6 Glazing Ideas to Improve Your Home’s Natural Light

[Content supplied by Kloeber]

Whether you're self building, extending or renovating, getting the glazing right is one of the most important parts of your project, helping to ensure your new space is bright, light and inspiring to be in. 

The benefits that come with a home with a good relationship with natural light are priceless — the likes of better concentration and improved mood all attributed to adequate exposure. 

Whether your home has some dark spots that could do with an injection of sunshine or you're keen for your new build to make the most of daylight, try these 6 ideas to help improve your property's natural light. 

1. Start at the Entrance 

In many existing homes, the entrance hallway is likely to be one of the darkest spots in the house. However, while choosing a front door with glazed panels will help a little, specifying a fanlight above or sidelights next to your new front door will help bring more light into the hallway. Whether you’re renovating or self building, this will ensure the first impression of your home isn’t a gloomy one. 

2. Go Big With Your Patio Door Choice 

The effect of choosing bifolding or sliding doors to create a connection with your garden is one of the most transformative projects you can undertake for your home. When it comes to choosing between the two to maximise natural light in your space, the size of the door opening you have is a key consideration. 

Bifolds can open up to 90% of the aperture so are ideal for smaller openings, however, bifolding doors are likely to have less slim sightlines than sliding doors. Sliding doors, while only opening up to 75% of the aperture, are great for providing uninterrupted views to the garden and work well for larger expanses of glazing. 

3. Create Fixed Glazing Features Throughout Your Home 

Whether it’s a picture window or a glazed gable, fixed glazing is a brilliant way not only to increase the amount of natural light your space gets, but create a dynamic feature too. A glazed gable could be used with bifold or sliding doors to create a wall of glass, flooding your space with as much natural light as possible, while picture windows are the perfect choice for highlighting a particular spectacular view of your garden or the surrounding area. 

4. Rooflights Help Natural Light Reach Further Into Your Home

The addition of rooflights is important when extending your home to ensure that the main part of the house isn’t left dark and gloomy by the new addition. Not only that, it can be a great way to draw focus to a particular area of your home, such as a dining table, ensuring this space is as light and bright as possible during the day.

5. Internal Glazing Helps Borrow Light 

Using glazing externally isn’t the only way to improve your home’s relationship with natural light. Internal glazing can be used to replace walls, allowing smaller, darker spaces to borrow light from those benefitting from those better illuminated spaces. 

6. Choose Clerestory Windows to Improve Your Ambient Light 

Clerestory windows are an effective way to help natural light reach deeper into your home, without concerns over issues such as overheating and glare, by helping to bounce diffused daylight around your home.