Just to update everyone a little, there was an excellent seminar in the Red Cow Moran Hotel last Thursday organised by Promac Group with guest speakers, Simon Coveney FG spokesperson for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Andy McDowell from Pilkington Glass, Barry Smith from National Standards Authority, Giles Wilson from BFRC, Kevin O'Rourke from SEI, and Andy Jones from Edgetech.
It was great to have everyone agreeing that Ireland needs to have standard regulations introduced such as electrical products, ie the A,B,C in the colour coded graph and also an "Energy Recommended" label. What the consumer needs to be looking for is a WER (window energy rating) which applies to the whole window as a unit not just the glass.
A BER applies to the whole house not just the windows and doors. When a BER Assessor is assessing a house and does not know the rating for a window a default setting of 2.2 is used. Also consumers need to be looking at the idea of Solar Gain from windows and doors when making their choices.
A poster above mentioned that the wider the spacer bar the better - Andrew Jones from Edgetech mentioned that 14.7 in actually optimal for spacer bars.
I look forward to the follow-up seminar when the above bodies have agreed as to what is going to be the standard for Ireland, which will eliminate the current guesswork when making such an important investment for ones home.