Ric Butt is wrong

The latest issue of the wonderful sustainable housing magazine Sanctuary unfortunately perpetuated the erroneous advice that Ric Butt and his firm Strine Architects are in the habit of giving out about window design, as mentioned in this previous article about window selection.

Concerned that such advice may go uncorrected, I wrote to Sanctuary:

Dear Sanctuary Magazine.

I was very concerned to read in your latest edition the comments by Ric Butt of Strine Homes. More concerned that his incorrect comments were not corrected by you and have now been read by many people and taken as gospel.

I too was told by one of Ric's staff that "we don't put double glazing on the north side because it would stop the warmth of the sun getting in." This comment displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the physical properties of light and heat - a lack of understanding that would have compromised the effective passive solar design of our home. We never went back to them.

It is simple: there is NO HEAT outside in a Canberra winter to allow in (quite the reverse actually). There is only light - and double glazing does nothing to stop that unless it is tinted also. Once the light is inside the house it is absorbed by internal mass objects and re-emitted as long-wave (infra-red) light - or put another way - heat. It is amazing that Ric's homes can function effectively at all, given the heat LOSS through the north-facing windows during both day and night would likely outweigh any gains from sunlight. He talks about roman blinds keeping the warmth in, but they do no such thing during the day when they need to be open.

I have had more than 400 people tour my home over the last two Sustainable House Days, and invariably the main thing people ask is about glazing. This is because there is such a paucity of easily understood and correct information out there for people to draw upon.

I have summarised my understanding of the key glazing issues here: http://ashleykerlin.blogspot.com/2009/10/choosing-windows-for-your-house.html

I think it is important that Sanctuary corrects Ric Butt's erroneous advice next issue.

PS: Love the magazine!


Sanctuary Magazine have replied:

Dear Ashley,

It’s great to have your feedback. We try to be open to a range of opinion in Sanctuary but I agree that we should have done more to question Ric’s assertion about single glazing to the north. As you point out so succinctly in your article, the science is very clear and uncontroversial.

We are doing a feature on double glazing in the next issue of Sanctuary (February 2010). In that we will look at how double glazing works and address some of the misconceptions, and in that respect we will make reference to Strine’s assertion re north-facing double glazing.

I have subsequently been interviewed by the guy writing this feature on windows, and I look forward seeing the final article in the next issue in February.