House Project: The Results of Designing With the Environment (& Money), Instead of Against It

One of the decisions we made early on was that every window in the house would be openable, so that we could take advantage what breezes were available--even if meant that what might have been a spectacular picture window ended up as a sliding glass door instead.

Yesterday and today have borne out the wisdom of this decision. It is the mid-90s down in Boise. Here, 1300 feet higher up, it has been in the mid-80s. In our old house, which had only a few opening windows, and lots of picture windows, the only realistic choice would have been to turn on the air conditioning--you just could not get enough cross-ventiliation to make this comfortable.

In this house, the cross-ventiliation has worked as I expected. I have nearly every window in the house open. Since there are windows on the south, east, and north sides of the house, I am catching breezes from all directions. Outside, in direct sunlight, it is warm enough to be a bit uncomfortable. For most of the day, it has been entire pleasant or tolerable enough that changing into shorts and a T-shirt was sufficient to be comfortable. It is only been since about 4:30 PM that I have been tempted to turn on the air conditioning--and now that is a bit after 6:00 PM, the late afternoon breezes are again bringing the interior temperature to a point where air conditioning would be only a minor improvement. Best of all--I don't have to pay for the wind!

Last house project entry.