FAQ

Residential/Commercial Tint

Does Window Tint Provide Energy Savings?

Window tint on your home or business DOES help provide energy savings! Through both the summer and winter!

During the summer, our window film rejects and reflects heat, allowing your A/C unit to run more efficiently and less often.

Couple that with the insulating quality that window film provides, you could see the needs of your A/C unit reduced by up to a HALF TON per 100sqft of glass you have tinted!

This insulation factor carries over into the winter months as well, providing a thicker barrier to keep the heat reflecting back to the inside of your house.

Does Window Tint Provide Privacy?

Yes! We offer films that cover a range of needs in privacy. With reflective films offering daytime privacy, and frosted films offering both day AND night privacy, we can provide the film to help you feel comfortable walking around your home or office!

What is the Difference in Daytime and Nighttime Privacy?

'Mirrored' films, or reflective and dual reflective films, are what most people consider privacy films.

These transparent films work by reflecting the light and imagery on the side of the glass with the greater light source. The side with the lower light source has visibility through the window. During the day, the sun is much brighter than interior lighting, which means the reflective qualities are dominant on the outside of the window.

This provides daytime privacy.

At night, however, the interior lighting of a building is greater than the exterior.

This results in reflections inside, and visibility through the window from the outside.

While there are ways to lessen this effect, like keeping interior lighting low and aiming lights at the exterior of your windows, the only way to provide true privacy in any lighting is with translucent or opaque films.

Translucent films allow light to pass through, but not images. These are typically frosted films.

Opaque films do not allow the transfer of light or image, such as a white-out or black-out film.

Does Window Film/Tint Offer Security?

Yes!

There are special window films that offer great protection from accidental breaks, break in attempts, and even blast mitigation needs!

These are much thicker than typical films, with different adhesion qualities, that provide a barrier between your glass and potential threats.

They can also be coupled with an attachment system that binds the film to the window frame for added strength.

With these security films, you can slow and deter break in attempts!

While typical window films offer a laminating quality, keeping the glass together better if it were to break, the amount of protection they offer is limited.

Does Window Tint Protect Against Sun Fade?

Yes!

UV Rays are the main cause of fade and deterioration.

With flat glass films offering 99% UV Protection, you can feel confident that the sun's harmful rays will no longer hurt your floors, furniture or skin!

Automotive Tint

1. What is Legal?

Alabama State Law states:

Passenger Car and Station Wagon

Only the upper six inches of the front windshield may be tinted. The material applied must be transparent.
All other windows (side and rear) may have tinting that allows at least 32% light transmission with a 3% tolerance.
The reflective material may not reflect more than 20% of light

Multi-purpose Passenger and Recreational Vehicles

Front windshield and front seat windows are subject to the same restrictions as passenger cars and station wagons.
On the windows behind the driver, darker tinting is permitted as allowed by the manufacturer of the vehicle by Federal Law.
Outside rearview mirrors on each side of the vehicle are required when the darker tint is installed.
The manufacturer determines the classification of the vehicle.

2. Is Legal Tint Dark?

In short terms, no.

Legal tint is not dark and will allow sight into the vehicle in most circumstances.

It WILL provide a cooler interior and protection from the sun, but not as much privacy.

3. What Percentage Are My Factory Windows?

Most vehicles do have factory shading, even if it may seem like they don't.

For front windshields and front roll ups of most vehicles, the windows will have a factory shading of 70%.

This extends to the rear passenger windows of sedans and coupes as well.

On SUVs and trucks with a rear passenger capability, the rear windows will typically have a factory shading close to 20%.

4. What Does VLT % Mean?

VLT stands for Visual Light Transmittance.

This shows how much visible light is able to be transmitted through the window or tint.

35% VLT shows that 35% of the visible light is able to pass through the window or tint.

5. Can I See Through Tint at Night?

Window film is designed to have a clear sight picture when looking out of the vehicle.

While film quality plays a major role in that clarity, the VLT % does play a part in nighttime vision.

In low lighting situations, it may be difficult to see out of windows tinted to a darker VLT.

It is also important to keep in mind that window tint added over factory shading has a compounding effect.

On the front windows (being factory shaded to 70%), for instance, adding a 5% film will actually make the windows read at 3.5% VLT when checked with a meter.

If you were to add 5% tint to the factory shaded rear windows, which are at 20% to start, the meter would read 1% VLT.

With this in mind, you can better understand why some shades look darker on different windows, and how the compounding effect can make a normally visible tint level hard to see through at night.

6. Why Does Tint Turn Purple? (Or Other Colors)

There are three basic types of film; Dyed, Carbon, and Ceramic.

Dyed films achieve their darkness by mixing color shades together to achieve the desired darkness. Over time these colors will fade at differing rates. This leaves the stronger of the colors, or less washed out of the colors, as the films new hue. Typically, these are red and blue, which combine to leave the film looking purple. Dyed films typically only last 1-3 years (at best) and are the lowest tier of window film.

Carbon films are non-dyed, color and fade stable. They achieve their shading through carbon deposits in the film layers. The more carbon deposited, the darker the shade. While these films may have a very slight fade over time, the change is mostly unnoticeable. With very high UV protection and higher levels of heat rejection, Carbon films are a great middle ground on quality and pricing. They last much longer than the dyed films, with expectancies of 5 years to lifetime of the vehicle.

Ceramic films are infused with nano particles of ceramic, which has a great heat dissipating quality. As the sun hits the nano particles, they absorb and reflect the infrared rays. Because of this, very little heat is able to pass through the tint and is either reflected or absorbed on the outer surface to eventually be cooled through 'wind rush'.

These ceramic films can achieve their shading either through dye, or through carbon infusion.

The dye that is used in these films is considered color stable, depending on the quality, and should not fade or change color. Again, this is based on quality, and some ceramic tint has been known to fade/change color.

Ceramic has the highest heat rejection qualities of the three options, and typically has the same life expectancy of carbon films, 5 years to lifetime.