What Is The Best Way To Shade My Home From The Sun?

My home in Austin, Texas, tends to stay quite hot. What can I do to cool it down and keep it that way?

The answer is to shade your windows with solar screens for windows.  To get the sun off of the glass of your windows and out of your home.

To keep your home cool, you absolutely have to keep the sun off of the windows.

Solar screens for windows are the number one way to keep the sun off the glass.

1. Solar Screens for windows

2. Shade Tree in front of the windows

3. Awning over the top of the windows

4. Tall shrubs in front of the windows

Interior shades, blinds, shutters, curtains, and window film will not effectively keep rooms cooler from the sun that heats the windows.

I recommend installing solar screens on all the windows of your home in Austin, Texas. At a minimum, make sure to put them on the windows facing West.

Consult with the City of Austin, Austin Energy, or any air conditioning specialist in Austin, and they will confirm that solar screens are the most effective solution for preventing heat from the sun from entering your home.

Putting Solar Screens On All The Windows Verses Just Some Will Look Considerably Better.

• Your home will look complete and finished versus incomplete and spotty.

• For a finished and even look, -consistency is the key.

• Pricing gets discounted by putting more solar screens up than not.

This install looks beautiful, the Austin TX customer installed solar screens on all of her front windows.

Every window on this home received a solar screen. To include that back door shown here.

The front of this home has a lot of missing solar screens. The homeowner only wanted the solar screens for these 4 windows. This looks sooooo incomplete to me.

This homeowner had me install just three solar screens on the front of their home. They should have done the remaining 4. It just looks odd and unfinished to me left like this.

You can see through the solar screens very well, and they will not make the home too dark.

• You will be able to open your blinds with the solar screens on

• With the blinds open, you will get MUCH more light into the home versus now when you have the blinds closed.

• With the blinds open, the home will not feel closed off on the inside.

• The solar screens will not make it dark inside the home.  On the inside of the home it will fill like it’s a cloudy day, but not dark.

• You will get plenty of shade, but not cut out all the light.

Showing how well 90% solar screens provide interior shade.

This is a 90% solar screen sliding door partially open. Look at the floor, to the right you have 100% shade, then to left of that you have 0% shade, and then 90% shade. To the far left is 2 layers of 90% shade

West facing window shaded with a 90% solar screen. That’s a lot of sun light coming through. 90% shaded, but a lot of actual light. 90% of the sun’s rays have been blocked.

90% solar screen in the middle. No solar screens on either side of it.

Privacy: people cannot see in during the day through the solar screens, but you can clearly see out of them.

• You get great daytime privacy with both the 80% and 90% solar screens.

• The 90% solar screens give you the best privacy, but they do have a thicker more solid, denser look.

• If you want more transparency to see things like blinds and grid patterns within the windows, the 80% fabric will be a better fit for you.

Here’s a Mocha Brown 90% solar screen next to an 80% solar screen showing how private they make the windows.

Showing an 80% and 90% solar screen next to each other.

How Does The Heat From The Sun Get In Through Your Windows?

Heat that is getting in through the glass of your windows is doing so because the sun’s rays heat up the glass/windows and anything beyond the glass.

There’s nothing blocking the sun’s rays.

Non shaded glass allows the sun to penetrate through it.

The sun's rays can heat up glass, causing it to radiate warmth into your home. Anything that the sun's rays touch will become hot. Just because your window glass is clear doesn't mean it isn't affected by the sun. This clear glass can get really hot due to the intense rays of the sun. Additionally, if your blinds are closed, they will also heat up, as will shutters and any other surfaces that receive direct sun rays. If your blinds are open, any exposed flooring that is hit by the sun will also become hot.

Hot glass and windows are like having constant heaters turned on everywhere in the house where there is sun-exposed glass.

The solution is to place a shade tree between the windows and the sun. This shade tree will provide protection from sunlight for the glass. However, shade trees take a long time to grow and develop. As an alternative, we can use solar window screens. It's also impractical to have shade trees covering every window of your home.

Reasons to Shade Your Home’s Windows with Solar Window Screens.

The solar window screens will drastically shade the glass by using either the 80% or 90% sun shade screen densities.

The glass will no longer get scorching hot from the sun, therefore the heat from those scorching hot windows will no longer radiate into the home.

Solar screens will shade the glass from the sun’s rays. You can either let 10% or 20% of the sun’s rays get through using solar screens for the windows.

It’s common sense that shading the window from outside will prevent the sun’s rays from heating the glass or entering the home.

Do window film and tint serve the same purpose as solar screens?

Do not believe the misconception that window film or tint will achieve the same results.

Window film and tint will shade the interior but still allow the sun's rays to heat the glass.

Window film installs on the inside of the glass, which does nothing to keep the glass/window from getting hot.

Window tint does not keep the glass and window from getting hot. And WILL NOT keep the heat from warm/hot windows from radiating into the home.

In fact, window tint can make the glass significantly hotter.  This is because most of the sun's rays are blocked at the glass. Window film installers are aware of this, and the honest ones will admit it. It’s common sense: if you’re blocking the sun’s rays at the inside pane of the glass, that pane will inevitably become hot. Not only does it become hot, but it can get much hotter because the tinted glass absorbs all those sun rays.

With solar screens, the glass is shaded first, way before the sun gets to it.

Basic Understanding Of Solar Screens For Windows.

The solar screens sit between the glass and the sun.

Solar screens install between the glass and the sun. Mimicking that of a shade tree.

Solar screens function like a large shade tree, providing protection between the glass and the sun. To achieve the effect of a fully shaded tree, you can use our 90% shade solar screens. For a partially shaded effect, opt for the 80% solar screens. 

I recommend using the 90% solar screens on west-facing windows that receive four or more hours of direct sunlight. For all other windows, the 80% solar screens are a better choice. You can find more information and answers to common questions about solar screens on my dedicated FAQ page.

To get a feel for what the installed cost would be to put the solar screens on your home’s windows, visit my Solar Window Screen Pricing page.  Installed solar screen pricing is insanely inexpensive.  20 windows will be somewhere around $1,100 all in.  That’s cheap for what all goes into each job.

To see many pictures of home’s shaded with the solar screens, take a look at  my Solar Window Screen Gallery page.  That gallery page is nice, as there’s a wide range of styles and colors of homes on it to take a look at.

Can I use your patio roller shades, installed on my patio, to shade my windows?

The outdoor patio sun shades are designed for temporary shading.

They are not designed to be a permanent fixture. They are not to be left down all the time.

The wind is way too strong to leave the patio roller shades in the constant down position.  If you want to learn more, you can visit my Q&A patio roller shade page.

My patio roller shades are all custom built right here in Austin.  My patio roller shade pricing in Austin, TX, is exceptional because I make and install them myself, passing the savings on to you.

Austin TX Roller shades for the patio and solar screens for the windows. See more pictures of my patio roller shades here.