New Technologies

At Amthal, we're always looking to the future, checking out the latest developments across the industry worldwide, to make sure that we are recommending the most up to date security systems for all our residential, corporate and public sector clients.

Talk to us at any time about upgrading or enhancing your security services or systems and we will be pleased to advise.

Developments we have been investigating recently include:

Solar shading film

The problem: a modern office building can easily experience heat gain of 50 KW on a single facade. Installing shading film could cut this by 40 KW - which is the equivalent of turning off 40 single-bar electric heaters!

Solar heat gain is a real problem in the workplace and can make us all uncomfortable. Trying to achieve an ambient temperature of 21.5° C, to meet the current EU Health & Safety directives, can be difficult when so many office buildings favour large expanses of glass. We need to control the solar heat and light entering our buildings to reduce heat gain and the glare on our computer screens.

Cooling systems are expensive to install, maintain and run, and their emissions are not environmentally friendly. It's far better to prevent excessive heat gain in the first place - and you can do this with a flexible shading system that uses virtually no energy. Depending on the material you choose, more than 80% of the solar heat energy projected at a window can be prevented from entering a room.

Glare Control: 30,000 movements of the eye (contractions and dilations of the pupil) per day can rapidly lead to fatigue and eye strain for your employees…. As well as bad posture and the resulting strains on the body as people their seating position to try and avoid the glare!

But you don't want to restrict natural light altogether…. People work more effectively with natural light and keeping that contact with the outside world! And of course increasing artificial light will only inflate your electricity bills.

Research has shown that the ideal working conditions are between 500 and 600 Lux levels (ambient lighting levels). A shading system delivering a light transmission (T65) of 3% or less can achieve these levels with natural light.

A common misconception is that solar shading is only for the summer months. Whilst true in respect of heat gain, glare is noticeably worse in winter months, since the sun is much lower in the sky, and will penetrate far deeper into a room.

Talk to Amthal today about the optimum lighting and shade requirements for your offices. Call free on free on 0800 093 781 or click here to email your enquiry.