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Cooling a house without air conditioning

• ubermonkey 7y ago
  In Houston? No. Next question.
  • ianai 7y ago
    Same in LV.
  • gwbas1c 7y ago
    I thought Houston is dry enough that you can use swamp coolers? (They work by evaporation.)
    • pixl97 7y ago
      Houston is beside the ocean and in generally swampy areas. Its average humidity range is between 60 and 90 percent depending on time of day. Hard to evaporate in those conditions.
      • gwbas1c 7y ago
        Shows how little I know about Texas!
        • driverdan 7y ago
          Most people don't realize how large and varied Texas is. Driving across TX takes a day. West TX is what a lot of people think TX is, dry, hot, flat, boring desert. The area near the gulf, including Houston, is humid and green.
        • rstupek 7y ago
          Texas weather isn't uniform because it's a very large place
          • deleted 7y ago
            [deleted]
    • ska 7y ago
      No even close. It's basically on the gulf coast and for the hot half of the year at least very humid. Also, barely above sealevel, so lots of techniques don't work. Climate wise, it's a pretty uncomfortable place to live.
      • perl4ever 7y ago
        It's not bad in winter though...
        • ska 7y ago
          ... but not good either. And "extended" summer is gross.
    • adrianmonk 7y ago
      This article ranked 50 US cities by humidity: https://www.gobankingrates.com/making-money/economy/most-humid-cities-in-us/ https://www.gobankingrates.com/making-money/economy/most-hum... Houston got the #3 spot. Only New Orleans and San Francisco are more humid. (Another city on the list: El Paso, TX at #47.)
    • ubermonkey 7y ago
      Houston (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston) is absolutely not dry in the least. I'm guessing here, but I'd be hard pressed to name a more consistently humid US city. Obviously, Texas is a single place to people who don't live here, but be aware that at 269K square miles (686K sq km), it's fucking huge. It's almost 800 miles across (ie, the distance between Louisiana and New Mexico). So there's LOTS of variety in climate. The dry climate you associate with movie-Texas does definitely exist, but mostly in the western half of the state, & especially as you move down towards the Mexican border. Houston, however, sits on the Gulf Coast. (Houston proper isn't on the water, but the overall metro area includes Galveston, which is an island in the Gulf.) The Gulf Stream curves over us and keeps us warm and wet. Not for nothing, but our annual rainfall is pretty insanely high (~49 inches). See more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Houston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Houston Anyway, in a very humid place like this, swamp coolers that depend on evaporation are of limited utility.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • philjohn 7y ago
    If you read the article you would see that in India, with daytime temps regularly exceeding 40c just a few metres down the temperature is only 25c. So yes, in Houston.
    • ubermonkey 7y ago
      You know nothing about Houston if you think we can go "down" at all without digging a swimming pool. Humidity is as much the enemy here as heat. AC is how we mitigate that.
    • marcinzm 7y ago
      Until relative humidity hits 100% at 80F and you hate your life (and your house due to the condensing moisture). Air conditioning is in large part about humidity control which using the ground will actually increase as best I can tell.
    • 24gttghh 7y ago
      Not sure how far down you can go in Houston before you're under water. Downtown is only 15m above sea level apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Houston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Houston
  • tom_ 7y ago
    What about everywhere else? There are other places. Some of them are not Phoenix or Dallas either.
    • ghaff 7y ago
      Well, sure. There are lots of places in the US (and elsewhere) where you don't really need AC. It helps to have good ventilation, maybe some fans, and possibly other passive cooling. Maybe just deal with a week or two of uncomfortably hot weather during the summer. Of course, it also helps to live in a house that is out in the country or at least suburbs rather than a city apartment. A window AC unit or two also can help for things like cooling a bedroom for the hottest nights.
• hilbertseries 7y ago
  Yes, a building in San Francisco doesn’t need air conditioning in the summer, what a surprise. Make the same design work in Phoenix Arizona and we’ll have something.
  • ceejayoz 7y ago
    This is a weird critique. Even in Phoenix, the need for air conditioning can be reduced by designing houses well. As the article notes: > Even in exposed, hot and arid climates, cooler temperatures are never too far away. In Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state in northern India, daytime temperatures regularly reach upwards of 40C in the summer months. But just a few metres below ground, the temperature of the earth in the region remains a much gentler 25C, even through the fiercest summer heat.
    • adrianN 7y ago
      Building office buildings in a way that makes them essentially giant greenhouses doesn't help with the AC bill either.
      • ghaff 7y ago
        As you get into multi-story office and apartment buildings, your options for passive cooling get pretty significantly constrained. Thick walls, passive roof cooling, maybe partly sunken... These things can work for a standalone house or certain types of commercial buildings but they're harder to work into bigger structures although evaporative cooling at least can be used.
