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“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?

Okay, Work With Me Here…

A.V. Walters–

The unfortunate placement of this volunteer spruce begs the question.

It kicked on at 10:20 in the morning, and it got me thinking. It’s a beautiful day. Clear and clean, post-storm. It’s not hot out, though it likely will be later today. Upstairs, the landlady’s central air conditioner has kicked on, already.

I’m sorry to burden you with my rant, but more people need to think, to plan a little, in their trajectory on this planet. This is only partly about landscaping but it starts there.

I identify a particular brainless “yard pattern” with Michigan, though I expect it’s all over. You see it driving down any street or road, though it’s particularly noticeable in the country. Michigan is a fertile state. If it’s not planted or maintained, its natural tendency is to revert back to forest. So it’s a bit of a shock that folks will buy a place in the country, cut down all the trees, and put in a lawn. They plunk their house in the middle of it—kings of their environment. Landscaping? Well, it’s a border mentality. They plant along the lot-line. Daffodils, trees, whatever, regardless of aesthetics, they celebrate ownership with a string of ill-advised plantings whose only assignment is to state, “This is mine!”

A century ago, farmers were not so self-absorbed. Clearing land took a lot of energy, which they reserved for their fields. They oriented their homes to take advantage of the sun’s rays in the winter. They had adequate roof overhangs to protect them from the rain or heat of the summer, and—they strategically planted deciduous trees to shade them from the heat and still let the sun’s warming rays help them in the dead of winter. I lived in such a home in Two Rock, a turn of the (last) century farmhouse that never got too hot, because trees were planted to provide shade. In the winter, the sun’s low rays streamed in through the living room window to provide welcome warmth and light. In really hot summer weather, we’d close the curtains and windows to the sun and the daytime heat. When the evening cooled, we’d open everything up again to the refreshing breeze. No air-conditioning, just good, old common sense. In the seven years I lived there, and despite some really blistering heat waves, that house never went above 81˚F. Where did that wisdom go?

This house we’re in now has been here for some thirty or forty years, yet nobody has ever planted a shade tree to provide summer cooling. (Instead, there’s a line of spruces on the lot line, whose long winter shadows screen the sun’s warmth when it could be useful.) The house is surrounded by lawn, which, to look good, requires regular watering—with the electrical expense of pumping that water. There are plenty of windows, but no one ever pulls a curtain against the summer heat. Instead, before the dew is even off the grass, the air-conditioner fires up its relentless drone. In an era of global warming triggered by energy use, somehow the air-conditioning solution seems to miss the point. I can almost hear the planet sigh, “Work with me here!”

You can always retrofit with well-placed trees. Drapes closed in the daytime, especially in a home that’s empty while you’re off at work—that’s not too much to ask, is it? We have a regular steady breeze—so you can open the windows in the evening, smell the fresh country air and cool your home. We can work with nature, instead of against it.

Rick and I have selected our building site based on existing tree placement. We’ll have the summer shade even before we have the home. Those trees will lose their leaves and we’ll get some winter warming and light on the south side during sunny winter days. Window placement is designed to maximize light and sun, when it’s needed and to avoid unnecessary heat loss. In that way, it’s an old-fashioned placement. Sure, there’ll be a view—but not at the expense of energy. We can all do a little more, to use a little less.

That’s my rant. (Live with it – we all can!)