Sunday, November 27, 2011

Naturally Cool

I never really fully appreciated until now how a well positioned and insulated house makes all the difference to whether it is too hot or too cold inside. The main living areas of our house face north east and stay really cool even in 33 degree heat and high humidity. We catch the breeze no matter which direction it is coming from, simply open a few windows and a bifold door and viola instant cooling. We have not needed the air con on during the day once yet and boy let me tell you it has been hot and sticky weather here in Brisbane since we moved in. The last  few places we lived we would have melted and needed the air con running at full bore under similar conditions and even then it would still be hot.
The only room that gets quite warm is the master suite but that's because it faces south west and at the moment we don't have proper window coverings and haven't been opening the balcony doors so our pieces or cardboard for curtains don't blow off!

Hopefully we will find the house stays warm during the winter.....

We have decided we are going to keep a tally of running costs for the house so at the end of our first year here we can let you know how much we spent on gas, electric and water. I think it will be quite interesting.

2 comments:

  1. The breeze issue might be interesting when there are more houses built around also. Nothing blocking you at the moment. We've been fortunate with hot and windy days lately. If it wasn't for the breeze it might have been slightly more uncomfortable.

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  2. Even yesterday which was incredibly hot (36 degrees) the house was cool enough not to need air con until bed time - I can't sleep if its too warm.
    I don't think when the final two houses are built that they will block our breeze too much as we have 8 meters of garden to our fence down both sides and 4m to the back fence. So its not like we are all right on top of one another with only a couple of meters separating our homes. We also have a creek adjoining the next block which creates good airflow and being close to the river we seem to get more breeze compared to where we previously lived.

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