I have an apartment on the coast and I'm looking at options to lower my air conditioning bill. I saw they sell triple-glazed windows but here the climate is hot almost year-round, there's no cold weather. Will they actually help me or is it a waste of money?
Triple glazing in tropical climate mainly helps you with thermal insulation, not so much with cold, so yes it makes sense in your case because it reduces how much heat comes in from outside and your air conditioning works less. The real difference depends a lot on how much time the sun hits directly on your windows - if they're facing west or south, the impact is pretty noticeable; if it's north, maybe the investment isn't worth it. Before you change them all, try reflective films or exterior shutters on the critical windows first, they cost way less and work pretty well for reducing the heat load without going all the way to the full expense of replacing frames.
What really matters is the thermal transfer coefficient - look for the U-value - the lower it is, the better it blocks heat, and that's where you actually save money on air conditioning year-round. Like they mentioned above, it makes sense in a tropical climate, but make sure the windows you're looking at are designed for that and not just for cold climates, because some triple-glazed models are optimized to keep heat in, not reject it.
If your apartment is on the coast, triple-glazed windows are going to be pretty useful for you, but not for the reason you might think. The key thing here is that besides thermal insulation, those windows usually have special coatings that block UV rays and reduce solar radiation, which significantly lowers how hard your air conditioner has to work. That said, before you put money into new windows, check the condition of the frames and seals: if you've got air leaks, it's like throwing money away; fix that first. And yeah, look for windows with a low U-value (the manufacturers will tell you), because that's what's actually going to save you on your bill throughout the year.
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