The TC video has a lot of details about why awnings are a great idea, and about how other places are still using them and getting good results; but the reasoning offered for why we don't use them any more... still boils down to "we forgot" and "AC".
I bet renting has something to do with it too.
I can't just start attaching awnings to the outside of this place I don't own.
The landlord doesn't care if I'm hot in the summer and cold in the winter. He doesn't pay the AC bill.
It surprises me to read about "fixed metal frame" awnings. You don't _have_ to make that trade off.
In the Netherlands a lot of houses have electrically retractable awnings (or even just mechanically windable by hand), especially above the giant windows facing the back yard.
During winter and bad weather, we retract the awning. When it's too sunny, we deploy it.
A house I lived in during the pandemic had a pergola covered in wisteria vines over the south facing windows. In the summer the vines would leaf out and block most of the hot sun, and in the winter the leaves fell away and let in a ton of light.
Worked great, looked great, and smelled great for the two weeks of bloom in may.
This is a great technique that I believe has been used for ages and was re-popularized in recent decades by advocates of ecological and sustainable architecture.
I've heard of grape vines being used in place of wisteria, which might be better in places where the latter is considered an invasive species. There may be other "friendly creepers" with similar deciduous qualities as well.
At my first house I built garden beads in the back yard about 4 feet from the house, each with an 8 foot tall trellis for peas and beans. Seeing that lovely green wall outside the window in the summer was the absolute nicest window treatment I've ever had.
In Norway we have them with sensors for wind speed and sun so that they are deployed automatically to shade the window and retracted if the wind rises too high.
In Switzerland most offices and the majority of houses have exterior metal slat blinds or rolling shutters. Almost all are operated electrically and quite a few are controlled by inputs from wind and sunlight sensors. Since you can adjust the angle of the slats you can significantly cut down solar gains and glare while still providing ventilation and natural light
In the Netherlands it costs around a grand, as for maintenance... Haven't needed to do any in more than 15 years. The actual screen retracts into a weather proof metal casing, so there's not that much that goes wrong, whereas fixed awnings are exposed to the full weather gamut 24/7.
Let me put it this way: it's cheap enough that a lot of social housing and other cheap forms of housing inhabited by the "lower class" feature them.
While this is true, awnings aren't that expensive, and while I don't have the knowledge to do the maths, they will earn themselves back over time with how much heat they keep out and how much you'll need to run the AC.
Well, they have sun and don’t need the insulation provided by double-pane glass.
Dutch (northern european?) windows also open to the inside, making blinds impractical unless they’re built into the window frame.
On top of that, historically blinds are uncommon for cultural reasons, they impair looks and the amount of light coming through, even when fully open. It’s already dark enough in here most of the time :)
completely different from an awning from a heat point of view. The persiana traps the hot air between itself and the window pane, which usually becomes really hot.
"Many"? It seems to me like there are many without. Homeowners Associations everywhere keep blocking them as well because they ruin the street image, so they say. Oh and they block AC too because it's too noisy and the outside unit is too ugly. And so many homes are stuck with scorching summers.
That changed in the last decade, among other things the population is dissatisfied with immigration.
I cannot tell you if that is justified, but I can say from personal experience that in some cases the praised Dutch directness turned to racism.
Things like, people not believing that you have a phd, or refusing to take your credit card because the color of skin does not match the ethnicity of the name.
I think the builders of the past would be amazed by modern technology like argon filled double paned windows with advanced window films to reflect the heat instead of letting it in.
But yes, let's bring back the awnings too. Sometimes the low tech ways are easiest and best. I will say that I don't think awnings alone can save a stick built modern house from the heat. Part of the key to old houses staying cool was high thermal mass: lots of brick and stone that could stay cool during the day. As great as modern insulation is at keeping hot and cool separate, a modern insulated wall doesn't cool it's surroundings like a high thermal mass wall would.
Moving to a world where we combine passive cooling and high thermal mass construction with the benefits of modern tech will be key in my opinion.
