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I love seeing architecture that uses wind to cool and condition buildings, but it's not very helpful for older buildings. I wonder if we can mimic some of the b

I love seeing architecture that uses wind to cool and condition buildings, but it's not very helpful for older buildings. I wonder if we can mimic some of the benefits by creative planting of trees and plants? I've seen mentions of whole house fans in the ArsTechnica comments and was intrigued as to whether that would be useful for my house. Here in the UK, our houses are designed to keep warm and don't have any A/C built in and that's becoming more of an issue as summers get hotter. However, I've discovered that OnlyFans is not the correct website to find whole house fans.

nehal3m 3y ago
I have a little house in the back yard surrounded by some large birch trees. The insulation in that little place is pretty good, but I wouldn't say stellar. In the summers, our main house gets exceedingly hot for the same reason yours does. The little house in the shade however is nice and cool all summer. So if you can get away with it, sure, plant some trees. :)
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Planting trees isn't much of an option for us. We're in an old (1890s) mid-terrace house and our front "garden" is barely big enough to hold our recycling bins.
Tade0 3y ago
There's a type of optical filter tape which you can buy that reduces the amount of energy getting in and out - less than 20% goes through, most of it in the visible spectrum. It has a blueish tint though and really doesn't do much if it's the ambient temperature that's too high.
jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
An acquaintance of mine works with a builder that specializes in zero energy homes. They mostly build in a climate similar to the UK. The houses are insanely insulated and airtight, but they have an air exchange unit that cycles fresh air in through a heat exchanger so the house temperature stays steady. These houses are honestly quite pleasant to be in. The insulation has the side effect of being very good noise dampening as well. I was talking to the owners of one and they said they'd never used the backup electric heater. The one time things got a little cold they light a candle in their bedroom and everything was fine. So I think in temperate climates, the answer is air tightness and thermal control, not whole house fans.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  With old houses, air tightness isn't always practical as they need to breathe: https://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/importance-of-breathability-in-old-buildings/ https://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/importance-of-br...
  - walthamstow 3y ago
    That's what the air exchange unit is for. It brings fresh air in and exhausts stale air, passing the heat from the stale air to the fresh air as it does so. I would love one in my 1970-built house. In the types of old houses described in your link, this type of thing was designed to be done by one or more open fires, which drew fresh air in through cracks and crevices and exhausted up the chimney.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  I lived in one of those homes. In fact, I had it built to spec. Very thick insulation Heatpump Solar panels Very energy efficient overall. Except... In the summer it overheats. Once it heats up you cannot get it to cool down at all. Horrible.
fy20 3y ago
I'd argue that houses in the UK are not very well designed to keep warm which is why they overheat in the summer. I live in the Baltics, in a modern 4 bedroom house, and our annual energy consumption for heating is around 6000kWh - that's around half the average of a similar sized house in the UK, even though our winters are much colder. My house is a bit older so doesn't have it, but new houses must have a heat recovery ventilator. Almost all of these have a 'summer bypass mode' which bypasses the heat exchanger, so effectively draws warm air out of the house. This is useful in the summer, as here although it can get to 30c+ in the day, at night it almost always drops to below 20c. The way our houses are built we have a lot of thermal mass, so if you can cool it down during the night, it will make it a lot more comfortable during hot days.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  A lot of the UK houses are quite old and so they used the materials that were common at the time. My house is a mid-terrace house built around 1895 for mining workers, so it was built as cheaply as possible and doesn't seem to have a proper 90-degree angle anywhere. It's going to become a much bigger problem in the UK as we're struggling with having enough housing anyway and making them energy efficient is going to take a lot of money and work.
  - Southworth 3y ago
    I had heard that one reason UK housing was particularly bad insulation wise, and notoriously draughty was because they were all heated by open coal fires. The “bug” of being draughty became a “feature”. There is perhaps a lot to be understood about the British through it’s love of old buildings that are entirely unfit for modern purpose. The Houses of Commons/Palace of Westminster is a great example of this.
    - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
      Whilst we do love our old buildings, I think it's important to remember that we do actually have old buildings. We visited Tombstone, Arizona on holiday and were surprised to see some historical building (can't remember which one) that was built in the early 1900s - that's younger than our house. The problem is that we've got loads of old houses and not much room left in populous areas (and most people don't want to live in the less populous areas such as Wales or up North) so people will live in old houses as it's cheaper than knocking them down and building anew.
jojobas 3y ago
You basically want something to catch the solar radiation and either reflect it or convect away the heat. Some sheet material affixed a few inches away from your walls would give the same or better results as the trees.

