Home Study Glare Without a Dark Room

Find which glare you have

Each check takes a minute at the hour the screen is hardest to read. The answer decides which window matters and what is worth changing.

A reflection in the screen

The check. Switch the screen off and look into the black glass. If you can make out the window, or yourself lit up against it, the glare is a reflection.

It comes from a bright window behind your chair, or behind and to one side.

A window brighter than the screen

The check. Hold a folder up so it hides the window but not the screen. If the picture suddenly looks sharper, the window in your line of sight is the problem.

It comes from glass beyond the screen, often a highlight window above the desk.

Sun on the desk

The check. Look for a bright patch on the desk, the keyboard or the paper that shifts through the day. Note where it starts and stops for a few days.

It comes from direct sun through a side window, a glass door or a skylight.

Plenty of studies have two of these at once, and then both windows go on the schedule. The home study glare film page covers each desk position and how dark a film to choose.

Which way the study window faces

The direction of the glass decides when the sun reaches it. On the North Shore the noon sun stands about 80 degrees above the horizon in late December and only about 33 degrees in late June. An eave that keeps summer sun off a north window lets the winter sun straight under it, which is what the Your Home shading guide recommends for warmth.

For a desk, that means a north study can be comfortable in January and hard to work in by June. East and west glass take low sun in every season, and Your Home notes it is the hardest sun to shade.

Study glare by the direction of the glass
	When the sun reaches it	At the desk	Film to talk about
North	Around the middle of the day. High and shaded by the eave in summer, low and deep into the room in winter.	Glare you notice in June and not in January.	A glare film that keeps daylight. Ask how each film handles the winter sun, because north glass is where the house gets its warmth.
East	From sunrise to late morning, all year.	A bright start to the working day, gone by lunch.	A lighter film, as the glare covers only part of the day.
West	From mid-afternoon to sunset, all year, low and hard to shade.	The longest glare of the working day, with heat in the same hours.	The window where film does the most. A blind can still be needed for the last low sun.
South	Little direct sun, apart from early and late on summer days, when the sun rises and sets south of east and west.	Bright sky rather than sun.	Often none. A light film if the sky behind the screen is brighter than the picture.

Blinds, film and the other fixes

The fixes run from moving the desk to fitted shading. Some take the window away while they work, and that is the dark room this page is about.

Study glare fixes, side by side
	What it fixes	What you give up
Turning or moving the desk	Reflection, and looking straight into the light, when the desk can sit side-on to the window.	Only the layout, though a small study or the corner of a unit often has no other spot.
A matte screen, a hood or a tilt	Some of the reflection from a window behind you.	Little. It does nothing about a window brighter than the screen, or sun on the desk.
A sheer or light-filtering blind	Softer light while it is down, with some daylight kept.	Most of the view while it is down, and it goes up and down with the sun.
A block-out blind	All the glare, for as long as it is down.	The daylight and the view.
An awning, louvres or a deeper eave	Sun stopped before it reaches the glass. Your Home suggests adjustable vertical shading or deep pergolas for east and west glass.	Building work outside, and on a heritage house, a question for council first.
Glare film on the glass	How bright the window is through the working day, with the view kept. A heat-control film takes heat as well.	Some daylight, more with a darker film. Low sun shining straight onto the screen still wants a blind.
Film with a sheer blind	Film for most of the day, the sheer for the last low sun.	Two things to choose instead of one.

After dark

Once the lamp is on, the study window turns into a mirror from inside, and the street can see into a lit room. That is true of clear glass and of every film, and a reflective film makes the mirror stronger.

For evening work, and for privacy at night, the blind still comes down. Film is for the daylight hours.

Which window, suburb by suburb

At the 2021 Census, 41.3% of employed people in Hornsby worked from home, rising to 61.9% in North Sydney. The count fell in August 2021, during Sydney's lockdown, so it records a peak rather than an ordinary week. It still means a great many desks sit beside a North Shore window.

