Safetyline Jalousie presents Pilkington’s Spacia, a new range of energy saving glass delivering the thermal performance of conventional double glazing at half the cost.

The world’s first commercially available vacuum glazing, Pilkington’s Spacia is only a quarter of the thickness of double glazing, with the ultra-thin unit offering an attractive and practical solution for conservation properties while also fulfilling modern requirements.

How it works

Spacia’s vacuum glazed unit consists of an outer pane of low emissivity glass and an inner pane of clear float glass, separated by a micro spacer grid of small pillars, each measuring just 0.5mm in diameter and set 20mm apart. This grid ensures that the two glass panes are kept apart at a fixed distance. The edges of the unit are welded to achieve an airtight seal.

When the vacuum glazing is manufactured, the air in the space between the two panes of glass is extracted via the extraction point to create a vacuum (as opposed to filling the space with air or gas). Even a small vacuum is effective in reducing the conduction and convection heat losses, so the gap between the two panes can be reduced to just 0.2mm. This results in excellent thermal performance from a unit that is only slightly thicker than a single pane of glass.

Why incorporate vacuum glazing into Safetyline Jalousie louvres

It’s an established fact that louvres allow more airflow than most other windows, making louvre windows an obvious choice to provide ventilation and cooling. Thanks to the continued evolution of standards and regulations around energy efficiency as well as advances in technology, improved construction methods and greater consumer expectations, the demand for double glazed louvre systems has been growing in recent years.

There are only a few double glazed louvre products available in the Australian market today. Though these products offer excellent thermal performance, unfortunately, they are all manufactured offshore, come with a very high price tag and don’t necessarily meet other requirements such as balustrade compliance and fall prevention.

Safetyline Jalousie’s vacuum glass louvre window provides an alternative solution at an affordable price, with the ability to improve energy efficiency all year around and with the same design capabilities as the original JX Safetyline Jalousie louvre windows.

Overall performance

An analysis was undertaken by Inhabit Group to assess the overall performance of the Safetyline Jalousie system across multiple products and panel sizes. Using THERM 6.3, the Australian Fenestration Rating Council’s (AFRC) total U-Value and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) of the vision panels have been calculated based on actual sizes.

As seen in Table 1 below, the calculated U-Value and SHGC are outlined.

Benefits of vacuum glazing

Vacuum glazing delivers a host of benefits including: Thermal performance equal to or better than that of most low-E double glazing but in the same thickness as single glass; improved sound reduction performance when compared to a standard double glazed unit (35Rw when incorporated into the Safetyline Jalousie system); cost-effective alternative to conventional double glazing; and proven solution installed successfully in the UK and the Netherlands and used in Japan for over a decade.