timers may recall (likely not!) I did drop a hint in a post a long time ago just a little bit before any of the new coating had been released yet to watch for them - nothing specific at the time - just a quick comment on the new generation of LowE coatings.

Both Cardinal's 366, and AFG's TIAC40, and the various versions of PPG's SolarBan70, and Guardian's version (that I can't seem to remember what it's called off the top-of-my-head) are triple layer products. In the case of all of them, except AFG TIAC40, that means three layers of silver.

The AFG TIAC40 is really interesting in that it is a sputtercoat that uses titanium rather than silver as the active "low-emissivity" part of the coating. AFG states in their literature that their AFG TIAC40 has the best overall performance numbers of any solar-heat blocking coating - which isn't actually true - but I won't go into it.

One nice thing about how Cardinal names their coatings is that it is easy to understand - LoE-366 simply means 3 layers of silver and 66% light transmittance. LoE-272 means 2 layers of silver and 72% VT. LoE-178 means one layer of silver and 78% transmittance. It would take a heck of a lot less memory cells if the other folks would come up with a similar system! Idea

Solarmax,

If your comments about using the word "better" as being incorrect when describing softcoat LowE versus hardcoat LowE, were directed at my original post, then I stand by my choice of the word "better".

Softcoats are better than hardcoats in the context of my original post at doing what LowE coatings are designed to do - which is to block heat transfer.

At the time I didn't differentiate between near or far infrared or between direct solar gain or indirect gain in my original post. Simply, as intended, in direct product comparisons between the two primary types of coatings, the softcoat LowE coatings block heat transfer better than do the hardcoat LowE coatings. Specifics between various types of hardcoats and softcoats would take longer to explain but may be worth exploring.

There are now harcoat LowE coatings that have excellent solar heat blocking abilities - hardcoats designed for use in cooling dominated climates.

Source Post: Low E versus regular Low E
http://www.replacement-windows.com/windowbb/viewtopic.php?p=10079
Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 10:14 pm