Keeping house cool

[Mary Fisher]

Quite.

Mary

[Guy King]

The message from Joe contains these words:

Also, opening the loft-hatch helps encourage a draught upwards through the house.

[Matt]

Unlike others in here I wouldn't go that far in recommending that to you Dribble but there is no doubt you need help understanding thread terminology.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Try 52C then.

Or 40C and 97% humidity.

THATS hot.

[marble]

For most people it wont.

[Holly, in France]

I thought that might help too. We have doors to staircases to both attics. Opening them makes the things worse.

-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.

[Holly, in France]

I haven't read the link but experience would suggest this is true. Curtains help a bit, but not much.

Umm, ours are attached to the walls - I assume you have those? :-)

Yes, that's the trouble, I can see why you might not want them. ALL houses round here have them from barn conversions to modern bungalows, and when you get used to seeing them they are fine, but they would look odd on some UK houses. But...they are absolutely brilliant for keeping the heat out and good in winter for keeping heat in too. In hot spells here in the summer they make the difference between the upstairs of the house getting too hot in about three days (it's a stone house so it takes a while for heat to have any effect) and about three weeks. After three weeks it's a bit of a lost cause but would be worse without the shutters. The trick with them is knowing exactly when to have the shutters open or closed and the windows open and closed. You have to work out exactly what to do when.

If they really wouldn't suit your house fair enough, but if you could put up with the look of them I imagine you could work out some way of fixing them.

Nuther idea, which I think I first heard about here. Underground pipe buried outside and leading into the house for cool ventilation. We have to dig a trench for an electric cable soon, I'm thinking about putting in such a pipe here.

-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.

[Holly, in France]

Similar situation here, not such big windows, probably equally sheltered but sunnier and a good bit further south :-) Curtains not much good here either.

-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.

[Doctor Drivel]

Lord Hall, did you get that from the makita manual?

[Sponix]

It'd involve attaching shutters to tiles so impractical.

sponix

[Sponix]

[Rob Morley]

I have a loft-hatch shaped piece of plywood with a large fan set into it. Also silver venetian blinds in the bedrooms.

[Holly, in France]

Do you mean in the window reveals or are your walls tiled on the outside? Seems a bit unlikely but you never know....

I know you might not want shutters anyway but you can't get out of by making excuses :-))

-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.

[Mary Fisher]

Yes, he said it would look silly, not that it was impractical!

Mary

[Holly, in France]

I suggest that you read the above again Mary. He said it was impractical. I was questioning that (whilst being aware that he might not want shutters anyway)

-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.

[Mary Fisher]

I suggest you read an earlier reply. No, I'll make it easy for you. Here's where he said it would look silly:

That prolly explains why curtains have had little effect.

Shutters/canopy would be a problem as there's nothing to attach them to. They'd also look silly.

sponix

Now I'm off to hospital, out of range for a few days if it goes well. If it doesn't, nice to have known you all.

Mary

[Holly, in France]

Yes, I had read that, it was the reason that I was aware that he might not want shutters anyway!! I am not, and was not, disputing that. The bit about excuses was a joke, and in the hope of making that extra clear I did a double smiley rather than a normal one. Obviously I failed, at least in your case.

[Chris Bacon]

Just something to blabber about, I think.

[Kate]

When I did this during a spell of blazing sunshine, the internal temperature dropped by 5 degC and the quality of the light was amazing.

[Holly, in France]

very wise!

Mmm, maybe, dunno. Anyway we still don't know if Sponix really has tiled walls, I'm getting desperate to know after all this :-)

-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.