20 ms·

Why don't we use awnings anymore (2022)

414 points by samclemens 2y ago

bell-cot 2y ago
Awnings, deep overhanging eaves, attic exhaust fans, floor plans designed for cross-ventilation, strategic shade trees - a century ago, there were lots of strategies for keeping cooler without A/C. And a 1950's house built with none of those advertised "I'm cutting-edge trendy, and rich enough to just run my new A/C all the time" to everyone who saw it.
- pluto_modadic 2y ago
  so... now they're an advertisement for zero energy homes >:D
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  This is even worse in the tropics. We used to have high ceilings, ceiling fans, cross-ventilation, shady trees, awnings. Now you get a stuffy high-rise concrete box with floor-to-ceiling glass facing the scorching afternoon sun, and AC working overtime.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    Whoever designs and/or approves buildings like that should be forced to live in them.
    - dangus 2y ago
      I can volunteer in their place. I'll take one of the units on billionaire's row.
  - dangus 2y ago
    High rises have high rise-specific windows that block solar heat energy extremely well.
- mmooss 2y ago
  This weekend I was in a small early-20th century home with marvelous cross ventilation - they hardly need anything else. I assumed it was a happy accident of the design, but now I wonder if it was intentional.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    Pretty sure it was, my whole 1920s neighborhood was built that way. The downstairs is glorious and with the shade trees barely needs AC for a few days in August. Upstairs is hot. But… the house was built with a finished downstairs and diy upstairs. The diy job wasn’t as good from a ventilation perspective.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    It was probably intentional because they had no other means of cooling the house.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    It was no accident. If you look at (say) catalogs of house plans which were printed in that era, "room has cross ventilation" is a touted as a feature.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
The American Southwest, especially the Sonoran Desert, was once a refuge for those who suffered respiratory ailments. Doctors would "prescribe" a change of scenery for allergies, asthma, tuberculosis, COPD, etc. People moved here because there was so little pollen in cleaner air, due to sparse population, as well as the lack of grass and other conventional foliage. However we also have a little feature we lovingly call "Valley Fever" which is a fungus, spread mostly by dust storms. As more Midwestern folks immigrated here, and the Snowbirds set up shop, they all wanted traditional lawns, trees, and golf courses, just like "back home". So by the 1980s-1990s, Phoenix was barely differentiated from Chicago or Kansas in terms of front yards. Now, those gardens definitely kept things cool in a local area. They needed things like flood-irrigation, so deep water often covers lawns. Deciduous or even evergreen trees can afford a lot of shade where you really, really need it. Unfortunately, monsoon microbursts often topple those kinds of trees, which have shallow roots in impoverished, sandy soils. Ironically, due to lack of water, and Greta Thunberg, we're reverting to desert landscapes (called xeriscape) and so the new urban domestic hotness here is to install little "drip irrigation" tubes, palo verde, cactus, succulents, yucca, etc. Needless to say, they don't provide enough shade, and the humidity stays quite low. Phoenicians today are clamoring for more artificial shelter and shade. Bus stops here are works of art with elaborate means of warding off the daytime heat. The city centers are still "heat islands" with murderous temperature increases during summertime ("summertime" in Phoenix lasts from March through October...)
- hakfoo 2y ago
  The "new hotness?" Xeriscape has been promoted at least back to the 1990s. Palo Verdes can get pretty damn big with significant shade factor, but they tend to blow a coat of a billion tiny yellow flowers in season and make a huge mess that the HOA kvetches about.
- maxbond 2y ago
  The problem isn't activists, it's the climate. The Colorado River system has been in a drought for 20 years, and for all we know it'll be in a drought for 100 more. (It's not clear to me this is anthropogenic, my impression is that it's a natural cycle of drought exacerbated by global climate change, but it's beside the point.) Read up on the Colorado River Compact. Where the Water Goes by David Owens is a very accessible primer. The tl;dr is that the water was portioned out to the Western states (including Arizona) during an unusually wet period, and we're now in a period of drought. They simply didn't understand this in 1922. With the advent of dendrochronology, we now understand that this river system is prone to droughts that can last hundreds of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_North_American_megadrought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_North_American_me...
guyzero 2y ago
We have a retractable on our south-facing patio door/window near San Jose and it's made a huge difference in terms of heat rejection after we installed it. On hot summer days it makes a noticeable difference. And since it's retractable it doesn't make the back room permanently dark. It's one of the major items that lets us survive a south bay summer without air conditioning. We'll probably upgrade our gas furnace to a heat pump eventually and get AC "free" but in the meantime this was a much cheaper stopgap.
- jmathai 2y ago
  I came to say the same thing. Ours is above our back sliding glass door which is about 8’ wide. Does a great job keeping the room cool in the summer.
AlexErrant 2y ago
The "Technology Connections" youtube channel recently discussed awnings too. (And it had more or less the same message as this blog.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k
- malfist 2y ago
  And that has way more details than this. The only why supplied here is "we forgot" and "AC"
  - zahlman 2y ago
    The TC video has a lot of details about why awnings are a great idea, and about how other places are still using them and getting good results; but the reasoning offered for why we don't use them any more... still boils down to "we forgot" and "AC". Because those are the actual reasons.
    - lesuorac 2y ago
      Well, I think he made a bit of a stronger accusation too then just "AC". In that, if your property had awnings the implication was it didn't have AC (I guess people can't read/trust a listing) so you needed to remove the awnings to advertise that you had AC.
      - graemep 2y ago
        Wasting money (as it would requite running the AC more) to show you have money.
        sitkack 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen
    - michaelt 2y ago
      AC was indeed important. But also: We still sometimes use things like awnings, just in the form of 'porches' or modern-looking 'slat awnings' Changes in architectural fashion has made some forms of awning look dated. Fabric awnings need upkeep to keep them looking smart. When the awnings are above ground level, it's semi-expensive upkeep. Building owners are tempted to keep those tired, sun-bleached awnings in place rather than renewing them - contributing to the dated reputation of awnings. Awnings also face competition from interior curtains and blinds, which are much simpler to maintain. And there's shifting building use. A few decades ago an office worker would prize a desk by a big window with lots of natural light to read paperwork by, but in the age of PCs nobody wants direct sunlight on their screen. Internal blinds let workers control the light levels to match their needs.
joeross 2y ago
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k
meatmanek 2y ago
Site seems down, here's the latest Wayback Machine snapshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20240421045028/https://thecraftsmanblog.com/why-dont-we-use-awnings-anymore/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240421045028/https://thecrafts...
NathanKP 2y ago
I think the builders of the past would be amazed by modern technology like argon filled double paned windows with advanced window films to reflect the heat instead of letting it in. But yes, let's bring back the awnings too. Sometimes the low tech ways are easiest and best. I will say that I don't think awnings alone can save a stick built modern house from the heat. Part of the key to old houses staying cool was high thermal mass: lots of brick and stone that could stay cool during the day. As great as modern insulation is at keeping hot and cool separate, a modern insulated wall doesn't cool it's surroundings like a high thermal mass wall would. Moving to a world where we combine passive cooling and high thermal mass construction with the benefits of modern tech will be key in my opinion.
- Modified3019 2y ago
  There’s Argon in those? Interesting. I wonder if anyone’s tried adding an electrode for plasma effects.
  - mordechai9000 2y ago
    I wonder how long the argon actually lasts in practice. The industry claims 20 years under normal conditions.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      Yeah, the gas leaks out after a while, then your double pane glass fogs up on the inside and costs $$$ to replace.
      - nnevod 2y ago
        To fog up, it has to pass water molecules, which are way larger than gas molecules. I've seen only a few IGUs fog up, all of them had clearly visible damage, and they are ubiquitous here, with many 20+ years old. And the IGUs themselves aren't very expensive either (unless they're over 1sqm individually), frames indeed are.
zdw 2y ago
In hot areas, even the shade of rooftop solar panels can make a substantial difference inside a building. And there's the ultra low tech method of just planting more shade trees. Unfortunately with most US build tract housing, there's not enough room between most houses to provide dedicated shade by most any method. I wonder if shade between the roof gaps between houses would be useful.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Shade trees covering the roof doesn't sound very compatible with those solar panels though
  - schiffern 2y ago