Which window depends on the suburb. In North Sydney, Chatswood and the Lane Cove village most homes are flats or apartments, and the desk is often a corner of the living room by the balcony door: the largest glass in the home, and glass the strata by-laws may cover. In St Ives, where two homes in three are separate houses, and on Mosman's house streets, the study is usually a spare room: a front bedroom, sometimes behind original glass, or a room off the renovation at the back. Hornsby's units sit around the station and Westfield, and its streets further out are mostly houses.

Lane Cove sits between the two. Units fill the village around Longueville Road and Burns Bay Road, and houses run down toward the river at Riverview, Longueville and Northwood, so a Lane Cove study can be either kind.

Worked from home, and homes that are flats
	Worked from home	Flats
North Sydney	61.9%	84.4%
Mosman	58.8%	52.0%
Lane Cove	56.4%	62.4%
St Ives	53.7%	26.1%
Chatswood	49.9%	67.6%
Hornsby	41.3%	59.1%

Worked from home: share of employed residents, ABS Census 2021. Flats: share of occupied homes that are flats or apartments. Both from each suburb's QuickStats summary.

What to note before the measure

Glare comes and goes with the sun, and the measure may fall on a grey morning. A few notes from the worst hour tell us more than the visit can.

Which way the window faces, or which rooms get the afternoon sun
The time the glare starts and stops, and the month you first noticed it
A photo of the screen at its worst, taken from your chair
Every pane that lights the desk: a side window, a glass door, a skylight or a highlight window
In a unit, your by-laws or anything the committee has said about windows

The enquiry form takes photos, so the picture of the screen can come with it.

Book a measure

Example schedule: a study corner in a unit

W1Living room, balcony door, fixed panel beside the desk: Glare
Strata: check the by-laws on how the door looks from outside before film goes on.
W2Living room, west window beyond the screen: Glare, Heat
W3Second bedroom, window behind the chair: Glare

Mark your own panes

Where study glare fixes go wrong

Judged in summer, lived with in winter

A north study seen on a February afternoon can look fine. The glare arrives with the low June sun, so tell us when it is worst, not only how it looks on the day we visit.

The winter warmth filmed out

A strong heat-control film on north glass takes the winter sun along with the glare. On a north study the choice starts with glare and daylight.

Film on the balcony door before strata agrees

If the committee then asks for it off, you pay for the job twice. The by-law question comes first.

The screen turned up to fight the window

A brighter screen narrows the gap for an hour, then glares at you once the sun has gone. The window is the thing to change.

Home study glare: common questions

Why is the glare worse in winter?

On north glass the eave keeps out the high summer sun and lets in the low winter sun, which reaches across the room to the desk around the middle of the day. East and west windows get low sun in every season, so they glare all year.

Can film cut the glare and keep the winter sun?

Films differ in how much light and how much heat they take out, and the two are not the same thing. On north glass, ask how each film you are shown handles the winter sun as well as the glare. We go through that on the measure, with no figures promised.

My desk faces a south window and it still glares. Why?

A bright sky or a pale wall across the street can outshine the screen with no direct sun at all. The folder check tells you. A light film can help, and sometimes a sheer blind does as much.

Can the study window still open?

Yes. The film is fitted to the inner face of each sash or panel, so the window opens and closes as it did before.

Does every window in the study need film?

No. Only the panes that light the screen or the desk at the worst hour. A window that only brings in soft light is usually best left as it is, and the schedule lists each pane with its reason, so you can see why one is on it and another is not.

Will the strata committee have to agree?

Read your by-laws. Where they say anything about the look of windows from the street, put the question to the committee before booking the install. Our schedule tells them exactly which panes and which film.

Glare elsewhere in the house

Areas we cover

References

Your Home: Shading, from the Australian Government's guide to designing homes. On eaves that block high summer sun and admit low winter sun on north glass, and on shading low east and west sun.
Your Home: Orientation. Why north-facing rooms get the most winter sun.
ABS Census 2021 QuickStats. Each suburb's summary gives the share of employed residents who worked from home on Census day, and the share of occupied homes that are flats or apartments: North Sydney, Mosman, Lane Cove, St Ives, Chatswood and Hornsby.
The noon sun heights are worked from the North Shore's latitude, about 33.8 degrees south, at the June and December solstices.

Home study glare without a dark room