Your couch and table may look just fine, but many things that are not fine often appear to be perfectly alright until you get a closer look at them, like a person who smiles with everything but their eyes. Only, with furniture, the cause of this secret inner deterioration is the exact opposite. It’s
too much
sun, specifically the ultraviolet part of sunlight that can gradually alter materials around your home on a molecular level.
Window Tint Can Save Wood from Getting Chemically Thrashed
Unfiltered UV radiation can trigger chemical changes in lignin, one of the components of wooden structure that acts a lot like glue holding cellulose together. Research from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and the Military University of Technology
found evidence of lignin breakdown in both pine and birch when exposed to UV radiation. In other words, the sun isn’t merely making your wooden table look older. It’s slow-melting it using alchemy.
Discoloration is another issue, but a bigger one is that
lignin is also responsible for that characteristic, pleasant wood smell. That isn’t an issue with painted or antique furnishings, but unadorned wooden fixtures and accessories still boasting that forest fragrance? They share exactly one thing with vampires, and it’s their incompatibility with direct sunlight.
Ordinary window glass
absorbs some ultraviolet radiation but not nearly enough of it. Quarter-inch windows can still transmit as much as 68% of solar UV radiation. A glass window is thus akin to a polite note on your door asking robbers—here standing in for UV rays—to please not come inside. A proper anti-UV tint is like a combination high-end alarm, moat, guards, and trapdoor under every window and welcome mat.
Your Couch Can Get Sun-Fried As Well
Wood gets most of the attention because its UV damage is quickly visible (though, as mentioned before, the real problems happen on the inside.) But upholstered furniture is also getting caught in the cross sunfire. Ultraviolet radiation has long been known to
cause photodegradation in textile materials, meaning that the fabric covering your favorite chair or couch is slowly fading away the brighter it gets inside your house.
In experiments, polyester and nylon upholstery fabrics were exposed to sunlight behind clear glass and behind three different solar-control films for 24 weeks. The results varied depending on the fabric and film used but, on the whole, unprotected glass tended to be
as beneficial to furniture as an accompanied toddler with a permanent marker.
Sun-Damage Isn’t an Overnight Job
The worst part about sun-damage to your furniture is that it’s never immediately obvious. It’s never some big, dramatic event where you have a perfectly nice table one day and a discolored, odorless pile of vaguely wood-like PlayDoh the next. As such, it’s a problem that’s easy to miss, forget, and not act upon until it’s too late.
Repeated, prolonged exposure produces
gradual changes in wood and fabric, and the rate depends on things such as the material or the intensity and wavelength of the light. But there are things you can do to slow that rate from a spring to barely a crawl. Covers are one solution, but they aren’t really compatible with a modern pace of live. UV-protective tints and films are proven ways of limiting sun-induced degradation, though there are different types suitable for different homes and weather conditions so it’s always best to consult with a professional.
For a bright, sunny house and furniture you can pass down to your kids one day, specially engineered window protection is the solution you didn’t know you needed.