    I once heard a story from a sustainable design architect. The customer wanted to cut down all their shade trees to install solar panels. The architect explained that, after doing a bunch of energy modeling, the shade trees were actually saving fifteen times more energy than the PV panels would produce. So what happened? Naturally, the customer fired the architect. They only wanted to look green, but they didn't care if it was actually green. :-/
    - ssl-3 2y ago
      Did the architect look at the whole picture, or just compare energy? Trees cost a non-zero amount of time and money by just existing and doing their normal tree stuff when they're near a dwelling.
      - schiffern 2y ago
        If you want "the whole picture," trees also have many non-zero benefits apart from just energy — habitat, outdoor cooling/comfort, habitat, cleaner air, habitat, lower stress hormone levels, and oh did I mention habitat? :-D Since the only upside of PV is energy, it seems like you should at least show it's energy positive (vs wasting 1,400% as much energy on net). That huge energy waste is a big hole to dig out of using only secondary incidental benefits. If a tree is unhealthy or too close or too big, then of course you do something about that. But to do it because of solar (thinking it'll be more "green") is often misguided.
486sx33 2y ago
I think this Johnny cash ad is a great period piece to explain https://youtu.be/2jkIVfpICeo https://youtu.be/2jkIVfpICeo
exabrial 2y ago
We don’t use awnings because of roof overhangs. Local architects compute the sun angle for the given location. During the winter you can allow more light in and during the summer when the sun is higher, you can let less light in.
- lolinder 2y ago
  This is not true for any house I've lived in. No awnings, but there was also definitely no effort to compute roof angles to maximize shade in the summer. Depending on the home's orientation you may not be able to pull that off at all even if you tried.
  - jerlam 2y ago
    And tract houses use the same designs but rotated and flipped for an entire development. No one is calculating any kind of roof angles there.
- ungreased0675 2y ago
  In my area, very little thought seems to be given to house details like solar exposure and orientation of the house. They put them up as fast as possible, built to code minimums.
- jandrese 2y ago
  The majority of the time the house angle is determined by the street it is on. The house is usually aligned directly with the street, with zero regard given to sun angles and shading.
- the_gorilla 2y ago
  This was written in a very confident way, but I can say with at least as much confidence that my house was mass produced in a factory and assembled locally in the middle of nowhere without any regard for local architecture.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
sien 2y ago
Awnings are still pretty common in Australia. We have them on our house. In Australia it's very much worth getting awnings and ceiling fans as well as having a heat pump. In summer afternoons they can make a really remarkable difference.
- dbetteridge 2y ago
  Yeah was going to comment that this is a heavily American perspective and possibly even a heavily American city dwelling perspective. Lots of countries even where electricity is cheap use awnings as it's just better to not need to cool something down if it can be avoided. My childhood home in WA (Western Australia) had awnings, along with shade trees and a patio and it made a huge difference. noticed especially where the west facing Window got setting sun in summer and had no awnings
- rv3392 2y ago
  I'm from Brisbane and it seems like a lot of new build free-standing houses don't have awnings around here. I think most still have pretty deep eaves, which do an ok job. However, based on what I can see from my train window right now, it looks like most new apartments/townhouses and even office buildings have some sort of awning or window covering.
ip26 2y ago
I've even calculated optimal dimensions for pergola-type awnings on my house, but I detest the condescension directed towards insulation. The author has apparently never sat next to an uninsulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early August.
- ellisv 2y ago
  > never sat next to an uninsulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early August I must admit, although I’ve of course sat next to an uninsulated west Denver wall baking in the sun in early August and an insulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early July, I’ve never actually sat next to an uninsulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early August. I’m sure this comes as quite a shock, given our people’s pastime. Hopefully you can forgive my great transgression.
stevage 2y ago
>and the fabric covering would need to be replaced every 8-10 years depending on exposure and climate. Absolutely not. I recently drove past my childhood home. The canvas awnings that were there 30 years ago are still there, and look fine. Almost everything else about the house has changed.
- dylan604 2y ago
  How do you know it was never replaced? If it was the same, I'd be concerned about how much PFAS or other forever chemicals were used
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    Canvas has been canvas for an exceedingly long time right? Has anything about it really changed?
    - rascul 2y ago
      Treating canvas for fire and water resistance has been done for a long time for some applications. I don't know what is used for that, though.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        Scotchgard was a PFOS based formula changed to a PFBS formula brought to us by our lovely friends at 3M. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotchgard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotchgard more info in this PDF https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/history_and_use_508_2020Aug_Final.pdf https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/histor...
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    Not everything that lasts is PFAS/forever chemicals, please don't fearmonger.
    - pantulis 2y ago
pfdietz 2y ago
How about an awning that's actually a solar panel? I understand these are a thing for RVs.
spjt 2y ago
My solution is to not have any windows.
spjt 2y ago
My solution was to not have any windows.
philwelch 2y ago
I might just be unusually sensitive to this, but there is a downside to awnings that hardly ever gets mentioned. Yes, an awning keeps your house cooler by blocking sunlight, but it also blocks sunlight, reducing the natural light inside your house. This means you either sit in the dark or use more artificial light, which is fine except natural sunlight is (for me at least) very beneficial for mood and for maintaining the circadian rhythm. I know lots of people who don't mind living in darkness or seem to have a personal vendetta against the sun, and maybe those people would be genuinely better off with awnings, but I don't think they're for me.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far to find this -- yes exactly! They block the light, they block the sky, they block the view. Back in the day, windows were small and there were awnings and interiors were dark. Often made even darker with dark wood, dark colors, etc. It could be downright gloomy. Then a kind of aesthetic revolution happened where windows got bigger, walls got white, awnings went away -- and it's all so much brighter and joyous. And if your windows let in too much heat in the summer so you have to run your AC more, it can be counterbalanced in the winter when you can run the heat a lot less during sunny days.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  I think the reason this doesn’t get mentioned so much, is because the sun is absurdly bright during the day. I imagine a well designed awning doesn’t affect the light levels of your home to any perceptible degree. In my experience that’s true anyway.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    There is plenty of light being reflected off of nearby surfaces to still brighten up a house with an awning. They’re mostly for reducing direct, intense sunlight. Plus, if it bothers you that much, there are awnings that retract or fold away.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    > the sun is absurdly bright during the day. Yes, this is what makes it so hard to replace with artificial lighting! I enjoy that absurdly bright sunlight. My house has extra windows over most of my windows and these specifically allow that sunlight in to add ambient lighting. During daytime most of my house is fully illuminated even with the lights off and blinds drawn because of these upper windows. You might describe what I have as the exact opposite of an awning and it’s one of my favorite features.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
I added an awning to my roof top deck door because the door wasn’t weather proofed enough to constantly being hammered by Seattle autumn rain. No matter high tech you go, a low tech solution of just something to make sure your door isn’t hammered directly by the rain is good enough to solve that weird leak you have in your 4 year old home.
projectileboy 2y ago
I can’t say enough good things about The Craftsman Blog. Was my primary source for learning how to rebuild my 100-year-old double-hung windows. Lots of good stuff to explore.
yongjik 2y ago
Anecdotally, it feels like Americans generally don't care about natural lighting. About twenty years ago, my wife was looking for apartments and asked the leasing office if there was any unit available facing south or east. Apparently it was unusual enough a question that the apartment manager asked back if it was for religious reasons.
- ocular-rockular 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - seandoe 2y ago
    Ace and Gary
  - jachee 2y ago
    Humans and vast over-generalizations.
- advisedwang 2y ago
  This article would suggest the opposite though - when AC made it feasible everyone removed the awnings that were blocking light thus maximizing natural light.
  - yongjik 2y ago
