My glass is clear right? Not really.

Ask someone what colour their windows are and they’ll probably look at you strangely.

“Clear?”

Fair answer. But increasingly, not quite.

For decades, glass in New Zealand homes was essentially just that: clear glass. Its job was simple – keep the weather outside while letting the light and view in.

Today, the glass going into new homes is far more sophisticated. Double glazing has become the norm, and Low-E (low-emissivity) coatings are increasingly used to improve thermal performance. In fact, insulated glass units are effectively required in most new NZ homes to meet current H1 energy-efficiency requirements.

And those coatings can change what the glass looks like.

Depending on the product, angle and lighting, modern architectural glass can have a subtle blue, green, grey or slightly reflective appearance. Some glass is deliberately tinted to reduce solar heat gain and glare. Low-E glass has an ultra-thin coating designed primarily to control heat transfer – but that coating can also give the glass a slight colour or reflection.

BRANZ now treats clear float glass, tinted glass, solar-control glazing and Low-E coatings as distinct glazing options when specifying buildings.

It’s a bit like cars.

Remember when cars came with clear windows? If you were fancy, you took your new car down to the tint shop afterwards.

Now it’s almost the opposite. Factory-tinted glass is completely normal, while genuinely clear glass can be surprisingly difficult to find.

Homes are heading the same way.

The important thing is that “clear” no longer necessarily means colourless. Put two different Low-E products beside each other and you may notice quite different tones.

That matters when you’re choosing windows – particularly for large areas of glazing where a subtle hue suddenly isn’t so subtle.

So yes, your windows are clear.

Just perhaps not as clear as you thought.