        • ceejayoz 7y ago
          There's a neat example of what can be done with multi-story buildings in Zimbabwe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastgate_Centre,_Harare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastgate_Centre,_Harare
          • ghaff 7y ago
• saiya-jin 7y ago
  Persians know for millenia how to store ice in scorching desert [1] and have in places like Yazd 'windcatchers' [2] I've seen through Islamic world and India buildings at least 500 years old that were constructed around constant air flow through buildings, having patterned stone mesh windows. It can be done with low tech approach. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher
• bungie4 7y ago
  Granted, I live 'up north' but it still gets hot in my new house. I mounted some exhaust fans in the ceiling to pull the hot air from where it naturally rises too. Combined with the forced air furnace fan to circulate cool air (pulled from floor level). Finds the inside of my house 9C cooler on the hottest days of the year. This is especially important as the brick gets heat soaked and releases its heat well into the night.
• fredley 7y ago
  Ceiling fans are ridiculously effective. I'd seriously consider installing one in the bedroom after the past few years of heatwaves.
  • elcomet 7y ago
    As long as the perceived temperature is below skin temperature, yes. But when it goes above and when humidity is high no fan can help you.. (It's a bit more complicated than that, but basically when you can't
  • Stronico 7y ago
    Why not? I've had one for years - they work very well.
    • fredley 7y ago
      Why not yet? Cost/effort for the so far relatively short amount of time it would be used. However that amount of time is increasing it seems.
      • Vrondi 7y ago
        Installing a ceiling fan is a pretty easy DIY project if the room already has an overhead light fixture. They can regularly be bought for less than $100 in many chain stores as well.
  • ghaff 7y ago
    You do need ceilings of a certain height. I live in an old farmhouse and the ceilings are just too low. I agree that they're great if ceiling height supports them.
    • amalcon 7y ago
      Even if you have 8-9 foot ceilings, consider a low profile ceiling fan rather than the sort that hangs down a foot or more. Sincerely, The fingers of the next tall person to stretch his or her arms near your fan
• elicash 7y ago
  I only use air conditioning once or twice a year (in DC). This article was very interesting, but if you can't rebuild your home you have fewer options. Here's how I deal with it to make it not miserable. 1. You don't need to cool "a house" - just the room you're in. If I do run the air conditioning for 20 minutes before bed, I'll block under my door to keep that cold air in. 2. If there's no reason for you to be in a hot house, then don't be. If I'm teleworking, I end up not just being cooler, but also happier, if I find a nice quiet spot somewhere else. I'm lucky enough that I have a free museum not far from me that has an indoor courtyard I can work at. 3. Air circulation and window fans that expel heat from the room can do a lot. Fan quality and fan placement is tremendously important for circulation. 4. At least the last two minutes of your shower should be cold. 5. Blinds should be closed during the day. 6. Drink lots of water, of course. I think there's more I can probably do. For example, I've been meaning to research reflective blinds to see if they do more than normal blinds at keeping out heat. (Shutters aren't an option for my building.) Dehumidifiers are also something I want to look into. I haven't personally found that bed sheets make much of a difference, outside the way too obvious things like I don't use my winter (flannel) sheets. But this might reflect that I only buy nice ones.
  • yetihehe 7y ago
    > For example, I've been meaning to research reflective blinds to see if they do more than normal blinds at keeping out heat. I can confirm they work. It's much cooler in my small flat when they are closed for day, even though they are inside and a little warm. On a sunny day, my outer wall heats up to 60°C. Inside temperature can be 50°C with blinds open or 35°C with blinds closed. This was with outside temp 30°C and wall directly exposed to sun.
  • nerdponx 7y ago
    The point about remote work is one interesting downside that I haven't seen discussed before. But it's very real in my experience as well. Even just from running fans, my electric bill in summer is much higher in months when I'm working from home frequently. I wouldn't be surprised if I consume more energy cooling my house during a work-at-home day than I do commuting round-trip on the subway.
• non-entity 7y ago
  My question: Is it healthy or safe to live in a house or apartment that has no working AC in areas like the southeastern US. I know AC is a modern luxury and that people survived for years without it, but I wonder if the design and construction of later houses or apartments affects anything. My AC ritualistically dies every summer and while I wait for maintenance to drag its feet, I often find myself waking up in pools of sweat
  • kalleboo 7y ago
    When really bad heat waves hit Europe where home AC is rare, they can kill thousands (mostly elderly). The 2003 heatwave killed upwards of 70,000 people (in France, 8 consecutive days of 40°C [104 °F], in the Netherlands it reached 37.8°C) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
    • neaden 7y ago
      This is what really scares me about cities like Phoenix, that can get so hot, have a high elderly population, and are increasingly vulnerable to blackouts. What is going to happen if the city loses power on a 110 degree day?
      • TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
        Some of them will die. It's that brutal. It's also something people used to do a lot of, especially if they were working outdoors. I've seen house designs for the South which have an open central corridor. It catches and channels any wind and helps cools the rooms on either side. I'm sure there are other tricks, but builders don't seem to know them any more, and architects build more with a view to looks than practicality. Modern architecture - whether it's McMansion design, concrete box design, glass tower design, or suburban vernacular design - can be almost criminally stupid about environmental issues. There are exceptions, especially in the occasional environmentally controlled low-energy office block. The reality is that it's possible to manage heating and cooling far more intelligently and effectively in most kinds of buildings. But it's considered a fringe eco-hippy interest and not something most of the population needs to care about.
• mabbo 7y ago
  I was in Phoenix last summer in what (to my poor Canadian body) was the hottest day ever, anywhere. I think it was like 111F / 44C. While my friends and I were over at an outdoor mall looking for dinner, we entered a spot that was more than 10C lower than the ambient temperature. Just instantly colder. I honestly stopped in my tracks. Above us, a mister was spraying water. None of the water was coming within 10 feet of the ground as it all instantly evaporated- Phoenix is a desert- but in doing so, the air was chilled. The cold air dropped, cooling this small area. I cannot believe just how effective this means was. Now, granted, to do this they had to waste clean fresh water in the middle of a desert, which isn't great. But it does go to show the potential of some of these tricks. May not work in 99% humidity, mind you, but there are other tricks up the sleeve of the clever engineer.
  • ebiester 7y ago
    It's called evaporative cooling, and until recently the principle was the way the vast majority of Arizonans cooled their houses. (They are called swamp coolers down there.) It only works in dry climates, but it makes such a difference.
    • JustSomeNobody 7y ago
      Yeah, I'm from FL. Swamp coolers don't work most days. Just makes ya wetter. I was in Az a couple months ago and it was pretty neat figuring out that sweat truly does work.
    • cr0sh 7y ago
      Also - it only works for part of the summer; we're in our so-called "monsoon season" right now, and humidity is highly variable, but is generally above what most evap coolers will help with. However, if there is some evaporation that can takes place (that is, the evap gradient is large enough to let it happen, but directly using that cooler air would make it uncomfortably humid), you can instead do what is called "evaporative chilling" (or something like that), where you run the water over a radiator, and the water evaporates, cooling the radiator (actually, removing the heat), and inside the radiator, you run coolant/water mix - that's your outdoor side. Inside you have another radiator, with a fan circulating air over it. It's something like an A/C system, with water/coolant as the "working fluid" and no compressor, just a pump. Think of it like a "dry evaporative cooler". This kind of system does work - it's actually used for industrial A/C systems as some kind of "pre-chiller" or something, but it isn't something you can buy for a home that I know of - but you can build it. But like all evap systems, once the humidity gets too high, it stops working. Another kind of system that can be used here in Arizona, but few do because it is ugly, big, and works only so well - are something called "solar chimneys". The simplest is just a large 2-3 story structure painted mostly white at the bottom and mostly black toward the top; the idea is that the sun warms it, sucking air thru it and out the top - the bottom end is connected to the house, to make a "forced draft" through the house. The better way is to make a similar "chimney" on the opposite side of the house and add cooling pads and a fan at the top (basically a large diy swamp cooler). Misting can also be used. So you evap cool the air, which falls, enters the house, then is sucked up and out the other side by the "hot" chimney. Another "hot climate" design for cooling is something that used to be found all over the middle east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher Sometimes used in combination with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat As you can see, this is basically the ancient form of "solar chimneys" - if we instead used these in Arizona, coupled with either monolithic dome construction and/or rammed earth, and below-grade construction (to take advantage of earth insulation and cooling) - it'd be so much better for energy use here in Arizona.
• Stronico 7y ago
  Whole house fans are one possible solution to reduce (not eliminate) the need for air conditioning - I'm using a quiet cool right now which works fairly well (haven't tried it during the spring or fall yet)
  • giarc 7y ago
    My last house didn't have AC but did have a basement (like many homes in Canada, although less common in the States I understand). I would just run the furnace fan which circulates the cooler air in the basement throughout the house.
• lota-putty 7y ago
  Water, so precious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator rocks.
• fuball63 7y ago
  I visited Savannah, GA this summer. In the 19th century houses were designed to have tall ceilings to capture heat, and large doors to verandas to capture wind. It was actually tolerable inside when touring these old houses.
  • fuball63 7y ago
    Also, windcatchers are pretty cool too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher
  • toephu2 7y ago
    Interesting, is that why Victorian houses (in SF and elsewhere) usually have high-ceilings?
• dingo_bat 7y ago
  We used to have these water coolers that worked very well and used very less electricity. You fill up the thing with water and a big fan forces air through husk mats wet with the water. But of course nowadays it is just much easier to simply get an AC installed.
• ohiovr 7y ago
  You can spray water on your roof with a garden hose and cool your house. Of course water isn't free either.