    But that's the thing - You probably don't want to sit outside under direct sunlight in a summer afternoon, do you? Unless you live very far up north, having summer sunlight hit your floor is not very pleasant, either. A well-positioned awning can block summer sunlight while allowing in most of winter sunlight.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      My deck gets direct sunlight with no easy way to block it when the sun is high in the sky. As a result I don’t actually use the deck much until later in the day.
bigbacaloa 2y ago
[dead]
iamacyborg 2y ago
I went to Granada a few years back and the vast majority of the apartment buildings I saw out there had awnings. Meanwhile, my new build, West facing single aspect flat in London regularly heats to 30+ degrees celsius because no one thought about heat management.
- staticlink 2y ago
  I don't understand why newbuild flats are obsessed with using so much glass. Almost everyone I see is being covered up, sometimes even with just cardboard.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    Took the train to Amsterdam the other day, on the way there is an apartment building where the shared hallways are on the train-tracks side of the building, it's floor to ceiling glass. Some sections of it had cardboard or even aluminium foil to try and keep the sun / heat out, that one looked like a greenhouse. Likewise, I work for an energy company, in summer the aging AC (which they keep low because an energy company's policy and marketing is actually the opposite of what they provide) cannot keep up because there's nothing keeping the sunlight out but flimsy shades on the inside.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    Because it looks great when you're shopping for a flat. You don't realize the problem until summer hits.
    - consteval 2y ago
      Right, I think it's a continuation of the trend I'm seeing where everything is optimized for advertising and marketing. Essentially, everyday functionalities and practicalities are displaced in favor of fresh paint and shiny things.
    - dangus 2y ago
      My place has full floor to ceiling windows. I invested in automatic roller shades. It was expensive but worth it. It's amazing and way better than traditional windows. Winter isn't anywhere near as depressing anymore. I can control the amount of light that comes in far more than someone with normal size windows. Since the windows are new glass with multiple panes I notice very little difference in insulation performance.
WalterBright 2y ago
Houses also made use of the "stack effect". A cupola was put on the roof apex. The cupola was vented on the sides and was open to the attic. Wind blowing across the roof would accelerate because of the slope, then flow through the cupola, sucking the hot air out of the house and creating a cool draft through it. I don't have a cupola on my house, but did design in the stack effect. You can definitely feel the breeze coming up through the house. It makes the house several degrees cooler without A/C. The house also has unusually large eaves, which serve the same purpose as awnings. The house costs half as much to keep comfortable as my previous home.
- pistoleer 2y ago
  What scares me about eaves and cupolas is that they seem attractive spots for bats and insects to nest. I have a covered sort of outdoor hallway leading to my home, and it's swarmed with all sorts of flies during the summer because it's not as hot as out in the sun. What's your experience?
  - kreyenborgi 2y ago
    Is that necessarily a bad thing?
    - pistoleer 2y ago
      Flies: they get inside and nestle in my fruit, annoy me and distract me, get in my face. Bees and wasps: they settle and build nests in nooks and crannies of roofs. I don't have a problem with bees per se, although they can probably keep disturbing eating in the garden. Otoh they may pollinate flowers in the garden. Wasps on the other hand are truly a pest. I've lived in a house with wasps in the roof, constant wasps in the attic, leading to an unusable attic for about a year. Bats: no idea, never had them so far. But I've lived in a neighborhood where they were nestled inside the outer layers of roofs. Just like other animals I imagine they "shit and piss all over the place" so to speak. But they're also protected where I live, so once they are there, you can't even get rid of them.
EugeneOZ 2y ago
Still popular in Spain.
metronomer 2y ago
Curiously enough, here in Spain they're still pretty common nowadays, as lots of houses purposely incorporated green awnings, both to protect an exponentially-growing number of these houses from harsh sunlight during summer season, and to presumably 'soften' the arrival to the city of an increasing quantity of newcomers from rural Spain, as they already were very familiarized with them and, the designers thought, would find spots of green on the building more appealing comming from a greener countryside.
- juanpicardo 2y ago
  awnings also make a difference when getting a home's energy efficiency certificate. having them in your south facing windows helps a lot getting a higher score.
CalRobert 2y ago
I practically begged the idiot planners in Ireland for awnings so we could have shade in summer and fewer chances for water ingress and they didn’t care at all. Helps explain why Irish houses are so mouldy.
pistoleer 2y ago
It surprises me to read about "fixed metal frame" awnings. You don't _have_ to make that trade off. In the Netherlands a lot of houses have electrically retractable awnings (or even just mechanically windable by hand), especially above the giant windows facing the back yard. During winter and bad weather, we retract the awning. When it's too sunny, we deploy it. typical row house layout with big windows on both sides: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorzonwoning https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorzonwoning retractable awning: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonnescherm https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonnescherm
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  We have them in america too. But every moving part comes with inflated costs for both acquisition and ongoing maintenance.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    While this is true, awnings aren't that expensive, and while I don't have the knowledge to do the maths, they will earn themselves back over time with how much heat they keep out and how much you'll need to run the AC.
  - pistoleer 2y ago
    In the Netherlands it costs around a grand, as for maintenance... Haven't needed to do any in more than 15 years. The actual screen retracts into a weather proof metal casing, so there's not that much that goes wrong, whereas fixed awnings are exposed to the full weather gamut 24/7. Let me put it this way: it's cheap enough that a lot of social housing and other cheap forms of housing inhabited by the "lower class" feature them.
    - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
      A government paying for a thing does not in any way imply that the thing is a good use of money. How many decades of fabric replacements could you get from the savings of bolting on a simple metal frame as compared to an elaborate electromechanically actuated arm mechanism?
Animats 2y ago
Because we have tinted glass and double-pained windows.
deleted 2y ago
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tessierashpool9 2y ago
[flagged]
corentin88 2y ago
This website is full of ads…
- huhkerrf 2y ago
  From the HN guidelines: > Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
animal531 2y ago
I live in a complex and my neighbour on one side has a metal awning over their back door. A neighbour on the other side enclosed their patio in glass and it has windows that can open so that they are at the same angle as an awning. As a result during summer mornings both of them are blasting me with tight beams of sunlight which increases the temperature in my place while forcing me to keep my curtains closed until later in the morning when they stop blinding me.
- ikr678 2y ago
  Sounds like the awnings are very effective for their owners then.
thorin 2y ago
What percentage of US buildings would you say have air conditioning? The amount of UK homes that have AC is basically 0. Although I guess most commercial buildings would have it. I wonder if this is because UK homes are mainly brick, would that make a difference? Absolute max temp here in summer is 40 degrees C for 1 or 2 days and 30 degrees is pretty rare on most days in summer. When I saw the title I'd assumed this was about rainfall and guttering, which is something we do know about in the UK!
- ndheebebe 2y ago
  Natural gas prices. If gas was priced per kw like electricity then heat pumps would be popular to heat your home as they are more efficient (they cool air outside to get some energy). And then you get the air conditioning mode for the summer. But the winter use would justify the installation.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  > What percentage of US buildings would you say have air conditioning? Depends on the region of the US. In more northern, colder regions, many don't. In hotter regions, I think most either have it or have temporary/window/etc units.
- TheCleric 2y ago
  Depends on latitude. In Florida which is subtropical everyone has air conditioning. The UK only spans 10 degrees of latitude. The continental US spans almost 25. So the variability of climate here is HUGE.
deleted 2y ago
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scotty79 2y ago
Let's make solar panel awnings that you can raise up above the window in winter.
blenderob 2y ago
Are they really gone? I think I see them frequently in many buildings while strolling in Europe including the UK.
- bafe 2y ago
  Awnings are very standard in Switzerland, almost every balcony has one, in addition to exterior blinds on all windows.
ilaksh 2y ago
I assume the energy savings are significant. Shouldn't this be actually be part of the building code?
- stdbrouw 2y ago
  In Europe it is to some extent, with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Shades or awnings aren't required, but for every new building or renovation the overheating potential must be calculated and gets added to the building's "energy score", and buildings with an energy score that is too high either don't get a permit or the owners get fined.
delichon 2y ago
