<story><title>Cooling a house without air conditioning</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190822-are-there-alternatives-to-air-conditioning</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>simonsarris</author><text>A lot of the need for AC (and having lights on) is just really, really bad modern house design. I recently finished building a house (my first one) and everyone acted like I was crazy for not building in central air conditioning. (This is in New Hampshire)&lt;p&gt;I built in an older style, with windows on every side, with a mind towards ventilation and light. Inexplicably most houses in the area, even $500k+ houses do not have these two things. My mom&amp;#x27;s condo has central air but the system is so feeble and the venting upstairs so poor that two bedrooms in the house remain stuffy anyways. It seems like light and natural ventilation are not even afterthoughts, but non-thoughts, and the designs all rely on electric light and forced air. Its amazing being in an expensive home where you need a light on in the kitchen at 8am. How do they decide what to build?&lt;p&gt;I built 9 foot ceilings on the first floor and 8.5 on the second. Then I placed the attic (3rd story) door centrally in the upstairs hallway. The result of the design is that airflow moves on the first floor in all directions, and upward, and on the second floor can move &lt;i&gt;at least&lt;/i&gt; east-west (bathroom and hallway windows), and also north-south if bedroom doors are open. Finally, air flows upwards to the attic, which has windows north-south. So winds should suck air higher, and out.&lt;p&gt;If I close windows in the morning and open around 7pm, the result is that the house stays very cool, about(? only tested with temp gun a few times) 74 downstairs and 76 upstairs during these 90 degree days, and then gets cooler at night as I open windows again. So far, I&amp;#x27;ve only bought one fan, though things might work better with more. Note I&amp;#x27;m not an expert or an architect, I just included some design features that should be obvious to anyone who&amp;#x27;s lived in an old house for a summer.&lt;p&gt;This takes some manual control, but there are far fewer parts to maintain (this was a general design goal beyond AC), and summer electric bills are $50-60&amp;#x2F;month. With this design, there have been 3 icky-hot days so far this year, when there was no wind and the night did not get very cool.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>shados</author><text>My house has windows on every side for similar reasons, but it&amp;#x27;s back firing big time. I have to keep them closed at all time because of noise, and they let the sun in, requiring even more A&amp;#x2F;C. We have blackout&amp;#x2F;insulating shades, but it&amp;#x27;s still not as good as straight up walls.&lt;p&gt;So millage will vary.&lt;p&gt;Similarly with light, in winter by the time I get home its pitch black either way, so it wouldn&amp;#x27;t change a whole lot. And in summer the light from the windows doesn&amp;#x27;t play well with TV&amp;#x2F;monitors&amp;#x2F;etc.&lt;p&gt;Cats like the windows a lot though.</text></comment>
<story><title>Cooling a house without air conditioning</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190822-are-there-alternatives-to-air-conditioning</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>simonsarris</author><text>A lot of the need for AC (and having lights on) is just really, really bad modern house design. I recently finished building a house (my first one) and everyone acted like I was crazy for not building in central air conditioning. (This is in New Hampshire)&lt;p&gt;I built in an older style, with windows on every side, with a mind towards ventilation and light. Inexplicably most houses in the area, even $500k+ houses do not have these two things. My mom&amp;#x27;s condo has central air but the system is so feeble and the venting upstairs so poor that two bedrooms in the house remain stuffy anyways. It seems like light and natural ventilation are not even afterthoughts, but non-thoughts, and the designs all rely on electric light and forced air. Its amazing being in an expensive home where you need a light on in the kitchen at 8am. How do they decide what to build?&lt;p&gt;I built 9 foot ceilings on the first floor and 8.5 on the second. Then I placed the attic (3rd story) door centrally in the upstairs hallway. The result of the design is that airflow moves on the first floor in all directions, and upward, and on the second floor can move &lt;i&gt;at least&lt;/i&gt; east-west (bathroom and hallway windows), and also north-south if bedroom doors are open. Finally, air flows upwards to the attic, which has windows north-south. So winds should suck air higher, and out.&lt;p&gt;If I close windows in the morning and open around 7pm, the result is that the house stays very cool, about(? only tested with temp gun a few times) 74 downstairs and 76 upstairs during these 90 degree days, and then gets cooler at night as I open windows again. So far, I&amp;#x27;ve only bought one fan, though things might work better with more. Note I&amp;#x27;m not an expert or an architect, I just included some design features that should be obvious to anyone who&amp;#x27;s lived in an old house for a summer.&lt;p&gt;This takes some manual control, but there are far fewer parts to maintain (this was a general design goal beyond AC), and summer electric bills are $50-60&amp;#x2F;month. With this design, there have been 3 icky-hot days so far this year, when there was no wind and the night did not get very cool.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>davexunit</author><text>&amp;gt;A lot of the need for AC (and having lights on) is just really, really bad modern house design.&lt;p&gt;Agreed, but people also seem uninterested in simple techniques to work with what they&amp;#x27;ve got.  I live in MA, in an old house that doesn&amp;#x27;t have much in the way of modern energy efficiency but we get by without AC on all but the hottest days of the year by doing really simple things. Open windows at night.  Close them in the morning.  Pull the blinds down on windows that have sun exposure.  You get the idea. The only serious retrofit we&amp;#x27;ve done so far is have a contractor add cellulose insulation to the attic.  On 90+ degree days the second floor will reach 80+ by the evening so then we turn on the AC if a window fan is unable to bring the temperature back down to something comfortable.  In our climate AC should be the backup plan, not the primary cooling system.</text></comment>