  • switch007 7y ago
    I might actually try this during our next heat wave. All the other tips and tricks do absolutely nothing for the upstairs in many UK properties in my experience (I'm talking indoor temps of 23-29c at midnight, when the outside has cooled to 20c, from a daytime peak of 35c). It's like the whole house is turned in to a radiator and there is nothing you can do
    • ohiovr 7y ago
      Hello, I tried the experiment a few years ago briefly and it did work. Some back of the envelope calculations show that it is cheaper and more energy effiecient. However there is a risk that lichens and or moss will thrive on a moist roof. So could be more trouble than it is worth.
      • JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        The roof is a fragile thing. Fool with it at your peril! Folks throw ideas around casually - "Put a garden up there! Use solar shingles! Spray water on it day and night!". Most will end in disaster. The roof is designed to hold itself up, keep out occasional rainstorms, and not blow away immediately in a storm. Nothing else. Pushing it way past its design parameters will end in grief.
      • switch007 7y ago
        I'm rather confused by your reply and the reply to it. It rains a lot in England. Why would spraying it with water be any different from night upon night of heavy rain ?!
        • ohiovr 7y ago
          I don't know actually. I had not thought of about places with constant rain. Anyway does it work? If you spray your roof on a super hot day does it feel any better indoors?
• JCoder58 7y ago
  The Earthship[1] were designed to solve this problem (among others). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
  • icebraining 7y ago
    Fun factoid: Joey Hess (Debian developer & creator of git-annex) lives/lived in one: https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hackerholler/ https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hackerholler/ His blog has occasional experiments with off-grid and low-power living.
  • somesortofsystm 7y ago
    My next house will be an Earthship. My current house has an amazing permaculture footprint, but I want to demolish it and rebuild. Can't though, so I'm looking for land instead ..
• grandinj 7y ago
  I have found (in mild but sometimes warm South Africa) that the best bet is to prevent the sun from getting through the windows. Curtains/blinds are not nearly as effective as external shutters or some kind of external blind. I make my own frames with light coloured textile stretched across it that I attach over the sun-facing windows, which has a dramatic effect without completely blocking out light.
  • fyfy18 7y ago
    This is one of the key points of the PassivHaus standard: design your building to maximise sun uptake in the winter, but minimise it (with large over hangs) in the summer.
  • cr0sh 7y ago
    One thing my wife and I have done to our house, which is a regular "ranch style" 1970s home - here in Phoenix, Arizona - is to add on our back porch "house curtains". Our porch faces toward the west. We have a huge mesquite tree back there that shades the house during latter part of the day (plus our patio is covered), but in the later afternoon, sun will shine in as the sun sets, and heat the house up. So we strung aircraft cable with small turnbuckles and hung up colorful polyester fabric shower curtains (this was a recent change, originally we had used canvas dropcloths, which worked well too - but were difficult to keep clean). We can slide the curtains "closed" to block out the sun in the evening. Between that, plus having double-glazed windows installed, extra insulation in the attic, roof ventilators, and the fact that our house is of concrete block construction (not stick frame) - while we still have to use AC, we find that we can keep it set higher most of the time, and during the early summer/spring and late summer/fall times - not at all (opening the windows at night and using fans to bring in cooler air - then closing things up in the morning before it gets too hot). It's noticeably reduced our bills, considering how old our house is (and we have two heat pump AC units on the roof - that has it's own interesting story, but not relevant here).
• iforgotmypass 7y ago
  This reminded me of zero electricity air-con made of plastic bottles: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/zero-electricity-air-con-made-of-plastic-bottles https://www.straitstimes.com/world/zero-electricity-air-con-... The hot air flowing from outside through your windows could be compressed making it cool. I wonder if there are existing, not so ugly commercial products providing that. This could be a green alternative for air-conditioning.
  • Filligree 7y ago
    > The hot air flowing from outside through your windows could be compressed making it cool. Compressing air actually makes it hotter, but that's not what's happening. Forcing air through a smaller space makes it flow faster, which ironically makes it less dense -- and hence colder. It's the same effect that people claim holds airplanes up. (But doesn't. That's mostly the angle of attack.)
    • DoctorOetker 7y ago
      I don't understand this heat engine yet, one it exits the bottles it contracts again, heating up? it cools the window but heats up the air?
  • icebraining 7y ago
    Alternatively, you could power an A/C with a micro wind turbine. Both have the same problem: no wind, no cooling. I'm currently in 30ºC and the tree leaves barely move.
  • abdullahkhalids 7y ago
    This doesn't actually work. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/261284/how-does-the-eco-cooler-air-conditioner-really-work https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/261284/how-does-...
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• elikozikaro 7y ago
  Solar powered AC
• jhallenworld 7y ago
  My house has an attic, and an attic fan or vent helps a lot. I have cheap asphalt roof shingles (even so, $10K to replace them)- I did look into reflective shingles, but they were much more expensive, plus I had to consider resale value..