We get high winds here that would rip any normal awning right off of the house, sometimes from unpredictable dirt devils out of nowhere. I put up a heavy duty wind sock that got ripped to shreds in two years, awning fabric wouldn't last much longer. Inside window blinds help a lot. I recently discovered the kind of blinds that are built between the double panes of window glass. I got a sliding glass door with them. They're so nice and protected from daily household trauma that I expect them to last far longer than my regular blinds. It'd be great to retrofit the whole house with them. I'd love to have motorized versions that could react to the sun throughout the day.
- nick3443 2y ago
  Does the interior blind affect the argon fill? It's truly shocking how much motorized insulating shades (i.e. pull-down double cellular shades) cost. To the point of making me consider attempting to form a low cost competitor in the market. Also, cellular shades with side tracks are no longer even available to order, which reduces the insulating effectiveness.
qwerty_clicks 2y ago
It’s greed for money and lack of care about designing decent society. It is cheaper for a developer to build with less anything. More sqr ft by building a bigger boxier flat to the property line with no eves. Since American's don’t see eves or awnings anymore, they couldn’t expect them.
sgt101 2y ago
Definitely on my mind in the UK. We have maybe 10 days a year when cooling is important, but having sun shades would be really nice for perhaps 50 days a year - so makes more sense than an AC solution here I think. Also they look nice!
_spduchamp 2y ago
Squirrels. That's why I don't use awnings. I've had awnings on my old house destroyed twice by squirrels ripping them apart for nesting.
- rossdavidh 2y ago
  These squirrels just showed up in the last 50 years or so?
  - thedman9052 2y ago
    Don't be daft. Animals certainly interfered with awnings when they were common, but there weren't alternatives then.
  - myroon5 2y ago
    Squirrels were intentionally introduced into American cities ~150 years ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-20/the-forgotten-history-of-how-cities-almost-killed-the-common-squirrel https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-20/the-forgo... https://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/12/12/philly-first-city-america-squirrels/ https://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/12/12/philly-first-city-...
hasbot 2y ago
I'm tall. If I had awnings on my windows all I'd ever see would be grass and awning. I have "black out" curtains on my windows and they actually do a fair job reducing the heat of the sun. I can feel the heat radiate from my metal front door.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  If you had an awning for your front door you wouldn’t feel the heat :)
- barryrandall 2y ago
  I suffer from the same affliction. Flat, above-window awnings can provide shade without compromising visibility.
  - hasbot 2y ago
    An awning entirely above the window would have to be very large to prevent sunlight from entering the window (see a passive solar eave calculator for details). A flat awning would have to be very sturdy to handle a snow load.
andreygrehov 2y ago
Well, not like it disappeared everywhere, plenty of window awnings here in Florida.
lo_zamoyski 2y ago
> To me it’s really despicable the lack of respect we give these incredibly talented contractors who were able to design and construct these solid structures that have withstood the test of time without the use of computers, power tools, or energy codes. Chronological snobbery is a whiggish habit. If anything, architecture today is lazy and mediocre, especially given our technological advantages. People even used to factor in the path of the sun and the direction of the wind to position a house. Some architects and contractors might still do that, but I don't think this is common, because, hey, we have HVAC, and hey, we just want to slap together and flip a shitty development as quickly as possible. The lack of care, the lack of concern for urban planning, the misuse of material in a given environment, the use of inferior materials and building methods, the lack of concern for posterity who will inherit our mess, the waste, the ugliness -- it's all shameful. If anything comes out of this "green revolution", I hope it is at least a course correction in this space.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  It's still common in a custom home on a large lot, but a tract home will just be built sqare to the lot it's on, with the front of the house parallel to the street, probably required by zoning in fact.
jedberg 2y ago
I installed retractable awnings on my huge western facing sliding glass door. They stay deployed all summer and then get retracted in the winter or when we need to use the door, like for a party. They make a huge difference in how hot the room gets. I can always tell when it's time to deploy them for the season when the room starts to bake.
rootusrootus 2y ago
I still see awnings. Heck, one of my neighbors down the street has awnings over a couple windows. On a house built less than 10 years ago. Though locally (PNW) they aren't really an ideal choice because it does not routinely get hot enough in the summer to really benefit but it gets cool and wet all winter long so they mildew. I just planted medium-tall deciduous trees in our west yard instead.
psunavy03 2y ago
"We jumped into the insulation craze . . ." Wut? The whole point of insulation is to make it easier to manage temperatures without wasting energy, AC or awnings.
code_runner 2y ago
we just bought a house that came w/ some pretty old awnings. We wanted to rip them down at first but slowly evolved from "they're ugly" to "charming". Our A/C bill over the summer was pretty competitive with our previous home which was half the size.
krunck 2y ago
I've got a row of pine trees on the south side of my house that do the same thing as awnings. High summer sun is blocked by the canopy. Low winter sun passes below the branches and reaches the windows. I'm 43°N.
asdff 2y ago
I think the idea that it was AC or natural light and what not is a bit simplistic. E.g. here in socal its pretty common to see people cover a window entirely in the heat with like newspaper or tin foil and lack AC. Likewise there are a lot of old homes and apartments built in the 1920s that used to have awnings (visible in historical photos often) and no longer do, and they don't have central air either (maybe a couple window units which also block light). I think the reason is simply that awnings take maintenance and are more costly. They eventually rot out from the sun and fall apart, needing replacement. Replacing an awning is not necessary to rent an apartment or sell a home, so it isn't done. If you had a ratty old one you'd probably just remove it vs replace. And even if you did want to replace that awning today, where do you even get one? They don't sell them at the hardware store like they might have 100 years ago. You'd probably have to order custom sized pieces from some company. Probably a couple grand in the materials and installation right there to do up all the windows. Plastic blinds on the other hand are like $50 at the hardware store and you can install them with a drill in 2 mins.
- rossdavidh 2y ago
  All true, but most of that was true 100 years ago as well. Once A/C makes a lot of people decide it's not worth the bother, then it becomes less of a standard thing, and then it's not as easily available and etc. etc. But they always required maintenance, and yet were done, and then they weren't any more (mostly).
  - asdff 2y ago
    Given how quickly they came and went on these buildings, it makes you wonder if they even ever were maintained beyond the initial install by the builder.
aidenn0 2y ago
My first condo was built in the 50s and had metal (not metal framed, but painted metal) awnings. The previous owner had removed one awning (presumably due to disrepair) and the room with no awning was at least 5 degrees warmer than the other rooms in the summer.
kulahan 2y ago
For the lazy: because we have A/C, people didn't feel the need to maintain them, so they lost popularity.
TheCleric 2y ago
One thing I don’t see covered here is that awnings have never seemed helpful to me in a humid climate. In Florida you can stand in the shade or the sun and barely feel a temperature variation (if at all). In the summer it may only get a few degrees cooler at night, because the air traps all the heat anyway. So even if you have an awning the air is still hot.
acyou 2y ago
I don't think these fabric awnings have great performance in: Maintenance Fire Wind and weather resistance of fabric Appearance Weather protection for building siding Conversely, buildings nowadays are covered in fixed awnings that are fully integrated with the building envelope, they work great and are engineered to last the life of the buildings. Am I missing anything?
m463 2y ago
> So where did all the awnings go? Two simple words... air conditioning. I can't help but think this is too bad. and also shade trees. I see housing developments where the trees are all cut down, the houses go up, and... they plant trees. I think of that saying: "A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit." and I would take it one step further... Don't cut down the trees, build the houses around them! For shade, and beauty.
Suppafly 2y ago
I was always bummed that my old house had the awnings removed before I bought it. A few of the same design in my neighborhood still had them and they were cool looking. I grew up in a house with awnings and loved them. It's one of those things that people remove in an attempt to 'freshen things up' and make it more 'modern' and kill the charm in the long run, and financially it doesn't make sense to rebuy them once they've been removed.
fuzzfactor 2y ago
When kids are running around the house all the time, sooner or later they get tall enough to bang their heads on the awnings :\
jbaviat 2y ago
I used to live in France. We had no A/C, enough climate consciousness not install it, though our east-facing windows were bringing important heat at sunrise. We had awnings installed, with an HomeKit connection, so we could automatically have them closed before sunrise, and opened once the sun would leave this face of the building. We saved a few degrees in this way.

