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Been doing that over in the Sierra Nevada foothills, except that last few days - as the smoke from the Yosemite Fires is hanging around all night (nasty stuff).

Been doing that over in the Sierra Nevada foothills, except that last few days - as the smoke from the Yosemite Fires is hanging around all night (nasty stuff). Big thing is, if you can, open the windows at night/early morning and then close em up before it gets warm. Then keep windows AND curtains closed all day till later in the evening (after 7pm) when the temperatures go down. Curtains are a big insulator from the sunlight generated heat.

tjr225 9y ago
In Spain and elsewhere in the Mediterranean all of the homes have functional wooden shutters. I suppose it is for this exact same reason.
- kijin 9y ago
  It works much better when the walls are made of brick or stone. No matter how much insulation you stuff into a modern drywall, it will never match the thermal mass of solid stone.
  - tjr225 9y ago
    Interesting
  - JohnBooty 9y ago
    Yeah, my wife and her family are big proponents of the "crank up the AC at night to save money during the day!" thing and it's just not very effective when talking about "modern" wood-frame-and-drywall homes. Edit: They also seem to think that this somehow makes sense when the temperature at night is below 70F. My wife (an otherwise intelligent person) insists on running the window unit AC at night with the thermostat set at 68F even when it's 65F outside. I've tried every "logical" alternative... adding ambient fan noise to match the air conditioner's soothing rumble... window-mounted fans to bring the cool air inside... I dunno, I've given up. Costs a few hundred extra bucks per summer but it's not the hill I want to die on. God knows I spend money on things she finds useless! (OK, in her defense, the AC spits out cool dry air instead of the cool damp air the outside world often provides here in the Philadelphia area, which borders on a tropical climate in the summer)
    - thebigspacefuck 9y ago
      The A/C acts as a dehumidifier so it will be more cooling than just a fan

tjr225 9y ago

In Spain and elsewhere in the Mediterranean all of the homes have functional wooden shutters. I suppose it is for this exact same reason.

kijin 9y ago
It works much better when the walls are made of brick or stone. No matter how much insulation you stuff into a modern drywall, it will never match the thermal mass of solid stone.
- tjr225 9y ago
  Interesting
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  Yeah, my wife and her family are big proponents of the "crank up the AC at night to save money during the day!" thing and it's just not very effective when talking about "modern" wood-frame-and-drywall homes. Edit: They also seem to think that this somehow makes sense when the temperature at night is below 70F. My wife (an otherwise intelligent person) insists on running the window unit AC at night with the thermostat set at 68F even when it's 65F outside. I've tried every "logical" alternative... adding ambient fan noise to match the air conditioner's soothing rumble... window-mounted fans to bring the cool air inside... I dunno, I've given up. Costs a few hundred extra bucks per summer but it's not the hill I want to die on. God knows I spend money on things she finds useless! (OK, in her defense, the AC spits out cool dry air instead of the cool damp air the outside world often provides here in the Philadelphia area, which borders on a tropical climate in the summer)
  - thebigspacefuck 9y ago
    The A/C acts as a dehumidifier so it will be more cooling than just a fan