Hi, I am considering using high solar heat gain transoms above a low solar heat gain window on our south facing wall.  My reason would be that the overhang on the house would shade the transom window during the summer, but it's not large enough to cover the window below it too.  Has anyone done anything like this?  I am a little concerned that the difference in visual transmittance will make the lshg window look bad.

I am in Kentucky and it looks like we have substantially more heating degree days (4755) than cooling (1489), so I would like to incorporate hshg windows but don't want to make summer time miserable in the house.

What do you all think?

marlibaumann-

I had a similar decision to make on windows in my living room, with two facing north that I wanted to be low SHGC (for the lower U-value), and two facing east that I wanted to be high SHGC for passive solar gain in my heating-only climate.  I elected to make them all low SHGC so that they would be consistent, but now I realize that the low and high SHGC windows look the same visually.  The high SHGC are typically specified at slightly higher in visual transmission, but I can't tell the difference.  I think that you have a good idea to use the high gains up top and the low gains below.

Lee Dodge
http://residentialenergylaboratory.com
in a net-zero source energy modified production house

Thanks Lee, I was thinking that with the windows right next to each other it might be more obvious, but it could be one of those things that only I would notice since nobody else would really know they are two different window types.