414 points by samclemens 2y ago

Awnings, deep overhanging eaves, attic exhaust fans, floor plans designed for cross-ventilation, strategic shade trees - a century ago, there were lots of strategies for keeping cooler without A/C. And a 1950's house built with none of those advertised "I'm cutting-edge trendy, and rich enough to just run my new A/C all the time" to everyone who saw it.

pluto_modadic 2y ago
so... now they're an advertisement for zero energy homes >:D
teractiveodular 2y ago
This is even worse in the tropics. We used to have high ceilings, ceiling fans, cross-ventilation, shady trees, awnings. Now you get a stuffy high-rise concrete box with floor-to-ceiling glass facing the scorching afternoon sun, and AC working overtime.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Whoever designs and/or approves buildings like that should be forced to live in them.
  - dangus 2y ago
    I can volunteer in their place. I'll take one of the units on billionaire's row.
- dangus 2y ago
  High rises have high rise-specific windows that block solar heat energy extremely well.
mmooss 2y ago
This weekend I was in a small early-20th century home with marvelous cross ventilation - they hardly need anything else. I assumed it was a happy accident of the design, but now I wonder if it was intentional.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Pretty sure it was, my whole 1920s neighborhood was built that way. The downstairs is glorious and with the shade trees barely needs AC for a few days in August. Upstairs is hot. But… the house was built with a finished downstairs and diy upstairs. The diy job wasn’t as good from a ventilation perspective.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  It was probably intentional because they had no other means of cooling the house.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  It was no accident. If you look at (say) catalogs of house plans which were printed in that era, "room has cross ventilation" is a touted as a feature.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

The American Southwest, especially the Sonoran Desert, was once a refuge for those who suffered respiratory ailments. Doctors would "prescribe" a change of scenery for allergies, asthma, tuberculosis, COPD, etc. People moved here because there was so little pollen in cleaner air, due to sparse population, as well as the lack of grass and other conventional foliage. However we also have a little feature we lovingly call "Valley Fever" which is a fungus, spread mostly by dust storms. As more Midwestern folks immigrated here, and the Snowbirds set up shop, they all wanted traditional lawns, trees, and golf courses, just like "back home". So by the 1980s-1990s, Phoenix was barely differentiated from Chicago or Kansas in terms of front yards. Now, those gardens definitely kept things cool in a local area. They needed things like flood-irrigation, so deep water often covers lawns. Deciduous or even evergreen trees can afford a lot of shade where you really, really need it. Unfortunately, monsoon microbursts often topple those kinds of trees, which have shallow roots in impoverished, sandy soils. Ironically, due to lack of water, and Greta Thunberg, we're reverting to desert landscapes (called xeriscape) and so the new urban domestic hotness here is to install little "drip irrigation" tubes, palo verde, cactus, succulents, yucca, etc. Needless to say, they don't provide enough shade, and the humidity stays quite low. Phoenicians today are clamoring for more artificial shelter and shade. Bus stops here are works of art with elaborate means of warding off the daytime heat. The city centers are still "heat islands" with murderous temperature increases during summertime ("summertime" in Phoenix lasts from March through October...)

hakfoo 2y ago
The "new hotness?" Xeriscape has been promoted at least back to the 1990s. Palo Verdes can get pretty damn big with significant shade factor, but they tend to blow a coat of a billion tiny yellow flowers in season and make a huge mess that the HOA kvetches about.
maxbond 2y ago
The problem isn't activists, it's the climate. The Colorado River system has been in a drought for 20 years, and for all we know it'll be in a drought for 100 more. (It's not clear to me this is anthropogenic, my impression is that it's a natural cycle of drought exacerbated by global climate change, but it's beside the point.) Read up on the Colorado River Compact. Where the Water Goes by David Owens is a very accessible primer. The tl;dr is that the water was portioned out to the Western states (including Arizona) during an unusually wet period, and we're now in a period of drought. They simply didn't understand this in 1922. With the advent of dendrochronology, we now understand that this river system is prone to droughts that can last hundreds of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_North_American_megadrought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_North_American_me...

guyzero 2y ago

We have a retractable on our south-facing patio door/window near San Jose and it's made a huge difference in terms of heat rejection after we installed it. On hot summer days it makes a noticeable difference. And since it's retractable it doesn't make the back room permanently dark. It's one of the major items that lets us survive a south bay summer without air conditioning. We'll probably upgrade our gas furnace to a heat pump eventually and get AC "free" but in the meantime this was a much cheaper stopgap.

jmathai 2y ago
I came to say the same thing. Ours is above our back sliding glass door which is about 8’ wide. Does a great job keeping the room cool in the summer.

AlexErrant 2y ago

The "Technology Connections" youtube channel recently discussed awnings too. (And it had more or less the same message as this blog.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k

malfist 2y ago
And that has way more details than this. The only why supplied here is "we forgot" and "AC"
- zahlman 2y ago
  The TC video has a lot of details about why awnings are a great idea, and about how other places are still using them and getting good results; but the reasoning offered for why we don't use them any more... still boils down to "we forgot" and "AC". Because those are the actual reasons.
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    Well, I think he made a bit of a stronger accusation too then just "AC". In that, if your property had awnings the implication was it didn't have AC (I guess people can't read/trust a listing) so you needed to remove the awnings to advertise that you had AC.
    - graemep 2y ago
      Wasting money (as it would requite running the AC more) to show you have money.
      - sitkack 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen
  - michaelt 2y ago
    AC was indeed important. But also: We still sometimes use things like awnings, just in the form of 'porches' or modern-looking 'slat awnings' Changes in architectural fashion has made some forms of awning look dated. Fabric awnings need upkeep to keep them looking smart. When the awnings are above ground level, it's semi-expensive upkeep. Building owners are tempted to keep those tired, sun-bleached awnings in place rather than renewing them - contributing to the dated reputation of awnings. Awnings also face competition from interior curtains and blinds, which are much simpler to maintain. And there's shifting building use. A few decades ago an office worker would prize a desk by a big window with lots of natural light to read paperwork by, but in the age of PCs nobody wants direct sunlight on their screen. Internal blinds let workers control the light levels to match their needs.

joeross 2y ago

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k

meatmanek 2y ago

Site seems down, here's the latest Wayback Machine snapshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20240421045028/https://thecraftsmanblog.com/why-dont-we-use-awnings-anymore/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240421045028/https://thecrafts...

NathanKP 2y ago

I think the builders of the past would be amazed by modern technology like argon filled double paned windows with advanced window films to reflect the heat instead of letting it in. But yes, let's bring back the awnings too. Sometimes the low tech ways are easiest and best. I will say that I don't think awnings alone can save a stick built modern house from the heat. Part of the key to old houses staying cool was high thermal mass: lots of brick and stone that could stay cool during the day. As great as modern insulation is at keeping hot and cool separate, a modern insulated wall doesn't cool it's surroundings like a high thermal mass wall would. Moving to a world where we combine passive cooling and high thermal mass construction with the benefits of modern tech will be key in my opinion.

