Beat the heat

indigoid said :

I read somewhere, I think on a Googler’s blog, that in Switzerland there are rather severe limitations on air conditioning, presumably to save energy. Not an outright ban, but something more along the lines of “no more than N degrees below outside ambient temperature.” I imagine that this has inspired people to build more efficient houses there

My partner is German. For the time that she was over here I was living in a house and she would frequently talk about how tougher the building requirements for housing insulation are in Europe. Like 40cm thick walls, that sort of thing. Goes hand in hand with energy effeciency I guess.

Unfortunatley I will soon be moving back to a house with even less insulation than my current abode.

After the 2003 fires I observed a rebuilt house in Duffy being rendered a rather dark shade of grey. Then, when the next summer rolled around, it very quickly sprouted a large air-con unit on the roof.

People are stupid.

The house is still the same dark grey colour.

My father’s house (also rebuilt after the fires) has no air-con and only a small, rarely-used gas heater in the lounge area and maintains a comfortable 18-23C all year ’round. Oddly enough it isn’t dark grey on the outside 🙂

I read somewhere, I think on a Googler’s blog, that in Switzerland there are rather severe limitations on air conditioning, presumably to save energy. Not an outright ban, but something more along the lines of “no more than N degrees below outside ambient temperature.” I imagine that this has inspired people to build more efficient houses there

A few cents worth of alfoil on my west facing windows kept my flat a LOT cooler in the latter 2/3rds of last summer than it was in the first 1/3rd.

One of my neighbours suggested buying water-based window tinting sheets off of eBay.

Unfortunately most people who care about such things happen to be renters and as such are limited to options such as these in order not to break our lease conditions and lose our bonds. Home owners have it easy by comparison as any number of socially acceptable options exist for them.