You would be surprised how many Vancouver Island and Okanagan homes fall victim to faded furniture, hardwood floors, artwork, and rugs. Many of our clients have been on the hunt for a solution or preventative measure to help protect their home furnishings, and we have a few ways to help. In consultation from our friends at Vista we found some great material to help educate you on this topic, and here is how it all shakes out.

First off, we need to understand why things fade from sunlight in the first place. It is all comes down to the chemical makeup of an object. The technical term for colour fading is “photodegradation”. There are light absorbing colour bodies called chromophores that are present in dyes. The colour(s) we see are based upon these chemical bonds and the amount of light that is absorbed in a particular wavelength.

Ultraviolet rays from the sun can break down these chemical bonds and thus fade the colour in an object – it is essentially a bleaching effect. Some objects may be more prone to fading, such as dyed textiles, watercolors, fabric, and hardwood flooring. Other objects may reflect the light more, which makes them less prone to fade.

What Causes Fading?

To understand the causes of fading, one needs to know a little about the makeup of sunlight. Sunlight is basically made up of three elements:

1. Visible light: the part which enables us to see
2. Infrared light: the part which we feel as heat
3. Ultraviolet light: we cannot feel it or see it, but it is the main factor in causing fabrics, furniture, and works of art to fade

Fading is a result of these three “sunlight “ factors and, to a lesser degree, indoor artificial lighting, humidity, and poor dye anchorage play a role as well.