  • randcraw 7y ago
    Attic fans are great for cooling at night, but I've found they make a difference only at cooler latitudes like Michigan where night temps fall 15 or 20 degrees below daytime highs of ~85F, reducing the house to 65 or 70 after sunset. In the mid-Atlantic where I live now, night temps don't drop more than maybe 10 degrees below daytime highs of ~90F. So bringing in the evening air via an attic fan puts the house at no less than a toasty 80 (with 70% humidity) -- still uncomfortable.
    • artimaeis 7y ago
      Attic fans are great anytime the air temperature difference between the attic and the outside is great. In the hotter regions (such as the southeast US) they're great for venting hot air out rather than pulling cool air in. Attics will often get 20 degrees hotter than the outside air, so forcing that out helps to insulate the cooler indoor spaces. Of course in older, not-well-sealed housing the venting poses the risk of drawing cooler air from the house to the attic, negating much (or all) of the benefit. So their efficacy is very situational.
      • randcraw 7y ago
        Attic fans aren't for cooling attics. Ridge vents, and passive and powered roof vents, and turbines mounted in the roof surface can cool attics far more efficiently than attic fans which consume over 100 watts and must run continuously on summer days -- a very costly way to air out an attic. Though old houses often have attic fans, they weren't there to cool attics. That was the purpose of widowed attic gables or breathing slats under wood shingled roofs. Attic fans are there to cool the house interior, especially the hottest rooms on uppermost floors. That's why the intake of an attic fan is the highest point inside the house and not the lowest point inside the attic. Even then attic fans aren't intended to run for more than perhaps 30 minutes a day after sundown -- just long enough to replace the hot air inside the home with cool air from outside. To vent an attic, the ideal air flow is to intake cool dry outside air from along the attic soffet, pass it along the underside of the hot roof sheathing, and have it exit high where attic heat is at its peak. And do this passively without a powered fan if at all possible.
• b0rsuk 7y ago
  Obligatory reading: The Revenge of the Circulating Fan https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/circulating-fans-air-conditioning.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/circulating-fans-air...
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• mariojv 7y ago
  There are also air conditioners that don't use refrigerated air. The principles of it are similar to the evaporative cooling mentioned in the article but with a fan and water pump. If your climate is dry enough to use it, it can be a great option and much cheaper than refrigerated air. You'll see one on the roof of almost every home driving through certain neighborhoods of El Paso. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler
• elikozi 7y ago
  I thought the obvious solution is solar powered run AC. What am I missing?
  • tapvt 7y ago
    Solar powered AC would require a very large panel array and battery bank. ACs are quite the energy hog.
    • fpgaminer 7y ago
      I have a 4.5kW solar installation and 26kWh of storage. I'm not sure what large or small is, but it didn't cost much and only covers about half of my house's potential solar roof space. That's enough for our old house to be net zero in the Southern California summer, A/C and everything. Modern houses with actual insulation in the walls, and windows that don't turn the rooms into solar ovens, would fare an order of magnitude better than even my modest solar setup.
  • psychrometer 7y ago
    That doesn't solve the problem of the refrigerants.
    • post_break 7y ago
      1234yf is the new refrigerant in cars. It has a global warming impact of 1, R-134a for example has a GWP of 1430. If we move to that it won't be much of a problem.
• haunter 7y ago
  Thick stone walls (well brick). I live in Hungary EU, lot of old houses (early XXth/late XIXth century or earlier) has really thick stone walls. In the summer it keeps the house cool (as long as you close the windows and shades) and in the winter it keeps the warm inside. Even if the temp outside is +35c the inside is between 23-25c (or even less)
  • scott_s 7y ago
    As I understand it, the difficulty with this approach is that it depends on the night being significantly cooler than the day. Heat from the day can radiate away during the cooler night, preventing cumulative heat buildup in the stone, which acts as an insulator. But one of the effects we're seeing from climate change, even in Europe, is that nights are warmer as well. (This was discussed recently on an HN thread, but I can't find it.)
    • noir_lord 7y ago
      Just got back from Rhodes in Greece and their architecture is interesting (given that day time temps where 32-35C and night time temps 27-29C) - everything was built thick and massive with overhangs on any windows that get sun, shutters on every window during the day (and AC but often off) and everything was painted white (or very pale shades of blue, yellow or pink). It was interesting to see how they've built to adapt to their environment. We had a north face hotel room and with the massively thick walls and double glazing (plus no direct sun) the room was just about bearable at night even without the AC (which was actually outputting much less cold air than the AC I had in a hotel in Manchester this year).
