Having rooted about on the Pilks site a bit more, I have found what they call "Pilkington Suncool™ Dynamic powered by Suntuitive™ ", which seems to be exactly what I have been looking for. A glass that darkens in proportion to the amount of sun heat landing on it. Do you have any experience of this?
https://www.pilkington.com/en-gb/uk/pro ... c#overview
My concern now is that a tiny order for this glass for a little house might not be accepted by Pilks. Looks to be as though this product might be for acres of office building glass....
Blimey, that's a fun sheet of glass. It looks like an ideal solution.
I've been meaning to reply to this thread for a couple of busy days, so sorry to be late to the party.
The problem with solar control glass is that while it really makes a difference in the Summer, come Winter when you want all the solar gain you can get, it blocks that out as well. I had solar control glass on a south facing conservatory some years ago, it was really weird in a sunny Winter day as it was bright but ice cold in there.
Anyhow, Pilkington were a great company with fantastic customer service, they were taken over by Nippon Glass and I've had no direct dealings with them since. At the time, they were more than happy to post samples of the various glasses they sell. For the basic solar control you'd just get some glass in an envelope, for the more elaborate stuff that had delicate coatings, they would send a sealed double glazed unit to you - A little A4 sized window would let you test the properties of this stuff without commiting.
There is an e-mail link on the link you've used, or failing that you could just phone them and ask for a sample.
Something else worth noting is that while many double glazing firms make the frames, they use another suppier to make up the sealed glass units to fit into their frames. This explains why the DG companies don't seem to know much about the different types of glass, they could probably answer tricky questions about frames, but glass is just something they buy in.
If you asked the DG people, they should be more than happy to put you in touch with their glass people, essentially all we really need to know is how small the sheets of this stuff can be, you might end up having to fork out for an entire sheet and absorb the cost of the wastage but I doubt that will be too expensive.
Good luck with the project and many thanks for finding out about this glass which I didn't know existed. It would work a treat in my dining room winsows, currently it's 30ºC in here.
Regards,
B.