Air Conditioning

We live in a two story home. Our air conditioner has never worked the way it should. You can feel the temperature change going up or down the stairs. Our upstairs is about 20 degrees hotter than our main floor level.

Every summer we shell out a bunch of money trying to get our air conditioner to work properly. Last year we called out a bunch of different air conditioning contractors to get bids on how to fix the dang problem.

We said, "give us your best options, no matter what the cost! If we have to move ductwork, replace the entire system, install a seperate system for the upstairs, or whatever, we will consider it. We want to know how to fix this problem once and for all."

Well, our options came in and yikes! They were expensive, but then, I was kind of expecting that anyway.

One thing that has always intrigued me though is passive cooling techniques. Its something we've been trying to do to help relieve the summer heat anyway but I have a feeling we could kick it up a HUGE notch or two.

So I've been doing my research and came across this amazing article written by the Arizona Solar Center . {Hang on to your hats kids, this is where I get geeky and giddy about building design!}

What I love is that a lot of aesthetically beautiful things actually have their roots in functionality. Just like the canopy beds I blogged about during the winter, there are other design elements that actually serve a purpose! Imagine that! Of course, that's my favorite kind because I am after all a pretty practical sort of person and have a hard time with non-functional things just for show.

So anyway, back to this article, as I was reading it I realized that a lot of the things they were talking about were some of my favorite architectural features from the St George Parade of Homes. I just never thought about them beyond their aesthetic beauty. I mean, it makes sense once you think about it.


Courtyards, even fountains, actually serve a purpose in the hot dry desert. They are great aids in thermal decompression, where you gradually cool the surrounding air as you get closer and closer to the house. Want the more technical aspects of it? Here you go:

Mitigation of undesirable summer direct sun and thermal impacts is achieved through use of vegetation i.e. deciduous trees which interrupt the summer sun's direct path, and ground covers which prevent ground reflection as well as keep the earth's surface cooler thereby preventing re-radiation. One moves out of intense direct sun and heat through vegetation that filters sunlight and shades the ground; then through a more densely filtered zone with ground covers; then through a patio area with vegetation, trellises and water features; into a tempered building entry ("thermal lock"); and finally into the building proper. This movement, 110 degrees stepping down in stages to 78 degrees, allows the body to adjust properly, and provides the best means of arriving at a lesser differentiation between the building's perimeter wall interior and exterior surface temperatures.

It's brilliant, isn't it???

Of course there are lots of other cooling techniques beyond these ones, including proper overhang heights, things you can do to cool the buildings exterior temperatures, using cooling towers and using earth tubes to create cooler air flows, blocking light and heat from windows and a whole world beyond just your average evaporative cooler sitting on the roof. I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface.

So without getting too geeky on you, I will just stop here, because you probably don't want to see or hear about my charting monthly highs and lows of temperatures and humidity levels to determine the best cooling methods. Though if you really do, just let me know and it can be arranged!