Modified3019 2y ago
There’s Argon in those? Interesting. I wonder if anyone’s tried adding an electrode for plasma effects.
- mordechai9000 2y ago
  I wonder how long the argon actually lasts in practice. The industry claims 20 years under normal conditions.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Yeah, the gas leaks out after a while, then your double pane glass fogs up on the inside and costs $$$ to replace.
    - nnevod 2y ago
      To fog up, it has to pass water molecules, which are way larger than gas molecules. I've seen only a few IGUs fog up, all of them had clearly visible damage, and they are ubiquitous here, with many 20+ years old. And the IGUs themselves aren't very expensive either (unless they're over 1sqm individually), frames indeed are.

zdw 2y ago

In hot areas, even the shade of rooftop solar panels can make a substantial difference inside a building. And there's the ultra low tech method of just planting more shade trees. Unfortunately with most US build tract housing, there's not enough room between most houses to provide dedicated shade by most any method. I wonder if shade between the roof gaps between houses would be useful.

dylan604 2y ago
Shade trees covering the roof doesn't sound very compatible with those solar panels though
- schiffern 2y ago
  I once heard a story from a sustainable design architect. The customer wanted to cut down all their shade trees to install solar panels. The architect explained that, after doing a bunch of energy modeling, the shade trees were actually saving fifteen times more energy than the PV panels would produce. So what happened? Naturally, the customer fired the architect. They only wanted to look green, but they didn't care if it was actually green. :-/
  - ssl-3 2y ago
    Did the architect look at the whole picture, or just compare energy? Trees cost a non-zero amount of time and money by just existing and doing their normal tree stuff when they're near a dwelling.
    - schiffern 2y ago
      If you want "the whole picture," trees also have many non-zero benefits apart from just energy — habitat, outdoor cooling/comfort, habitat, cleaner air, habitat, lower stress hormone levels, and oh did I mention habitat? :-D Since the only upside of PV is energy, it seems like you should at least show it's energy positive (vs wasting 1,400% as much energy on net). That huge energy waste is a big hole to dig out of using only secondary incidental benefits. If a tree is unhealthy or too close or too big, then of course you do something about that. But to do it because of solar (thinking it'll be more "green") is often misguided.

486sx33 2y ago

I think this Johnny cash ad is a great period piece to explain https://youtu.be/2jkIVfpICeo https://youtu.be/2jkIVfpICeo

exabrial 2y ago

We don’t use awnings because of roof overhangs. Local architects compute the sun angle for the given location. During the winter you can allow more light in and during the summer when the sun is higher, you can let less light in.

lolinder 2y ago
This is not true for any house I've lived in. No awnings, but there was also definitely no effort to compute roof angles to maximize shade in the summer. Depending on the home's orientation you may not be able to pull that off at all even if you tried.
- jerlam 2y ago
  And tract houses use the same designs but rotated and flipped for an entire development. No one is calculating any kind of roof angles there.
ungreased0675 2y ago
In my area, very little thought seems to be given to house details like solar exposure and orientation of the house. They put them up as fast as possible, built to code minimums.
jandrese 2y ago
The majority of the time the house angle is determined by the street it is on. The house is usually aligned directly with the street, with zero regard given to sun angles and shading.
the_gorilla 2y ago
This was written in a very confident way, but I can say with at least as much confidence that my house was mass produced in a factory and assembled locally in the middle of nowhere without any regard for local architecture.
- 082349872349872 2y ago

sien 2y ago

Awnings are still pretty common in Australia. We have them on our house. In Australia it's very much worth getting awnings and ceiling fans as well as having a heat pump. In summer afternoons they can make a really remarkable difference.

dbetteridge 2y ago
Yeah was going to comment that this is a heavily American perspective and possibly even a heavily American city dwelling perspective. Lots of countries even where electricity is cheap use awnings as it's just better to not need to cool something down if it can be avoided. My childhood home in WA (Western Australia) had awnings, along with shade trees and a patio and it made a huge difference. noticed especially where the west facing Window got setting sun in summer and had no awnings
rv3392 2y ago
I'm from Brisbane and it seems like a lot of new build free-standing houses don't have awnings around here. I think most still have pretty deep eaves, which do an ok job. However, based on what I can see from my train window right now, it looks like most new apartments/townhouses and even office buildings have some sort of awning or window covering.

ip26 2y ago

I've even calculated optimal dimensions for pergola-type awnings on my house, but I detest the condescension directed towards insulation. The author has apparently never sat next to an uninsulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early August.

ellisv 2y ago
> never sat next to an uninsulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early August I must admit, although I’ve of course sat next to an uninsulated west Denver wall baking in the sun in early August and an insulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early July, I’ve never actually sat next to an uninsulated southwest Denver wall baking in the sun in early August. I’m sure this comes as quite a shock, given our people’s pastime. Hopefully you can forgive my great transgression.

stevage 2y ago

>and the fabric covering would need to be replaced every 8-10 years depending on exposure and climate. Absolutely not. I recently drove past my childhood home. The canvas awnings that were there 30 years ago are still there, and look fine. Almost everything else about the house has changed.

dylan604 2y ago
How do you know it was never replaced? If it was the same, I'd be concerned about how much PFAS or other forever chemicals were used
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Canvas has been canvas for an exceedingly long time right? Has anything about it really changed?
  - rascul 2y ago
    Treating canvas for fire and water resistance has been done for a long time for some applications. I don't know what is used for that, though.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Scotchgard was a PFOS based formula changed to a PFBS formula brought to us by our lovely friends at 3M. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotchgard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotchgard more info in this PDF https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/history_and_use_508_2020Aug_Final.pdf https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/histor...
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Not everything that lasts is PFAS/forever chemicals, please don't fearmonger.
  - pantulis 2y ago

pfdietz 2y ago

How about an awning that's actually a solar panel? I understand these are a thing for RVs.

spjt 2y ago

My solution is to not have any windows.

spjt 2y ago

My solution was to not have any windows.

philwelch 2y ago

I might just be unusually sensitive to this, but there is a downside to awnings that hardly ever gets mentioned. Yes, an awning keeps your house cooler by blocking sunlight, but it also blocks sunlight, reducing the natural light inside your house. This means you either sit in the dark or use more artificial light, which is fine except natural sunlight is (for me at least) very beneficial for mood and for maintaining the circadian rhythm. I know lots of people who don't mind living in darkness or seem to have a personal vendetta against the sun, and maybe those people would be genuinely better off with awnings, but I don't think they're for me.

crazygringo 2y ago
I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far to find this -- yes exactly! They block the light, they block the sky, they block the view. Back in the day, windows were small and there were awnings and interiors were dark. Often made even darker with dark wood, dark colors, etc. It could be downright gloomy. Then a kind of aesthetic revolution happened where windows got bigger, walls got white, awnings went away -- and it's all so much brighter and joyous. And if your windows let in too much heat in the summer so you have to run your AC more, it can be counterbalanced in the winter when you can run the heat a lot less during sunny days.
Aeolun 2y ago
I think the reason this doesn’t get mentioned so much, is because the sun is absurdly bright during the day. I imagine a well designed awning doesn’t affect the light levels of your home to any perceptible degree. In my experience that’s true anyway.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  There is plenty of light being reflected off of nearby surfaces to still brighten up a house with an awning. They’re mostly for reducing direct, intense sunlight. Plus, if it bothers you that much, there are awnings that retract or fold away.
- philwelch 2y ago
  > the sun is absurdly bright during the day. Yes, this is what makes it so hard to replace with artificial lighting! I enjoy that absurdly bright sunlight. My house has extra windows over most of my windows and these specifically allow that sunlight in to add ambient lighting. During daytime most of my house is fully illuminated even with the lights off and blinds drawn because of these upper windows. You might describe what I have as the exact opposite of an awning and it’s one of my favorite features.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

I added an awning to my roof top deck door because the door wasn’t weather proofed enough to constantly being hammered by Seattle autumn rain. No matter high tech you go, a low tech solution of just something to make sure your door isn’t hammered directly by the rain is good enough to solve that weird leak you have in your 4 year old home.

projectileboy 2y ago

I can’t say enough good things about The Craftsman Blog. Was my primary source for learning how to rebuild my 100-year-old double-hung windows. Lots of good stuff to explore.

yongjik 2y ago

Anecdotally, it feels like Americans generally don't care about natural lighting. About twenty years ago, my wife was looking for apartments and asked the leasing office if there was any unit available facing south or east. Apparently it was unusual enough a question that the apartment manager asked back if it was for religious reasons.

ocular-rockular 2y ago
[flagged]
- seandoe 2y ago
  Ace and Gary
- jachee 2y ago
  Humans and vast over-generalizations.
advisedwang 2y ago
This article would suggest the opposite though - when AC made it feasible everyone removed the awnings that were blocking light thus maximizing natural light.
- yongjik 2y ago
  But that's the thing - You probably don't want to sit outside under direct sunlight in a summer afternoon, do you? Unless you live very far up north, having summer sunlight hit your floor is not very pleasant, either. A well-positioned awning can block summer sunlight while allowing in most of winter sunlight.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    My deck gets direct sunlight with no easy way to block it when the sun is high in the sky. As a result I don’t actually use the deck much until later in the day.

