![]() ![]() ![]() That’s because heavy, thick materials like concrete have a lot more thermal mass, which allows them to store excess heat during the day, which is then removed later at night by cool air. You’ll also notice a significant lack of wooden structures and attics. ![]() Those houses have traditionally always been built to withstand high degrees of warming. There’s a reason images of Mediterranean villas and Arabian desert abodes flood our minds when we think of hot sweltering summers. But white roofs are not necessarily first on the list of most homeowners’ aesthetic desires. Like white linen on the beach, this has historically meant using materials that are lighter in color. Building your roof out of reflective materials is another way of making sure that less heat is absorbed through the roof. It is an added layer of protection against the summer sun. Insulating your roof and the attic prevents all the heat that builds up as sunlight hits the roof from entering your house. (Don’t forget window screens for those pesky bugs.) Choose roofing materials wisely In order to make sure that you’re not just recycling stale air, crack open a window to introduce some fresh air. If you already have an attic, you can also create an attic hatch. The greater the height difference between the peak height and the ground, the greater the effect. You can create this tower by either placing windows higher up, like clerestory windows (positioned near the ceiling) or skylights, or simply by creating spaces like atriums that have higher ceilings than the rest of the room. This motion pulls cooler air into the lower living spaces since it is more dense and will remain closer to the ground. Hot air rises because it is less dense than cooler air and so, creating a ventilation tower through high ceilings and a narrower opening, funnels the hot air into the tower. Using what designers call the stack effect, you can draw hot air towards the top of your house and move it away from pooling nearer the ground where people live, eat and sleep. But if you want to speed up the wind, there’s a general rule of thumb that says you should have fewer open on the windward side and more open on the leeward side.”īy using some fundamental principles of chemistry and physics, you can also help redirect the airflow in your house. “The more windows you can open, the more flow you’re going to get through the house. “You want to make sure you open windows on the west and the south where you can pick up those winds and then you need to get the wind back out,” says Vivan Loftness, a professor of architecture and former head of the school of architecture at Carnegie Mellon. The key to creating good cross-ventilation is figuring out where the wind is coming from. Specifically, cross-ventilation relies on the concept that by creating windows of similar sizes opposite each other: air is sucked into the house, cools your body by helping the heat evaporate off it, and then exits through the opposite windows. Windows are perhaps your most important tool when it comes to ventilating and cooling your home.
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