TECHNICAL ADVICE

Incorporating a Small Glass Extension into Your Home

Glass extensions are one of the effective ways to expand your home whilst increasing the flow of natural light. These can vary greatly in size but most homeowners opt for small glass extensions.

Many homeowners don’t want to lose garden space so by incorporating a small extension you still get the benefits of extended living space and natural light without sacrificing outdoor space.

These contemporary home extensions are extremely well suited to a wide range of projects, from listed buildings in conservation areas to modern London townhouses.

Incorporating a glass extension into the home can be done in a variety of ways, for example being integrated into the existing building structure to connect two parts of the home.

Another way is to add the extension onto the exterior of the home, usually on the rear of the home but they can be added on any side. Some projects choose to build upwards, utilising modern glazing to create a rooftop glass box extension.

Glass extensions complement their host buildings without drawing attention away, creating a striking elevation that works in harmony with its surroundings.

glass box extension with back painted

Benefits of a glass extension

A huge benefit of incorporating a small glass extension into the home is the vast amount of natural light that will be able to flow into the home.

By maximising natural light within the home during the day the need to have artificial lighting on is greatly reduced, helping to lower energy bills and the homes carbon footprint.

Many of Sieger’s aluminium glazing systems use ultra slim framing which doesn’t disrupt the flow of light or the views of the outdoors. Small glass extensions can be designed in a variety of ways, many of our projects utilised Invisio glazing and some type of glass door.

All of our external aluminium glass door systems can be integrated into glass extensions so you can choose from a sliding glass door, a bifold door, a pivot door or a casement door.

 

glass box extension that connects the basement and rear of the ground floor
small glass extension using a slim sliding glass door and a box rooflight

Thermal efficiency of glass extensions

Previously, windows and doors could be a major source of heat loss within the home and glass conservatories were often extremely cold in the winter. Now thanks to thermal break technology and argon gas insulating cavities, this is no longer the case.

Our systems use fully thermally broken aluminium framing, ensuring the interior of the glass extension maintains a comfortable temperature all year round. All external glazing systems also use argon gas cavities to provide high levels of insulation.

The Invisio Roof Glazing System is the first structural glass solution that is thermally broken so incorporating this into your small glass extension ensures high levels of thermal performance.

Sieger uses low e coatings as standard on all of our insulated external glazing systems at no extra cost. Low e is short for low emissivity, which essentially means the coating prevents the glass from absorbing the heat and transferring it.

This coating prevents heat from escaping the home by reflecting it back into the internal living space, this helps to maintain a high energy efficiency whilst keeping heating bills low.

 

Solar Control Glass

Many people are concerned about the possibility of glass extensions causing overheating in the home during the warmer months. This may have been an issue a few years ago but by utilising modern advances in glazing technology this is no longer a concern.

Even with small glass extensions, if the glass extension is north facing, we recommend using a solar control coating on the glass as when used in conjunction with a low e coating it creates an extremely thermally efficient glazing unit.

There are different types of solar control coatings with differing levels of light transmission and G factor reduction. G factor refers to solar gain, which is the amount of radiation that travels through the glass.

Which coating is right for your project depends on how much of the sun’s rays you want to block. The most popular is a 70/35 coating which allows 70% of light thought whilst reducing the solar gain to 35%.

Glass extensions, big or small, can be utilised to help reduce heating bills, by using the solar gain and warmth of the sun’s rays to heat the home. Our team of technical advisors will be able to assess what coating are necessary on a project to project basis, as every glass extension is different.

modern glass extension on a period property in the English countryside
small glass box extension created using Invisio structural glazing and an aluminium casement door

Sieger’s aluminium glazing solutions have been used in a wide variety of small glass extensions such as our Chestnut Cottage project, which utilised Invisio structural glazing and a Schuco Casement door to fill a space between two sections of the home.

This created a new light-filled functional living space that brought an elegant touch to the traditional style England cottage.

Another one of our projects used similar glazing systems but for a small glass box extension that acted as a passageway to the basement floor and connected the ground and basement floors.

The small glass box extension was built up from the basement and attached to the rear of the ground floor. This glazing solution allows natural light to flow down into the basement.

 

For more information on how you can incorporate a glass extension into your home, get in touch with the team today.  

 

Call 01494 722 882 or email [email protected]

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