Here at Ocean Builders we are always experimenting, testing, reiterating, and trying to do things better than before and find new ways to improve. We always know what we would like the outcome to be, so it is important to constantly do testing and experimenting to see if we are getting closer or further away from our final goal.

This video shows a bit of window testing that we recently did on a few different options for polycarbonate windows for the SeaPod. This machine tests three different metrics for these window sections. The screen on the far left shows how much ordinary light is getting through the window. The middle screen measures how much infrared light makes it through. And the final display tells us how much ultraviolet light is able to pass through the window.

You can see that the clear section allows most of the light to pass through. About 92% of the ordinary light, 93% of the infrared light, and 90% of the UV light made it through the window. The blue-tinted polycarbonate section has different results. Only about 50% of the ordinary light makes it through the blue-tinted panel and almost 99.9% of the UV light is blocked by the tint, but 98% of the infrared light is still getting through.

This test shows us the areas where we have good results and also the areas where we need to do a little bit more work. For example, it is great that we are able to block 99.9% of the UV light, but we need to have the infrared light be much lower. Reducing the amount of infrared light that can pass through the windows will help to keep the house cooler and save energy that would otherwise need to be used on climate control.

Overall, these results are really good and it shouldn’t be too difficult to fix the infrared issue. We should start to receive window panels very soon and that means that the SeaPod prototype will have the windows installed in the near future! We will be sure to update you when the next steps happen so keep an eye out for more!