Modern glazed skyscrapers are popping up in cities all around the world, but would be spending a lot more money on their energy bills if it wasn’t thermal energy efficient glass helping to keep the heat in.

Buildings can lose up to 25% of their heat through windows, so low-e glass can be a very cost-effective solution to keeping homes and offices warm in the winter months. Low-e (low emissivity glass) is energy efficient glass that has a thin invisible coating which prevents heat escaping out, helping to better insulate modern buildings which use a lot of glass in their architecture.

Normal glass absorbs heat then radiates it to the colder outdoor surface of the glass where it escapes out of the building. As low-e coatings are poor radiators of heat, instead the thermal energy is absorbed and reflected back into the room.

GGR’s pocket-size E-Activ Glass Coating Detector can identify when a low-e glass coating has been used on a surface at the push of a button. This is an extremely useful tool for building surveyors and compliance officers, quality control stuff at glazing unit fabricators and on-site installation teams to check that sheet glass and insulated glass units (IGUs) from 1.8mm to 6mm thick are coated properly.

Tested and approved by glass manufacturers Pilkington, our detector can identify commonly used glass coatings such as Pilkington K-Glass™ ,  E-Activ™, Optitherm ™, energiKare™, Insulight™ , Spacia™ , Guardian’s ClimaGuard Low-E, Neutral 70, SunGuard Advanced glass and many more. It can also detect self-cleaning coatings such as Pilkington Activ and Saint Gobain Bioclean which allow dirt on the glass surface to be broken down by sunlight then washed away by rain.

The E-Activ detector works by shining an infrared light into clean, dry glass and measuring how much is reflected back to check whether a coating has been applied and to which surface. With its extended battery life the detector can take 40,000 measurements.

The E-Activ Glass Coating Detector is available to buy on the GGR Glass online shop. Take a look at our full range of glass measuring tools including laser measurers, measuring rods and lifting accessories including suction cups, hand cups and many more!.