Sustainable Living by Shawn Dell Joyce

Cooling our homes in the summer can account for 45 percent of our home energy use, yet it could be reduced to 10 percent or less with a few thoughtful changes. Incorporating natural ventilation into your home will help you slash your energy use and carbon emissions drastically.

Become aware of the seasonal wind patterns and the airflow around your home. Most areas have gentle breezes in the summer that can be directed into your house through landscaping and opening certain windows. If you don't know which direction the prevailing winds are coming from, hang laundry on the line and watch. Once you find the wind's direction, look at your landscape and geography. Are there trees and bushes that help to funnel the breeze toward your home, or are you parking your car right in the way?

Design your landscaping to maximize the cool breezes. Trees planted to shade the house without blocking the breezes are one example. Building trellises that shade windows, or ponds in front of windows, will help chill the air before it enters your home.

Windows make a big difference in the temperature of a room. Keep windows open on the side of your home facing the wind. If they are double hung, have both open so that cool airflows in the bottom window, and warm airflows out of the top. If you open windows on two opposite sides of your home, you create cross-ventilation. This is increased by opening bottom windows on the windward side and top windows on the opposite side.

Some folks are lucky enough to live in houses with clerestory windows, or cupolas. Our ancestors wisely designed these structures to allow warm air to rise up and waft out of the house. The turbine ventilators you see on industrial buildings that look like spinning spheres use the breeze to pull warm air up and out of the building. These structures, like most passive solar designs, require no electricity, just being conscious of airflow.

Conscious cooling also means paying attention to the sunlight streaming through your windows. By using light colored window shades on your "sunny side" windows, you can drastically reduce the temperature of your room for the entire day and night.

The light color reflects much of the heat while allowing light to come through. Keeping the sun's heat out of the house is half the battle.

Sunlight streaming through an open window warms your room and floors. A warm floor acts as a "thermal mass" and keeps warming the room long after sundown. To avoid this, close the windows and shades on the sunny side of the house first thing in the morning. You seal in the cool air and keep out the "thermal gain."

Use ceiling fans to circulate the cool air throughout the day. Many energy-efficient ceiling fans on the market have programmable thermostats that turn them on automatically as the room warms. People will tolerate warmer temperatures as long as the air is circulating well around them.

Ceiling fans work best in the summer when they are adjusted to pull the air up from the floor and circulate the cooler air. Switch the fan blade direction in the winter to have the fans push the warm air from the ceiling toward the floor. Ceiling fans use a fraction of the energy of an air conditioner and can be more effective at cooling the whole space when well placed. Using ceiling fans in combination with natural ventilation can usually eliminate the need for air conditioning in a well-insulated, tightly sealed home.

Twenty-five years ago, most architects and builders were beginning to incorporate passive solar into new structures. Our reliance on cheap oil trumped our common sense. Now we are seeing a resurgence in passive solar, as more people realize that we have to live more consciously. Part of conscious living is aligning our lives with the seasons and the region. Our survival once depended on knowing what local foods were in season, what local weather to expect and how to use seasonal landscaping to our benefit. Now our future generation's survival may depend on it.

(SET CAPTION) Use passive solar to help cool your home on hot summer days. END CAPTION)

Shawn Dell Joyce is an award-winning columnist and founder of the Wallkill River School in Orange County, N.Y. You can contact her at Shawn@ShawnDellJoyce.com. To find out more about Shawn Dell Joyce and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM