<story><title>In the &apos;90s I survived summers in Egypt with no AC. How would it feel now?</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/08/27/1195966057/comic-in-the-90s-i-survived-summers-in-egypt-with-no-ac-how-would-it-feel-now</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mrtksn</author><text>&amp;gt;For example, we enlarged windows and doors, to the point were, standing behind one that&amp;#x27;s been cooking in the sun for a couple of hours, you feel the radiant heat a meter away from it.&lt;p&gt;There are window films that can block most of the light in frequencies which carries the energy and let the light from visible spectrum in, barely dimming the brightness and almost doesn&amp;#x27;t change the color.&lt;p&gt;I recently installed such a filter, I&amp;#x27;m amazed everyday how the hot bright sun is so tamed once inside the house. Sometimes I open a window to let the full spectrum in just so I can put my feet on the spot of the unfiltered light and then on the filtered one and compare how hot it gets where the sun shines in full power and can barely heat once filtered. It feels like magic, like a winter sun that is bright but doesn&amp;#x27;t heat. The filter itself heats up like crazy, it even gets too hot to touch but heat transfer by convection doesn&amp;#x27;t do much.&lt;p&gt;My grandma lives in an old  house built with thick stone walls with tiny windows. It stays naturally cool but I really like large windows. IMHO, the humanity has advanced enough to have large windows and still keep it cool. It&amp;#x27;s also good for the mood, some people like me really really like the sun and even the heat up to a point.</text></item><item><author>fffrantz</author><text>One thing I noticed recently during the massive heatwave we had in southern Europe is how we forgot the most basic principles for building in hot climates.&lt;p&gt;For example, we enlarged windows and doors, to the point were, standing behind one that&amp;#x27;s been cooking in the sun for a couple of hours, you feel the radiant heat a meter away from it. All the older houses around the Mediterranean have smaller windows and doors, to limit the sun (and by extension the heat) from coming in.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve cut down so many trees in the cities and poured so much concrete that some places are radiating heat for hours after sundown, making the night a couple of degrees hotter than it should really be.&lt;p&gt;Those are just a couple examples of poor architectural and city planning, but there are dozens of simple yet efficient techniques and tricks that we should reuse to make our cities more livable. Our ancestors didn&amp;#x27;t have all the new materials and knowledge we now have, but they were logical and lived with their environment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>voisin</author><text>I have heard that if you install these filters on the inside facing pane of glass, the glass can crack as the heat builds up between the inside facing and outside facing panes of glass.&lt;p&gt;Have you found one that does not do this or do you have any comments about this risk?</text></comment>
<story><title>In the &apos;90s I survived summers in Egypt with no AC. How would it feel now?</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/08/27/1195966057/comic-in-the-90s-i-survived-summers-in-egypt-with-no-ac-how-would-it-feel-now</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mrtksn</author><text>&amp;gt;For example, we enlarged windows and doors, to the point were, standing behind one that&amp;#x27;s been cooking in the sun for a couple of hours, you feel the radiant heat a meter away from it.&lt;p&gt;There are window films that can block most of the light in frequencies which carries the energy and let the light from visible spectrum in, barely dimming the brightness and almost doesn&amp;#x27;t change the color.&lt;p&gt;I recently installed such a filter, I&amp;#x27;m amazed everyday how the hot bright sun is so tamed once inside the house. Sometimes I open a window to let the full spectrum in just so I can put my feet on the spot of the unfiltered light and then on the filtered one and compare how hot it gets where the sun shines in full power and can barely heat once filtered. It feels like magic, like a winter sun that is bright but doesn&amp;#x27;t heat. The filter itself heats up like crazy, it even gets too hot to touch but heat transfer by convection doesn&amp;#x27;t do much.&lt;p&gt;My grandma lives in an old  house built with thick stone walls with tiny windows. It stays naturally cool but I really like large windows. IMHO, the humanity has advanced enough to have large windows and still keep it cool. It&amp;#x27;s also good for the mood, some people like me really really like the sun and even the heat up to a point.</text></item><item><author>fffrantz</author><text>One thing I noticed recently during the massive heatwave we had in southern Europe is how we forgot the most basic principles for building in hot climates.&lt;p&gt;For example, we enlarged windows and doors, to the point were, standing behind one that&amp;#x27;s been cooking in the sun for a couple of hours, you feel the radiant heat a meter away from it. All the older houses around the Mediterranean have smaller windows and doors, to limit the sun (and by extension the heat) from coming in.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve cut down so many trees in the cities and poured so much concrete that some places are radiating heat for hours after sundown, making the night a couple of degrees hotter than it should really be.&lt;p&gt;Those are just a couple examples of poor architectural and city planning, but there are dozens of simple yet efficient techniques and tricks that we should reuse to make our cities more livable. Our ancestors didn&amp;#x27;t have all the new materials and knowledge we now have, but they were logical and lived with their environment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>magicalhippo</author><text>We have the same in the windows we replaced in our living room. We took the least visible (and hence least IR blocking) option, which reduces transmitted IR with 60%. The coating went up to 90% IIRC though at that point it was a very visible blue. Ours has just a slight blue-green tint.&lt;p&gt;The difference this summer has been striking. In our bedrooms which are on the second floor, the sun feels &lt;i&gt;hot&lt;/i&gt; through the windows. In the living room I can barely feel it.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re up north so our home is well insulated, hence the summer sun tended to overheat the inside.</text></comment>