bigbacaloa 2y ago

[dead]

iamacyborg 2y ago

I went to Granada a few years back and the vast majority of the apartment buildings I saw out there had awnings. Meanwhile, my new build, West facing single aspect flat in London regularly heats to 30+ degrees celsius because no one thought about heat management.

staticlink 2y ago
I don't understand why newbuild flats are obsessed with using so much glass. Almost everyone I see is being covered up, sometimes even with just cardboard.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Took the train to Amsterdam the other day, on the way there is an apartment building where the shared hallways are on the train-tracks side of the building, it's floor to ceiling glass. Some sections of it had cardboard or even aluminium foil to try and keep the sun / heat out, that one looked like a greenhouse. Likewise, I work for an energy company, in summer the aging AC (which they keep low because an energy company's policy and marketing is actually the opposite of what they provide) cannot keep up because there's nothing keeping the sunlight out but flimsy shades on the inside.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  Because it looks great when you're shopping for a flat. You don't realize the problem until summer hits.
  - consteval 2y ago
    Right, I think it's a continuation of the trend I'm seeing where everything is optimized for advertising and marketing. Essentially, everyday functionalities and practicalities are displaced in favor of fresh paint and shiny things.
  - dangus 2y ago
    My place has full floor to ceiling windows. I invested in automatic roller shades. It was expensive but worth it. It's amazing and way better than traditional windows. Winter isn't anywhere near as depressing anymore. I can control the amount of light that comes in far more than someone with normal size windows. Since the windows are new glass with multiple panes I notice very little difference in insulation performance.

WalterBright 2y ago

Houses also made use of the "stack effect". A cupola was put on the roof apex. The cupola was vented on the sides and was open to the attic. Wind blowing across the roof would accelerate because of the slope, then flow through the cupola, sucking the hot air out of the house and creating a cool draft through it. I don't have a cupola on my house, but did design in the stack effect. You can definitely feel the breeze coming up through the house. It makes the house several degrees cooler without A/C. The house also has unusually large eaves, which serve the same purpose as awnings. The house costs half as much to keep comfortable as my previous home.

pistoleer 2y ago
What scares me about eaves and cupolas is that they seem attractive spots for bats and insects to nest. I have a covered sort of outdoor hallway leading to my home, and it's swarmed with all sorts of flies during the summer because it's not as hot as out in the sun. What's your experience?
- kreyenborgi 2y ago
  Is that necessarily a bad thing?
  - pistoleer 2y ago
    Flies: they get inside and nestle in my fruit, annoy me and distract me, get in my face. Bees and wasps: they settle and build nests in nooks and crannies of roofs. I don't have a problem with bees per se, although they can probably keep disturbing eating in the garden. Otoh they may pollinate flowers in the garden. Wasps on the other hand are truly a pest. I've lived in a house with wasps in the roof, constant wasps in the attic, leading to an unusable attic for about a year. Bats: no idea, never had them so far. But I've lived in a neighborhood where they were nestled inside the outer layers of roofs. Just like other animals I imagine they "shit and piss all over the place" so to speak. But they're also protected where I live, so once they are there, you can't even get rid of them.

EugeneOZ 2y ago

Still popular in Spain.

metronomer 2y ago

Curiously enough, here in Spain they're still pretty common nowadays, as lots of houses purposely incorporated green awnings, both to protect an exponentially-growing number of these houses from harsh sunlight during summer season, and to presumably 'soften' the arrival to the city of an increasing quantity of newcomers from rural Spain, as they already were very familiarized with them and, the designers thought, would find spots of green on the building more appealing comming from a greener countryside.

juanpicardo 2y ago
awnings also make a difference when getting a home's energy efficiency certificate. having them in your south facing windows helps a lot getting a higher score.

CalRobert 2y ago

I practically begged the idiot planners in Ireland for awnings so we could have shade in summer and fewer chances for water ingress and they didn’t care at all. Helps explain why Irish houses are so mouldy.

pistoleer 2y ago

It surprises me to read about "fixed metal frame" awnings. You don't _have_ to make that trade off. In the Netherlands a lot of houses have electrically retractable awnings (or even just mechanically windable by hand), especially above the giant windows facing the back yard. During winter and bad weather, we retract the awning. When it's too sunny, we deploy it. typical row house layout with big windows on both sides: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorzonwoning https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorzonwoning retractable awning: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonnescherm https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonnescherm

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
We have them in america too. But every moving part comes with inflated costs for both acquisition and ongoing maintenance.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  While this is true, awnings aren't that expensive, and while I don't have the knowledge to do the maths, they will earn themselves back over time with how much heat they keep out and how much you'll need to run the AC.
- pistoleer 2y ago
  In the Netherlands it costs around a grand, as for maintenance... Haven't needed to do any in more than 15 years. The actual screen retracts into a weather proof metal casing, so there's not that much that goes wrong, whereas fixed awnings are exposed to the full weather gamut 24/7. Let me put it this way: it's cheap enough that a lot of social housing and other cheap forms of housing inhabited by the "lower class" feature them.
  - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
    A government paying for a thing does not in any way imply that the thing is a good use of money. How many decades of fabric replacements could you get from the savings of bolting on a simple metal frame as compared to an elaborate electromechanically actuated arm mechanism?

Animats 2y ago

Because we have tinted glass and double-pained windows.

deleted 2y ago

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tessierashpool9 2y ago

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corentin88 2y ago

This website is full of ads…

huhkerrf 2y ago
From the HN guidelines: > Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.

animal531 2y ago

I live in a complex and my neighbour on one side has a metal awning over their back door. A neighbour on the other side enclosed their patio in glass and it has windows that can open so that they are at the same angle as an awning. As a result during summer mornings both of them are blasting me with tight beams of sunlight which increases the temperature in my place while forcing me to keep my curtains closed until later in the morning when they stop blinding me.

ikr678 2y ago
Sounds like the awnings are very effective for their owners then.

thorin 2y ago

What percentage of US buildings would you say have air conditioning? The amount of UK homes that have AC is basically 0. Although I guess most commercial buildings would have it. I wonder if this is because UK homes are mainly brick, would that make a difference? Absolute max temp here in summer is 40 degrees C for 1 or 2 days and 30 degrees is pretty rare on most days in summer. When I saw the title I'd assumed this was about rainfall and guttering, which is something we do know about in the UK!

ndheebebe 2y ago
Natural gas prices. If gas was priced per kw like electricity then heat pumps would be popular to heat your home as they are more efficient (they cool air outside to get some energy). And then you get the air conditioning mode for the summer. But the winter use would justify the installation.
JoshTriplett 2y ago
> What percentage of US buildings would you say have air conditioning? Depends on the region of the US. In more northern, colder regions, many don't. In hotter regions, I think most either have it or have temporary/window/etc units.
TheCleric 2y ago
Depends on latitude. In Florida which is subtropical everyone has air conditioning. The UK only spans 10 degrees of latitude. The continental US spans almost 25. So the variability of climate here is HUGE.

