31–40 of 80 posts
Maybe we need shade structures - a shade above/around the building and detached so that air flows underneath and there are no thermal bridges to the building proper. Like you would make to protect tents at e.g. Burning Man.
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Most of the time these things are governed by whatever's cheaper (in the short run). Maybe electrical energy is massively subsidized or just cheap in general. Installing shutters can be a large up-front investment, especially when installed by somebody else. It may take many years of burning energy with an AC to earn that back. Also maybe the home isn't even yours, but you are renting. The owner doesn't care about yo…
I thought it was more of a cultural thing, or perhaps enforced by the building code ? Here in France I've never seen a house or flat without shutters. In Bangkok, when I was looking for a condo, none of them had shutters. A cursory web search tells me shutters can influence the DPE ("diagnostic de performance énergétique".) A bad rating means you can't rent your property.
There’s definitely a cultural or historical component. In my experience shutters are extremely common, near universal, in southern Europe but much less so in northern. Which is a shame because a modern PVC roller shutter, well installed and with insulated slats, also does wonders in winter.
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I thought it was more of a cultural thing, or perhaps enforced by the building code ? Here in France I've never seen a house or flat without shutters. In Bangkok, when I was looking for a condo, none of them had shutters. A cursory web search tells me shutters can influence the DPE ("diagnostic de performance énergétique".) A bad rating means you can't rent your property.
Do shutters make it worse? How? Is it just a bad metric?
From a quick search, older versions of the DPE ignored shutters, modern ones take them in account and their effect ranges from neutral to positive depending on details (materials, insulation, fit). It’s not entirely clear if both high seasons are considered (insulation and fit I’d think a lot less critical in summer).
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You’re simply never going to get through to someone who has internalized the idea that AC is perfect and free. They have accommodated to the luxury and will burn the planet to keep it.
We have more energy hitting the planet every second as radiation than we can possibly use. This is a non-issue for any civilised society switching to solar.
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You’re simply never going to get through to someone who has internalized the idea that AC is perfect and free. They have accommodated to the luxury and will burn the planet to keep it.
We have more energy hitting the planet every second as radiation than we can possibly use. This is a non-issue for any civilised society switching to solar.
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The old school way where? And for what class of people? The working class weren't moving for the summer. Further I put a jumper on in the winter, have insulation in my house, have curtains etc to keep heat in. What's wrong with having passive ways of keeping warm or cool?
The old-school way of dealing with excess heat or excess cold was to go somewhere else. People have been doing that for thousands of years. And yes, workers would also leave the cities and go stay with their relatives in the cooler countryside. There's nothing wrong with the passive ways, when they are enough.
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Is this an American thing? There seem to be a number of comments akin to "you'll prise it from my cold dead fingers" when that isn't being suggested.
I think it is an American thing; a principled grounded in many Americans not actually believing people like you when they claim "that isn't being suggested". Moralistic arguments that using air conditioning is harmful to society (which certainly exist in America, even if they're more common in Europe) are the rhetorical basis for actual laws regulating the use of air conditioning and trying to legally discourage its…
Can you name one? That isn't the same argument as against all needless waste?
What I'm seeing is we can't even talk about shutter designs without talking about AC instead. Using AC may not harm society, but some people knowing about it kinda does.
All these assume that the ambient temperature outside will be lower than the temperature in your home, hence you want the air to come in but keep the sun out. In southern Europe this is false for many weeks during the summer. During heatwaves you want to open all the windows during the night, and close everything at 9ish-10. Because the temperature outside is going to rise to 40-45 celsius the ambient air will only h…
This is also now often false in non-southern Europe as well.
Apparently one of the reasons why French don't have air conditioning is because nights tended to be cool in the past, and so people left windows and doors open while sleeping creating drafts and letting the masonry cool.
But in the last ~15 years nights have been as hot as days at times, and so this strategy is no longer effective: you're cooked at night as much as you're cooked during the day during the heat domes. So the all-the-AC-all-the-time thinking of the US may be excessive, nowadays so is the never-AC thinking of many people.
You don't need to get down to 22C, but least <27C will save the lives of many people, especially the elderly (unless France wants to save on pensions?).
While all of these might offer some cooling in your home, nothing beats air conditioning.
By what measurement? They all surely beat air conditioning in terms of energy usage.
> By what measurement? […]
The measure of the air's temperature.
It does not matter if you have shutters: if the air outside is 30C then eventually the air inside will eventually get to 30C (good insulation will simply mean it takes longer).
If your outside is >30C then the only way to keep your inside <30C is to transfer the heat (which an AC does via an evaporator, refrigerant, and a condensor).
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By the measure of "keeping the summer heat out of your home", which was in fact the topic at hand.
But that is exactly the point. Air conditioning doesn't keep heat out - it burns energy to change the air once the heat has gotten in. There are ways to keep it out in the first place. FWIW, it isn't either/or - we practice keeping the shades, curtains, and windows drawn when it is hot, open when it is cool.... and we have air conditioning. Best of both worlds.
Yes, it's best to keep the heat out. Good insulation helps, but no insulation is perfect and eventually (thanks to the second law of thermodynamics) some will get in.