 Nature's Way
with Alan Hayes
Beating the Heat this Summer
There are many simple and effective ways that you can improve the coolness of your home during hot summer months without using energy-hungry air conditioners. The trick is to stop heat from entering your house in the first place, rather than trying to cool the air down once it is inside.
Proper shading is a must for a cool summer house. Because of the sun's high angle in the sky in summer, the use of pergolas, verandahs and deciduous plants is very attractive for natural cooling, particularly on northern and western aspects.
Temperature control can be as simple as growing deciduous vines, such as grape or wisteria, over a pergola or growing espaliered trees against walls to insulate them in summer and expose them to sunlight in winter. Deciduous creepers also help to reduce heat loss, and won't affect mortar on brick homes. The leaves hold a thin layer of air against the walls and reduce the rate at which the wind carries heat away from the house. (If you consider deciduous vines a viable alternative, make sure you trim them each year. They can cause trouble in the eaves and in the roof).
Shade houses also make an attractive and cool retreat from soaring summer temperatures. They can be complex structures of shade cloth and lattice, or again a simple construction like a pergola with vines growing over it and plants hanging down from it. Light reaching the house is filtered through the greenery and the hanging plants help to lower the surrounding temperature considerably through the moisture evaporating from their pots.
The evaporative cooling effect can be further increased by installing a drip system: water lines are attached to the roof framework of your shade house above the plants, letting water drip slowly and constantly. As the day heats up the evaporation increases - more so on extremely hot days - greatly lowering the surrounding air temperature and increasing the cooling effect.
Evaporative cooling can be also used effectively in other ways to keep your home cool. It simply involves placing large pots of water below windows where the draft will flow over them and provide natural evaporative cooling. (The pots need to be covered with insect-proof wire to prevent mosquitoes from breeding.)
Alternatively, put a layer of dirt in a few medium to large, round goldfish bowls, plant some water plants, fill with water, and place below windows where a breeze will blow across the top of them. Fish ponds underneath pergolas and in a line close to access doors will have the same effect.
Individual window pergolas, that form a living blind, not only block out summer sun, but will give the inside of your house a cool, greenish, broken light. They need be no more than an extended window box with individual lengths of wire running from it to the top of the window frame. Plants suitable to grow are evergreens like passion fruit, for hot areas where you wish to block the sun all year round, deciduous vines such as grapes which allow entry of winter sun, or crops such as climbing beans which not only provide shade but also a nutritious food source.
Portable planter boxes on rollers also make ideal window shades that will provide cool green screens for north or west-facing windows from the hot summer sun. They can also be positioned to redirect cooling wind currents into the house during the evening.
This year, try these simple alternatives to keep your home cool.
Alan on the Web - www.itssonatural.com
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