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scotty79 2y ago

Let's make solar panel awnings that you can raise up above the window in winter.

blenderob 2y ago

Are they really gone? I think I see them frequently in many buildings while strolling in Europe including the UK.

bafe 2y ago
Awnings are very standard in Switzerland, almost every balcony has one, in addition to exterior blinds on all windows.

ilaksh 2y ago

I assume the energy savings are significant. Shouldn't this be actually be part of the building code?

stdbrouw 2y ago
In Europe it is to some extent, with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Shades or awnings aren't required, but for every new building or renovation the overheating potential must be calculated and gets added to the building's "energy score", and buildings with an energy score that is too high either don't get a permit or the owners get fined.

delichon 2y ago

We get high winds here that would rip any normal awning right off of the house, sometimes from unpredictable dirt devils out of nowhere. I put up a heavy duty wind sock that got ripped to shreds in two years, awning fabric wouldn't last much longer. Inside window blinds help a lot. I recently discovered the kind of blinds that are built between the double panes of window glass. I got a sliding glass door with them. They're so nice and protected from daily household trauma that I expect them to last far longer than my regular blinds. It'd be great to retrofit the whole house with them. I'd love to have motorized versions that could react to the sun throughout the day.

nick3443 2y ago
Does the interior blind affect the argon fill? It's truly shocking how much motorized insulating shades (i.e. pull-down double cellular shades) cost. To the point of making me consider attempting to form a low cost competitor in the market. Also, cellular shades with side tracks are no longer even available to order, which reduces the insulating effectiveness.

qwerty_clicks 2y ago

It’s greed for money and lack of care about designing decent society. It is cheaper for a developer to build with less anything. More sqr ft by building a bigger boxier flat to the property line with no eves. Since American's don’t see eves or awnings anymore, they couldn’t expect them.

sgt101 2y ago

Definitely on my mind in the UK. We have maybe 10 days a year when cooling is important, but having sun shades would be really nice for perhaps 50 days a year - so makes more sense than an AC solution here I think. Also they look nice!

_spduchamp 2y ago

Squirrels. That's why I don't use awnings. I've had awnings on my old house destroyed twice by squirrels ripping them apart for nesting.

rossdavidh 2y ago
These squirrels just showed up in the last 50 years or so?
- thedman9052 2y ago
  Don't be daft. Animals certainly interfered with awnings when they were common, but there weren't alternatives then.
- myroon5 2y ago
  Squirrels were intentionally introduced into American cities ~150 years ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-20/the-forgotten-history-of-how-cities-almost-killed-the-common-squirrel https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-20/the-forgo... https://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/12/12/philly-first-city-america-squirrels/ https://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/12/12/philly-first-city-...

hasbot 2y ago

I'm tall. If I had awnings on my windows all I'd ever see would be grass and awning. I have "black out" curtains on my windows and they actually do a fair job reducing the heat of the sun. I can feel the heat radiate from my metal front door.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago
If you had an awning for your front door you wouldn’t feel the heat :)
barryrandall 2y ago
I suffer from the same affliction. Flat, above-window awnings can provide shade without compromising visibility.
- hasbot 2y ago
  An awning entirely above the window would have to be very large to prevent sunlight from entering the window (see a passive solar eave calculator for details). A flat awning would have to be very sturdy to handle a snow load.

andreygrehov 2y ago

Well, not like it disappeared everywhere, plenty of window awnings here in Florida.

lo_zamoyski 2y ago

> To me it’s really despicable the lack of respect we give these incredibly talented contractors who were able to design and construct these solid structures that have withstood the test of time without the use of computers, power tools, or energy codes. Chronological snobbery is a whiggish habit. If anything, architecture today is lazy and mediocre, especially given our technological advantages. People even used to factor in the path of the sun and the direction of the wind to position a house. Some architects and contractors might still do that, but I don't think this is common, because, hey, we have HVAC, and hey, we just want to slap together and flip a shitty development as quickly as possible. The lack of care, the lack of concern for urban planning, the misuse of material in a given environment, the use of inferior materials and building methods, the lack of concern for posterity who will inherit our mess, the waste, the ugliness -- it's all shameful. If anything comes out of this "green revolution", I hope it is at least a course correction in this space.

SoftTalker 2y ago
It's still common in a custom home on a large lot, but a tract home will just be built sqare to the lot it's on, with the front of the house parallel to the street, probably required by zoning in fact.

jedberg 2y ago

I installed retractable awnings on my huge western facing sliding glass door. They stay deployed all summer and then get retracted in the winter or when we need to use the door, like for a party. They make a huge difference in how hot the room gets. I can always tell when it's time to deploy them for the season when the room starts to bake.

rootusrootus 2y ago

I still see awnings. Heck, one of my neighbors down the street has awnings over a couple windows. On a house built less than 10 years ago. Though locally (PNW) they aren't really an ideal choice because it does not routinely get hot enough in the summer to really benefit but it gets cool and wet all winter long so they mildew. I just planted medium-tall deciduous trees in our west yard instead.

psunavy03 2y ago

"We jumped into the insulation craze . . ." Wut? The whole point of insulation is to make it easier to manage temperatures without wasting energy, AC or awnings.

code_runner 2y ago

we just bought a house that came w/ some pretty old awnings. We wanted to rip them down at first but slowly evolved from "they're ugly" to "charming". Our A/C bill over the summer was pretty competitive with our previous home which was half the size.

krunck 2y ago

I've got a row of pine trees on the south side of my house that do the same thing as awnings. High summer sun is blocked by the canopy. Low winter sun passes below the branches and reaches the windows. I'm 43°N.

asdff 2y ago

I think the idea that it was AC or natural light and what not is a bit simplistic. E.g. here in socal its pretty common to see people cover a window entirely in the heat with like newspaper or tin foil and lack AC. Likewise there are a lot of old homes and apartments built in the 1920s that used to have awnings (visible in historical photos often) and no longer do, and they don't have central air either (maybe a couple window units which also block light). I think the reason is simply that awnings take maintenance and are more costly. They eventually rot out from the sun and fall apart, needing replacement. Replacing an awning is not necessary to rent an apartment or sell a home, so it isn't done. If you had a ratty old one you'd probably just remove it vs replace. And even if you did want to replace that awning today, where do you even get one? They don't sell them at the hardware store like they might have 100 years ago. You'd probably have to order custom sized pieces from some company. Probably a couple grand in the materials and installation right there to do up all the windows. Plastic blinds on the other hand are like $50 at the hardware store and you can install them with a drill in 2 mins.

rossdavidh 2y ago
All true, but most of that was true 100 years ago as well. Once A/C makes a lot of people decide it's not worth the bother, then it becomes less of a standard thing, and then it's not as easily available and etc. etc. But they always required maintenance, and yet were done, and then they weren't any more (mostly).
- asdff 2y ago
  Given how quickly they came and went on these buildings, it makes you wonder if they even ever were maintained beyond the initial install by the builder.

aidenn0 2y ago

My first condo was built in the 50s and had metal (not metal framed, but painted metal) awnings. The previous owner had removed one awning (presumably due to disrepair) and the room with no awning was at least 5 degrees warmer than the other rooms in the summer.

kulahan 2y ago

For the lazy: because we have A/C, people didn't feel the need to maintain them, so they lost popularity.

TheCleric 2y ago

One thing I don’t see covered here is that awnings have never seemed helpful to me in a humid climate. In Florida you can stand in the shade or the sun and barely feel a temperature variation (if at all). In the summer it may only get a few degrees cooler at night, because the air traps all the heat anyway. So even if you have an awning the air is still hot.

acyou 2y ago

I don't think these fabric awnings have great performance in: Maintenance Fire Wind and weather resistance of fabric Appearance Weather protection for building siding Conversely, buildings nowadays are covered in fixed awnings that are fully integrated with the building envelope, they work great and are engineered to last the life of the buildings. Am I missing anything?

m463 2y ago

> So where did all the awnings go? Two simple words... air conditioning. I can't help but think this is too bad. and also shade trees. I see housing developments where the trees are all cut down, the houses go up, and... they plant trees. I think of that saying: "A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit." and I would take it one step further... Don't cut down the trees, build the houses around them! For shade, and beauty.

Suppafly 2y ago

I was always bummed that my old house had the awnings removed before I bought it. A few of the same design in my neighborhood still had them and they were cool looking. I grew up in a house with awnings and loved them. It's one of those things that people remove in an attempt to 'freshen things up' and make it more 'modern' and kill the charm in the long run, and financially it doesn't make sense to rebuy them once they've been removed.

fuzzfactor 2y ago

When kids are running around the house all the time, sooner or later they get tall enough to bang their heads on the awnings :\

jbaviat 2y ago

I used to live in France. We had no A/C, enough climate consciousness not install it, though our east-facing windows were bringing important heat at sunrise. We had awnings installed, with an HomeKit connection, so we could automatically have them closed before sunrise, and opened once the sun would leave this face of the building. We saved a few degrees in this way.