      • cr0sh 7y ago
        My wife and I a couple of decades ago took a camping road trip down the middle of New Mexico, starting near the top of the state. One of our first stops was to visit the Acoma community, which is a pueblo built on top of a mesa; very few people still live up there. The various "apartments" are passed down matrilineally, which was an interesting thing to learn. It was August, and very hot outside - well over 100F. Inside one of the apartments on the tour, someone was selling snowcones - a welcome relief. We went inside (had to duck under the doorway, as it was only 4-5 feet tall) and it was easily 20-30 cooler than the outside. The only thing we could figure was that being on top of the mesa, plus night temperatures, and the thick adobe construction, all acted as a thermal-mass barrier system or something. It was really amazing to experience. I honestly wish that kind of construction was more common here in the southwest.
• simonsarris 7y ago
  A lot of the need for AC (and having lights on) is just really, really bad modern house design. I recently finished building a house (my first one) and everyone acted like I was crazy for not building in central air conditioning. (This is in New Hampshire) I built in an older style, with windows on every side, with a mind towards ventilation and light. Inexplicably most houses in the area, even $500k+ houses do not have these two things. My mom's condo has central air but the system is so feeble and the venting upstairs so poor that two bedrooms in the house remain stuffy anyways. It seems like light and natural ventilation are not even afterthoughts, but non-thoughts, and the designs all rely on electric light and forced air. Its amazing being in an expensive home where you need a light on in the kitchen at 8am. How do they decide what to build? I built 9 foot ceilings on the first floor and 8.5 on the second. Then I placed the attic (3rd story) door centrally in the upstairs hallway. The result of the design is that airflow moves on the first floor in all directions, and upward, and on the second floor can move at least east-west (bathroom and hallway windows), and also north-south if bedroom doors are open. Finally, air flows upwards to the attic, which has windows north-south. So winds should suck air higher, and out. If I close windows in the morning and open around 7pm, the result is that the house stays very cool, about(? only tested with temp gun a few times) 74 downstairs and 76 upstairs during these 90 degree days, and then gets cooler at night as I open windows again. So far, I've only bought one fan, though things might work better with more. Note I'm not an expert or an architect, I just included some design features that should be obvious to anyone who's lived in an old house for a summer. This takes some manual control, but there are far fewer parts to maintain (this was a general design goal beyond AC), and summer electric bills are $50-60/month. With this design, there have been 3 icky-hot days so far this year, when there was no wind and the night did not get very cool.
  • umvi 7y ago
    Do you have any renders by chance (assuming you used CAD to design it)? I want to build a house optimized for natural light as well (not sure about ventilation since the place it would be built is cold most of the year).
  • com2kid 7y ago
    > If I close windows in the morning and open around 7pm, I have explained the same things to my friends who come over to visit me. Some of them think I am crazy, others get it. I have the benefit of a giant open loft, 2 story ceilings coming off the living room right into the master bedroom, with a giant ceiling fan sucking air in from outside and a large window open upstairs so the air has someplace to go. If it gets to 90 it can be a bit uncomfortable, but the mid 80s is fine, it only gets a bit hot around 5pm or so. I have friends who keep all their doors / windows open and use a fan throughout the entire day. Great job sucking the hot air into the house! Although for older houses with lower ceiling that is pretty much the only way.
• lhorie 7y ago
  Not everyone has the time and energy to build their entire house, but I found that one relatively easy thing that helps a lot is attic insulation and a bit of DYI. It turns out that contractors often do really shoddy work when it comes to insulation because it's exceptionally easy to skimp on materials to save money: they buy the cheap fiberglass stuff and they use too little of it. You can buy 15-20 bags of cellulose insulation and rent the blower machine from home depot, and you can do the whole attic in a few hours yourself. Including a rental van, that cost me around $600. This alone made a noticeable difference in my house in Toronto (where it can easily get to 32°C/90°F in sun in the summer)
  • Djvacto 7y ago
    Did you remove the old stuff first? Or do you just layer over it?
    • lhorie 7y ago
      Just layer it on top. The rule of thumb is: the more you have, the better, regardless of which material you use.
      • avar 7y ago
        This is a bad rule of thumb in some climates. Your technique of piling on insulation might create a dew point at a place that isn't ventilated, and thus cause a buildup of mold.
        • lhorie 7y ago
          AFAIK, cellulose insulation is chemically treated to be mold-resistant and fire-resistant. Also, remember a rule of thumb is just that: by definition it can't cover 100% of edge cases. If you have a water leak in your roof, you obviously have bigger problems to address first...
          • avar 7y ago
• nostromo 7y ago
  The funny thing about solar panels is that just having panels above your ceiling cool your house a ton. It makes me wonder if people in hot climates that can't afford solar shouldn't just put white glossy panels a foot above their roof. There are a lot of other obvious, non-exotic things we can do, like require a certain amount of tree coverage and reduce the spread of concrete surfaces. We could also use shade sails a ton more than we do (which are nice because they can be removed in the winter).
  • kranner 7y ago
    Even white glossy paint gets the job done. My parents recently had the roof of their house painted white and the indoor temperature has dropped by what feels like at least 5 degrees Celsius. This is in super hot North Indian summer.
