“Victorian Cool”
A.V. Walters–
And I don’t mean steampunk.
I’ve never lived in a home with air conditioning. Of course, that’s easy for me to say, most of my adult life was in Northern California, where there was no real need for it. Still, even with my memory of hot and humid childhood summers, we opted not to provide for summer air when we built here.
You cannot solve your climate change problems using fossil fuels. It’s as simple as that. At best, you can kick the can down the road to make the present more bearable–knowing that in so doing, you’re stealing from the next generation. When you build a home from the ground up, you cannot point the finger at the former owners; you need to walk your talk on your carbon footprint.
When we sited the house, we selected the location, in part for summer shade. And we insulated. Recently, following a Memorial weekend heat wave, we bought screens for the windows. This is Michigan. You cannot open a window without screens, unless you’re willing to donate all your blood for the cause. It was always our plan to use natural air movement to survive the summers.
North Americans are complacent about getting ready for climate change, as though our problems could be resolved with adjustments to the thermostat. But this wasn’t always the case. Historically and architecturally, we have had cooling solutions that preceded air conditioning. Tall ceilings, double hung windows, roof overhangs (and/or curtains), along with the occasional fan, kept the Victorians cool. It can work for us, too.
I’m continually amazed by my midwestern neighbors, houses perched wherever view is best, with no shade protection from the summer sun. Their air conditioners kick in before 10:00 am. What were they thinking?
Within a couple of hours of installing the screens and opening the windows, the temperature in our house dropped by eight degrees. By the next morning, it was a little chilly–a perfect prelude for the expected heat the following day. It looks like the house will perform according to plan.
You don’t need to start from the ground up to take advantage of Victorian wisdom. Just open up the house in the cool of the evening and close it up again in the morning, before the heat of the day. Draw the drapes. Install an attic fan. Invest in some extra insulation. Turn down the air conditioning a couple of degrees. Consider window awnings…remember them? And always, always, plant trees. Together, we can make our environment more habitable, inside and out.
It can be done. The Victorians did it. How else could they have endured the summers in all that silly clothing? Can you imagine corsets in the heat?
tworockchronicles 
Exactly the right approach. My husband and I fight over turning on the air. Sigh.
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We’ll have to see…we may not agree on how many windows to open. I tend to like it a little cooler.
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I wish we could open our windows. I miss having the fresh air in the home. But my husband suffers significant allergies, so we have to keep the outside out. He went two years without being able to fully taste his food due to chronic congestion, poor guy. After three years of allergy shots, at least that has finally gotten better for him. But I agree–as a collective whole, we’re doing little to make things better for the generations down the road.
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Oh, I understand. I have a brother-in-law who is plagued with relentless allergies. Would he consider regular use of local honey? And I mean local where you are. Some of our bee club members swear by it as a way to lessen allergies. (Indeed, one member decided to keep bees so as to always have a source of local honey for her allergies!) In the meantime, do your best to keep cool.
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I’ll pass that onto him. Thank you. 😊
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