Advice required on window film / tinting for the house

[Mr. Clueless]

We've got the kitchen/diner tinted professionally. Does a decent job.

Upstairs in our house gets silly hot during summer. I'm looking at tackling the box room myself with some solar film to see how it helps with the heat. This is also the room that has the PC in it & the power lead running to one of the speakers is loose, I imagine because the heat has just had its way with the adhesive. Too late to fix it now but yeah the room gets hot so I was thinking of trying tackling it & if all goes well I'd then have a do at the bedroom which is also unbearable at night for about a fortnight (currently leave the blinds & curtains shut throughout the day when it gets hot but every little helps I guess).

Just throwing "window solar tint" in to Amazon throws up something like so but I'm not totally stupid, I don't imagine that one is going to be very good. I wonder if any of the films on Amazon are any good really.

Anyway I can hop on YouTube to see how to do it but I'm looking for what kind of film do you recommend? What terms should I be looking for? Direct links to decent stuff would be appreciated.

I'm not 100% on the 'appearance' I'd want externally. Above everything the film needs to function as a heat reduction before we start talking about dark smoke, mirror finish & whatever other kinds of appearance there are.

Window in question is 980x690 for the main section & 880x140 for the opener.

 

[Wayners]

Tint on the outside?
Not all glass can be tinted so check the spec.

 

[crank39]

Careful with mirror films, the cheaper end of the scale films use a dye which degrade quickly, the better more expensive ones use a sprayed metal coating, a few years ago when I was on a big filming contract we used argent/silver 80c, Argent/Silver 80 C (Highly Reflective): Rejects the highest amount of heat (up to ~80%) and glare, with a darker look and heavier mirror finish.

On double glazed units it's always best practice to film the outside, filming the inner pane can trap the heat between the mirror film and the reflective coating on the glass unit, eventually the glass could shatter

 

[Mr. Clueless]

Tint on the outside?

Not sure where you got that impression.

"I'm not 100% on the 'appearance' I'd want externally." <----- that's the only bit that I can think of that made you think that.

If so then no, the tint would be applied internally. I'm talking about I don't care how it would look standing on the outside looking at the window. As in, dark, frosted, mirrored, so on & so forth. As in from passers by - I don't care what they see.
As above anything like appearance comes it keeping the temperature down / heat out.

On double glazed units it's always best practice to film the outside, filming the inner pane can trap the heat between the mirror film and the reflective coating on the glass unit, eventually the glass could shatter

No chance of doing the outside I'm afraid. Well, obviously there is but I'm not about to be getting scaffolding set up to do some window tint.

I'm not saying you're wrong (because I don't have a clue, else I wouldn't be here), but I got a local tinter to do the kitchen/diner area. Basically the (double glazed) window in front of the sink & the patio doors. These have been in place for around 10yrs perfectly fine.

I appreciate that comes across as "I've been smoking for 70 years & I haven't died yet therefore it's harmless" - I'm not trying to say that. I'm just saying we have it in place. Though granted - the sun blasts the front of the house, not the rear which is where the kitchen area is.

Some would say - well get that guy out to do the front then. But I'm trying to keep the cost down.

I wasn't aware of the tinting of the outside though. I'll have to research that. Thanks.

 

[Wayners]

As posted above... Tint on the outside works best.
I've got velux windows with tint on the inside but it's not great.
Makes a difference but it's not expensive

 

[Lower]

If you film the inside, you will still get heat reflected by the film, but the film gets hot to the touch and radiates some heat into the house.

 

[endecotp]

As above, if your aim is to reduce the temperature when it’s sunny, the film really needs to go on the outside. You need to reduce the light before it comes through the glass. It’s called the “greenhouse effect”.