    • cr0sh 7y ago
      One thing that was found with solar panels is that because they are dark colored, they heat up in the sun, and on an angled roof, the gap between the panel and the roof has a "chimney" effect that draws the air up and out the top edge of the panels, which helps to cool the roof.
      • dpeck 7y ago
        Buckminster Fuller would be proud http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/chilling-domes/ http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/chilling-domes/
      • novok 7y ago
        Solar panels became cheap just in time.
  • ianburrell 7y ago
    Painting roofs white, or using light-colored shingles, keeps buildings cooler. It sounds like white paint is easiest for flat commercial roofs. http://www.whiteroofproject.org/ http://www.whiteroofproject.org/
• codingdave 7y ago
  I live in the southwestern USA, and have no air conditioning. I do have a solid brick house that is an awesome insulator. So we open up all windows and doors at night, and close the house up tight when the sun rises, putting heavy curtains over the windows. It still gets warm - up to 85 degrees inside on a 100+ degree day, but you get used to it. It wouldn't work on all the suburban homes around us. The walls aren't insulated enough, there are so many windows that you'd never get them all covered.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • jjoonathan 7y ago
    > you get used to [85 degrees inside] I sincerely hope that my future places of work and residence will not regularly subject me to 85 degree interior temperatures on the assumption that I will "get used to it" -- which I strongly suspect actually means "live with it."
    • codingdave 7y ago
      > actually means "live with it." No, it means the human body acclimates to its environment. You really do get used it.
      • jjoonathan 7y ago
        I spent a summer at those interior temperatures without AC. I stopped "noticing" it, but my subjective ability to focus and objective running & flash-card-app performance did not recover until the temperatures did. How long does it take to "get used to it?"
        • codingdave 7y ago
          A couple weeks, according to folk wisdom, which matches my anecdotal experience. I'm curious if you went home to cooler temperatures, or if your whole summer was spent in warmth? I definitely have experienced harder times going back and forth vs. always being in the warm environments.
• lxe 7y ago
  Major function of AC is humidity control. If you have humid summers, AC will help your house to stay dryer and prevent mold and other damage. There are climates in which AC is essential and even the most advanced thermal and airflow design can not replace conditioning.
  • ZeroFries 7y ago
    I was told many times to go with a slightly undersized AC, precisely for this reason - they're better dehumidifiers because they run for longer periods of time.
    • duxup 7y ago
      Today that might be a bad idea. Generally most modern forced air systems are designed to run more often (for heat and cool) / longer periods of time now. On top of that you can get multi stage AC units. Mine will run at a lower setting for a longer period of time when the less efficient "full blast" stage is too much, but AC is still needed.
    • hellofunk 7y ago
      Why would an undersized air conditioner be more effective? What’s the size got to do with the efficacy?
      • showdead 7y ago
        Less effective at cooling, more effective at dehumidifying (it seems there is a presumption that dehumidification is roughly linear with operating time.)
        • toomuchtodo 7y ago
          AC units also last longer if they run continually vs frequent starts and stops.
          • throw_away 7y ago
• bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  we've been living in our current house for 11 years. it is a little over a km from the beach in Denmark, it has big doors that open onto the front porch and in a direct line with those doors are the windows in the bathroom, in the summer if we had both open we never experienced the house getting hot. That has actually stopped this year - now we sweat inside. But until this year we had a pretty good way to keep the house cool.
• lukifer 7y ago
  If you live in a dry climate (I'm in Colorado), consider a swamp cooler. It's an amazingly simple and efficient machine: just a water pump and a fan, and peanuts in electrical costs compared to a full air conditioner. As long as you can establish airflow throughout the home, it feels just like A/C on days below 95F; you won't feel chilly on 95F+ days, but it's still quite livable.
  • bdamm 7y ago
    They are cheap, but they are also frequent causes of rotting out the structural members around the cooler. Beware leaks!
    • lukifer 7y ago
      Good to know.
    • camhenlin 7y ago
      Yeah and to add to this, adding too much humidity inside of your home can cause mold and other rot issues, not just around the wet swamp cooler itself. AC is definitely most convenient, maintenance, and hassle free for most people, but swamp coolers can be good if you are attentive and diligent about maintenance and noticing problems before they get big
  • bhhaskin 7y ago
    I have a swamp cooler in Reno NV, and on 95+ days if I leave it on all day on max the house will be 60-70 degrees. It works so well I rarely run it on max settings as it just gets too cold. Of course there are some draw backs like swelling due to the humidity, and if there is smoke in the air I can't run it.
    • ulkram 7y ago
      curious why can't you run it if there's smoke?
