Budget Home Ideas: Alternative Cooling

Little cents on your power bill add up, so natural cooling methods shouldn't be overlooked:

Plant trees or tall bushes as sunbreakers several meters from your windows. When they're grown all they need is trimming once a year to keep branches and leaves clear of the roof. They give privacy too, and buff against strong winds. Thick hanging plants on the roof overhang do the same.

A house in the tropics should have a roof overhang of at least 1.25 meters for excess sun and rain. Asphalt-tile roofing insulates better against heat if the cost doesn't put you off.

An evaporator fan (sample above, photo from www.electric-fan.com) uses up the same wattage as a regular electric fan and delivers twice the cool if its water tank is filled daily.

Attic rooms these days usually have large electric exhaust fans built in. Your architect will put his foot down (for aesthetic reasons) on the old-fashioned roof windmill shown above, unless it's on a concrete roof deck or one of those new roof designs where you see a roof from the outside but it's hollow with a deck inside. Louvres on the upper and lower house ceilings direct air flow to and from this ventilator. Hinged shutters cover the louvres if airconditioning or heating is used. In the Philippines roof windmills like this are custom made out of galvalume, aluminum or stainless steel.

Contd. next post.