Keeping cool

[watervole]

By trial and error, I've discovered that it's better to close the curtains and open the window behind them, rather than close both.

 

If you close the window on the sunny side,  the heat piles up between window and curtain and it ends up hotter than the outside. Opening the window allows that extra heat to escape.

If you have a ground floor, sleep there with the back door open. That helps lose heat overnight and lets you sleep in the coolest place in the house.

Comments

[feng_shui_house]

I have aluminum Venetian blinds on the windows in the rooms that get the most sun. (Plastic was cheaper, so not all the windows got them). I have one metal framed frosted glass door in the back room which I discovered got hotter than blazes, despite the cloth curtains I put on the inside. I decided I didn't need the light from it, so I taped aluminum foil over the glass. Made a BIG reduction in heat getting in.

In general, patch up all the small cracks you can, in walls and caulk around windows, and if you have unused rooms where you can shut the doors, don't try to cool them, also.

Think of your home as a spaceship and try to keep the void outside. :^)

(Open windows where I live just equalizes the heat and humidity, it's not an effective strategy when the outside is like a wet wool blanket. Open doors would lead to a house full of lizards, so that's not feasible for me either.)

[ranunculus]

The Ukiah house is a single level house. I open all the windows at night and often run a fan to bring cool air in if there is no breeze. The fan can make 15 degrees (F) difference sometimes! I also open the pull-down stairs to the attic. They generally stay a little open 24/7. Hot air rises so any really hot air can go into the attic cooler air stays down.
Putting in the double pane windows and caulking the siding on the outside made a huge difference here. On really hot days when I'm running a little portable air conditioner I've seen 30F degree difference inside and out. I'm also closing off the living room as it gets sun in the morning and despite pretty heavy drapes on the windows the solar gain can be a problem. Nice in the winter tho!
I'm trying not to run the air conditioner when temperatures are 100F or lower.

[eledonecirrhosa]

I tried the open windows behind closed curtains last summer and it didn't seem to make any difference. Which maybe means that the heat reflecting film I stuck to a bunch of the windows must be working better than I thought it was?

Plants don't like the heat reflecting film though! It's a transparent blue colour and the plants on the 'blue' window sills get sickly. I guess the wavelengths of light reaching them are not good enough for proper photosynthesis?

[galadhir]

Ooh, good to know! Thanks. I've been closing both, but that does make sense.