      • 7y ago
• somesortofsystm 7y ago
  The Earthship people called. They want their cool-hunters back. https://www.earthshipglobal.com/ https://www.earthshipglobal.com/
• zonidjan 7y ago
  I really wish I could have a well-designed (for electricity use) house. Unfortunately, they don't seem to exist unless you build it yourself, and I can't even dream of doing that (although to be fair I can hardly dream of buying a house at all).
• EGreg 7y ago
  Why not have solar panels on the roof absorb all the sunlight and keep the house cooler via an air gap? Furthermore, I would love to have water heating this way. Solar panels heating a water container in the winter, that is mixed into showers and even small pools on demand. Any observant Jews here who don’t want to use water heating on Shabbat? This may be a great idea. PS: Heating a house is the only application of Proof of Work Mining that I approve of. But even then, I would rather it be useful work like SETI or protein folding: http://www.cleantechconcepts.com/2018/06/home-heating-with-crypto-mining/ http://www.cleantechconcepts.com/2018/06/home-heating-with-c...
• bradlys 7y ago
  This article isn't so much "cooling a house without air conditioning" - it's more "here's some designs for houses that can be cooled without air conditioning". This has very little to no help for existing homes unless you have a large budget to demo your existing home/yard/surrounding-infrastructure. For a perpetual renter such as myself (bay area lifestyle), this is useless information. Where I live in the bay area - we live in a greenhouse of an in-law unit. Only solution to cool it without AC would be to tear it down and build something different. I can't even keep the top room below 80F on quite a few days with a window unit I installed. That unit is rated to do over 2x the size of the room too but it can't keep up. On days we know it'll be 95+, we leave the AC on all day. Otherwise, the heat soaks into the walls so much that we can't cool the house down after we get home and it'll still be 85+ in our bedroom past midnight. Opening windows has no effect since we can't get an effective cross-breeze. I feel bad about it but I don't have much of an option if I want to be somewhat content. I get quite unbearable to be around if I am suffering in the heat.
  • novok 7y ago
    I feel like the climate is so mild or hot & dry in the bay that houses can get away with being badly made and old here way more than other places of the world.
  • Johnny555 7y ago
    As a renter you can look for a more energy efficient space. If your in-law unit was built without permits (which seems likely since it's apparently below-standard for insulation), you can probably get out of your lease early if you wanted to. Putting in more insulation doesn't require a full teardown, but it's not cheap if you had to, say, build false walls to add insulation.
    • bradlys 7y ago
      More energy efficient space -> remodeled recently -> $$$$$. I'm not able to afford such a thing. Most apartments/in-laws in my price range (<$2500/month) were remodeled no later than 1970. Putting in insulation means you have to take down the dry wall (if it is even drywall - might not be). That's pretty extensive for most people.
• jonnycomputer 7y ago
  The article focuses on strategies effective in arid climates. In California, evaporative coolers worked really well for us except on the hottest days. No way they'd work for us here on the US East Coast. OTOH, I'm pretty enthusiastic about the exchange systems that circulate fluids to exchange heat with soil beneath home. That's a really reasonable approach.
  • wasdfff 7y ago
    The best part about southern california is even if its 100 during the day, it will be a brisk and breezy 70 once the sun sets.
• tus88 7y ago
  > installing energy-hungry air conditioners – a major contributor to climate change Is this a fact?
  • drak0n1c 7y ago
    It's a bit hyperbolic. Home heating in colder areas uses significantly more energy and fossil fuels than AC in warmer areas.
• api_or_ipa 7y ago
  Interesting that this article is posted on the eve of Burning Man. This year should be especially hot. Every year I bring a simple swamp cooler, this year I'm going a step farther and bringing 2, plus an active ventilation fan and ducting. My total power consumption is about 18w, not too shabby to bring down the temps about 15f in ~1000ft^3 space and well within my modest solar panel setup.
• koonsolo 7y ago
  Maybe one of you smart people can solve this "mystery": The old farmhouses here in the region (Flanders) were all built with their length axis on the north-south line, no matter where the road was. An old farmer here claims that such a house is cold in summer and warm in winter. I once saw an architect on TV claim the same thing. But I was not able to find any explanation for this anywhere.
• mythrwy 7y ago
  This guy grows oranges in Nebraska using very little electricity. He mentions in the video the same principals can be used for cooling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD_3_gsgsnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD_3_gsgsnk
• aatharuv 7y ago
  UV reflective film on the windows seems to be helping one room in my house which was consistently 10 degrees fahrenheit warmer than the others. Alternately, but a little uglier, taping white kitchen paper towels to the window solved the problem as a temporary solution.
• sizzle 7y ago
  Anyone else browse www.hvac-talk.com from time to time?
• mmcnl 7y ago
  Funny that this article doesn't talk about keeping warmth out. Whatever you can keep out you don't need to cool. So invest in: - Insulated glazing - Sunscreens in front of windows - Wall and roof isolation The nice thing about this is that these measures also keep you warm in the winter (lower energy bill), it's a double-edged sword.