nehal3m 3y ago

I have a little house in the back yard surrounded by some large birch trees. The insulation in that little place is pretty good, but I wouldn't say stellar. In the summers, our main house gets exceedingly hot for the same reason yours does. The little house in the shade however is nice and cool all summer. So if you can get away with it, sure, plant some trees. :)

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Planting trees isn't much of an option for us. We're in an old (1890s) mid-terrace house and our front "garden" is barely big enough to hold our recycling bins.

Tade0 3y ago

There's a type of optical filter tape which you can buy that reduces the amount of energy getting in and out - less than 20% goes through, most of it in the visible spectrum. It has a blueish tint though and really doesn't do much if it's the ambient temperature that's too high.

jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago

An acquaintance of mine works with a builder that specializes in zero energy homes. They mostly build in a climate similar to the UK. The houses are insanely insulated and airtight, but they have an air exchange unit that cycles fresh air in through a heat exchanger so the house temperature stays steady. These houses are honestly quite pleasant to be in. The insulation has the side effect of being very good noise dampening as well. I was talking to the owners of one and they said they'd never used the backup electric heater. The one time things got a little cold they light a candle in their bedroom and everything was fine. So I think in temperate climates, the answer is air tightness and thermal control, not whole house fans.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
With old houses, air tightness isn't always practical as they need to breathe: https://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/importance-of-breathability-in-old-buildings/ https://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/importance-of-br...
- walthamstow 3y ago
  That's what the air exchange unit is for. It brings fresh air in and exhausts stale air, passing the heat from the stale air to the fresh air as it does so. I would love one in my 1970-built house. In the types of old houses described in your link, this type of thing was designed to be done by one or more open fires, which drew fresh air in through cracks and crevices and exhausted up the chimney.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
I lived in one of those homes. In fact, I had it built to spec. Very thick insulation Heatpump Solar panels Very energy efficient overall. Except... In the summer it overheats. Once it heats up you cannot get it to cool down at all. Horrible.

fy20 3y ago

I'd argue that houses in the UK are not very well designed to keep warm which is why they overheat in the summer. I live in the Baltics, in a modern 4 bedroom house, and our annual energy consumption for heating is around 6000kWh - that's around half the average of a similar sized house in the UK, even though our winters are much colder. My house is a bit older so doesn't have it, but new houses must have a heat recovery ventilator. Almost all of these have a 'summer bypass mode' which bypasses the heat exchanger, so effectively draws warm air out of the house. This is useful in the summer, as here although it can get to 30c+ in the day, at night it almost always drops to below 20c. The way our houses are built we have a lot of thermal mass, so if you can cool it down during the night, it will make it a lot more comfortable during hot days.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
A lot of the UK houses are quite old and so they used the materials that were common at the time. My house is a mid-terrace house built around 1895 for mining workers, so it was built as cheaply as possible and doesn't seem to have a proper 90-degree angle anywhere. It's going to become a much bigger problem in the UK as we're struggling with having enough housing anyway and making them energy efficient is going to take a lot of money and work.
- Southworth 3y ago
  I had heard that one reason UK housing was particularly bad insulation wise, and notoriously draughty was because they were all heated by open coal fires. The “bug” of being draughty became a “feature”. There is perhaps a lot to be understood about the British through it’s love of old buildings that are entirely unfit for modern purpose. The Houses of Commons/Palace of Westminster is a great example of this.
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    Whilst we do love our old buildings, I think it's important to remember that we do actually have old buildings. We visited Tombstone, Arizona on holiday and were surprised to see some historical building (can't remember which one) that was built in the early 1900s - that's younger than our house. The problem is that we've got loads of old houses and not much room left in populous areas (and most people don't want to live in the less populous areas such as Wales or up North) so people will live in old houses as it's cheaper than knocking them down and building anew.

jojobas 3y ago

You basically want something to catch the solar radiation and either reflect it or convect away the heat. Some sheet material affixed a few inches away from your walls would give the same or better results as the trees.