Do you think this would make any appreciable difference?

z31maniac said:

ProDarwin said:

If its about finances, its a money losing proposition.  You'll be eliminating the bonus you get from southern sun in the winter, which is much greater than the sun penalty in the summer.

Now if you have crazy cheap heat and/or expensive electricity it may impact the balance there.

Not about money, utilities are pretty cheap here. I think last August the electricity bill was still under $180 with the AC running nearly non-stop.

Just more of a "I'd like to use less energy if I can" type of thing. 

 

Do you have any idea if more energy is used to heat or cool your house? A lot of utility companies will break down a percentage of the bill devoted to HVAC, and you could use that and the total energy used to determine if it makes more sense to try and help keep your place cooler in the summer, or warmer in the winter.

With as much glass as you have on that side of the house, I'd bet something like a window film would help prevent it from heating up as much in the warmer months if that's where you want to focus.

Always plant trees.

I have a similar situation in the back of our house, which funny enough is the north side. It's also where we spend the most time.

It gets roasting during the summer - it's all brick paved patio. 

We'e been trying to figure out how to get some shade back there. The problem is our summer storms are wicked, so an big umbrella would torn to shreds. House mounted awning shades are pricey, and equally likely to get torn to shreds.

Trees would take forever to start casting shade, and we need shade over the patio, not next to it. 

I've thought of building a pergola. 

In reply to STM317 :

I'll have to ask. But here it's two separate utilities since we have natural gas for heat/water. 

Not native, but look up "sky pencil." Also called Spartan Juniper

It's an evergreen related to arborvitae that grows quickly and very vertically.

Doesn't shed much, and doesn't need to be pruned or shaped to look nice.

https://goo.gl/images/N5W73C

pheller said:

I have a similar situation in the back of our house, which funny enough is the north side. It's also where we spend the most time.

It gets roasting during the summer - it's all brick paved patio. 

We'e been trying to figure out how to get some shade back there. The problem is our summer storms are wicked, so an big umbrella would torn to shreds. House mounted awning shades are pricey, and equally likely to get torn to shreds.

Trees would take forever to start casting shade, and we need shade over the patio, not next to it. 

I've thought of building a pergola. 

I want to do a pergola, but angle all of the boards so they change from shade to sun at the time of year of my choosing.  

I suppose I could also make them adjustable like blinds.

The irony is I just had 3 trees removed from the front of the house last week as well.

Two Braford Pears and a barely surviving evergreen.

Hoping with those gone I won't have to worry about as many branches coming down during severe weather, and grass will be able to start growing again. 

I like the idea of the film for the windows, but most of the windows all face north. Of the 20 windows in the house, only 6 are on the south side. Two of them small windows in the bathrooms 

So tons of brick and the chimney that absorb a ton of heat. 

For example, today it got up into the upper 60s, clear sky. By 5pm the house was up to 74 with the AC turned off.

There is no doubt it would reduce your summer electric bill.   The utility company gives away trees here.

mtn said:

For an out of the box idea to help in the short term: We lived in a brick rental with no shade and undersized AC. I once burned my hand when I touched the brick next to the door. After that, I took a bucket of water and threw it on the wall. It sizzled, steamed, and there wasn’t even a wet spot after about 30 seconds. 

 

Being in college, I had significant free time, so I proceeded to soak that wall with the hose every 30 minutes or so for about a minute at a time. It helped significantly. Maybe you could put a sprinkler on a timer? 

This^^  My grandparents lived in a stucco house in SoCal when I was a boy in the '50s. No AC, although I think they may have had a window-mounted swamp cooler.  I think my grandfather had also installed a whole house attic fan. 

My grandmother regularly sprayed the sun side of the stucco during the day and said the evaporation helped "keep things cool".  She also opened all of the windows at dusk and left them open until dawn, then closed everything up.

I don't remember the house being cool, but it was much nicer inside than the 100°+ outside.

Is this GRM?  Nobody has suggested to line the South wall with Dynamat Extreme thermal barrier?  Oh, I guess they were actually trying to be helpful.

Something simple that could have a big impact is painting the brick.  White, of course, because you want to reflect as much energy as possible while it's still in the optical wavelengths.  Once it get absorbed you're going to have to deal with some heat.   

11110000 said:

Is this GRM?  Nobody has suggested to line the South wall with Dynamat Extreme thermal barrier?  Oh, I guess they were actually trying to be helpful.

 

Something simple that could have a big impact is painting the brick.  White, of course, because you want to reflect as much energy as possible while it's still in the optical wavelengths.  Once it get absorbed you're going to have to deal with some heat.   

 

I like the way our brick looks. So painting just the back half of the house white would be a non-starter for me.

Although I do love the look of brick houses painted white (the entire house), it's not really something I'm willing to do at the moment. 

Using trees for temperature control is a time honored tradition, but it is also a tradition that requires patience to be effective. 

Usually deciduous trees facing south and east to block the Summer sun, but when the leaves drop let sun light through during the winter and conifers or other wind-blocking trees to the north and west to help deflect winter winds.  Cheap energy (vs. hours of chopping firewood every year) made us not care so much about these things.

Awnings over windows worked well in 1965. Remarkably, they’ll still work today. 

Have a wall that catches afternoon sun.  Hung the biggest roll up out door sun shade, intended for windows I guess.  It is fairly astounding how much cooler the stucco is without the sun beating on it.  Take it down in the winter, or if it looks like it is going to be too windy.  The bedroom on the other side of the wall got uncomfortably warm.  I have  couple citrus trees planted on that side, originally was Privet bushes that I am allergic to.  Citrus tree does not grow as fast as a shade tree, but I get oranges and pink grapefruit out of the deal. 

The sun destroys the roll up shade after a few years, it just disintegrates, sort of like a Fiat in Michigan, turns to dust

OHSCrifle said:

Awnings over windows worked well in 1965. Remarkably, they’ll still work today. 

Remarkably, they're still ugly today. 

Hmmmm, maybe a trellis to let some roses/vines grow on a few feet out from the house (so you can prevent anything growing onto the brick) would be better than trees. Still keeps the sun off the brick, but no worrying about gnarly tree roots messing with the house, underground utilities, plumbing, etc. 

I was looking at my average electricity usage and natural gas bills last night. It seems about break even on do we use more energy for heat in the winter vs more energy to cool in the summer. 

If you are letting roses/vines grow, why not make it a pergola style thing so you can still get the benefit of the sun in the winter?

ProDarwin said:

If you are letting roses/vines grow, why not make it a pergola style thing so you can still get the benefit of the sun in the winter?

We plan on doing that over the concrete patio outside of the door to the backyard. I had someone come out recently and give me a quote to put guttering on the house, IIRC, we have something like 140' or more linear feet of south facing brick. 

That would be a LOT of pergola to build! Here is satellite view of the house in winter, the arrows point to the two trees that were removed at the beginning of last year.