Awnings have a nice property that fancy windows don’t: they can reduce heat gain in the summer while still allowing more heat gain in the winter. A nice south-facing window that lets the low winter sun in can provide a lot of desirable heat in the winter in a cold climate.
(Also, removing a given amount of summer heat via air conditioning is considerably cheaper than adding that same amount of winter heat via gas or heat pump in many climates, because the indoor-outdoor temperature difference is much higher in the winter.)
For those interested in digging into this passive solar design concerns itself with solar gain optimization. Passive house is a standard that makes use of these concepts as well but goes alot further.
> argon filled double paned windows with advanced window films to reflect the heat instead of letting it in
We replaced the old double-paned windows with new triple-paned with 60% IR filter. There's hardly any tint, but boy did it make a difference. Especially in the living room which has a very large window which catches the sun from noon to midnight in the summer.
Before the wood floor in the living room would be baking hot where the sun hit, uncomfortably so at times. Now I can't tell the difference.
We added it just cause it didn't cost much extra, figured why not. Very glad we did.
> Part of the key to old houses staying cool was high thermal mass: lots of brick and stone that could stay cool during the day.
That only works if you don't have long hot spells. I live in a house with high thermal mass - reinforced concrete filled cinderblock. It was built by a commercial builder as his own house in 1950. There's enough thermal mass to keep the interior temp stable for three days. No need for air conditioning.
This worked fine until Northern California started having week-long stretches of 100F+ temperatures. That didn't happen until about ten years ago. Once all that thermal mass heats up to ambient, it won't come down for days.
I live in about a 200 year old New England farmhouse that’s a mixture of post and beam and stick. I definitely observe that for one or two hot days, especially with passably temperate nights, inside will definitely be cooler than out. But once the house heats up, it takes days to get it cool even if temperatures have gone down outside.
I've geeked out on thermal mass as much as the next guy, but I don't think it's a good solution at scale. Adding thermal mass is expensive, both due to the materials cost and that it's a niche building technique. Insulation, heat pumps, and solar all benefit from mass production and technology improvements. Combine them with light-colored roofs and solar panels, and that can probably beat thermal mass construction.
The material costs for adobe are almost certainly close to zero if you live in an area that can benefit from using it.
The labor costs for adobe have become very high, mostly it seems because the descendants of the families that started the amazing adobe brick "factories" no longer want to be dirt farmers.
> can probably beat thermal mass construction.
You have to define what "beat" means. My hundred year old adobe did not rise above 81F as an interior temperature this summer, despite outside highs around 100F. That would be possible (or even lower!) with the technologies you mentioned, but my adobe house did that with no energy utilization at all.
> Sometimes the low tech ways are easiest and best.
They’re not even easiest and best, but they’re additive and in the grand scheme of things awnings (and shutters) are not that expensive, so it’s a small investment for a permanent benefit.
> As great as modern insulation is at keeping hot and cool separate, a modern insulated wall doesn't cool it's surroundings like a high thermal mass wall would.
Why does modern insulation hold less thermal mass? Is it just that trapped air has less mass than stone?
That's exactly the reason. Technically it's actually the amount of energy needed to heat a volume of material, not the physical mass, that is important. But for many materials the two go hand in hand.
Touch a cold blanket and cold stone countertop and tell me which feels cooler, then do the same thing for a hot blanket and a hot countertop.
Sure, the stone is more conducive meaning you feel the temperature sooner. But it also has a lot of thermal mass, meaning it can give off or absorb more heat.
While modern building materials are very good at keeping the heat out, they aren't perfect. My house was built without awnings or AC and with modern window tech, but we opted to have awnings and screens installed nevertheless and they made a huge difference in how much heat from sun is coming into the house (not to mention the bright light itself).
For my case, I think it's irresponsible to be installing AC without first making sure the house is optimized for keeping the heat out.
There's even "passive cooling" (called thermal mass activation) where you circulate groundwater through the floors/ceiling or concrete walls to cool them down. Ideally combined with a geothermal source heat pump to recover the waste heat dumped to the ground in the cold season
We have a retractable on our south-facing patio door/window near San Jose and it's made a huge difference in terms of heat rejection after we installed it. On hot summer days it makes a noticeable difference. And since it's retractable it doesn't make the back room permanently dark. It's one of the major items that lets us survive a south bay summer without air conditioning. We'll probably upgrade our gas furnace to a heat pump eventually and get AC "free" but in the meantime this was a much cheaper stopgap.
Anecdotally, it feels like Americans generally don't care about natural lighting. About twenty years ago, my wife was looking for apartments and asked the leasing office if there was any unit available facing south or east. Apparently it was unusual enough a question that the apartment manager asked back if it was for religious reasons.
This article would suggest the opposite though - when AC made it feasible everyone removed the awnings that were blocking light thus maximizing natural light.
The article is making suppositions that aren't rooted in data. Here's another data point: where I live there are many homes and apartments that had awnings in the 1920s and don't today, and lack AC as well. Clearly they removed them for other reasons than AC. In my mind a new awning is vastly more expensive than a plastic set of blinds (or even better offering no blinds and having your tenant supply their own curtains) so perhaps that's what happened for these AC-less units.
But that's the thing - You probably don't want to sit outside under direct sunlight in a summer afternoon, do you? Unless you live very far up north, having summer sunlight hit your floor is not very pleasant, either. A well-positioned awning can block summer sunlight while allowing in most of winter sunlight.
I might just be unusually sensitive to this, but there is a downside to awnings that hardly ever gets mentioned. Yes, an awning keeps your house cooler by blocking sunlight, but it also blocks sunlight, reducing the natural light inside your house. This means you either sit in the dark or use more artificial light, which is fine except natural sunlight is (for me at least) very beneficial for mood and for maintaining the circadian rhythm.
I know lots of people who don't mind living in darkness or seem to have a personal vendetta against the sun, and maybe those people would be genuinely better off with awnings, but I don't think they're for me.
I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far to find this -- yes exactly! They block the light, they block the sky, they block the view.
Back in the day, windows were small and there were awnings and interiors were dark. Often made even darker with dark wood, dark colors, etc. It could be downright gloomy.
Then a kind of aesthetic revolution happened where windows got bigger, walls got white, awnings went away -- and it's all so much brighter and joyous.
And if your windows let in too much heat in the summer so you have to run your AC more, it can be counterbalanced in the winter when you can run the heat a lot less during sunny days.
I think the reason this doesn’t get mentioned so much, is because the sun is absurdly bright during the day. I imagine a well designed awning doesn’t affect the light levels of your home to any perceptible degree.
Yes, this is what makes it so hard to replace with artificial lighting! I enjoy that absurdly bright sunlight. My house has extra windows over most of my windows and these specifically allow that sunlight in to add ambient lighting. During daytime most of my house is fully illuminated even with the lights off and blinds drawn because of these upper windows. You might describe what I have as the exact opposite of an awning and it’s one of my favorite features.
There is plenty of light being reflected off of nearby surfaces to still brighten up a house with an awning. They’re mostly for reducing direct, intense sunlight.
Plus, if it bothers you that much, there are awnings that retract or fold away.
That might be a factor for some people but it seems like american society doesn't value natural light. I remember in college visiting a ton of peoples dorms and apartments and most people would either have purpose built blackout curtains or just nail an old towel over the window. Pretty common to see windows blocked up like this around town when you start looking for it. No clue who these troglodytes are but there are many of them.
This is the main reason I went for screens, which are a fine mesh fabric that cover the whole window, but you can still see outside - over shutters, which are double layer aluminium whatsits that really keep anything and anyone out. I mean it still gets pretty dark in the house with them closed, but in the hottest days of the summer, dark means cool and cool is good.
In hot areas, even the shade of rooftop solar panels can make a substantial difference inside a building. And there's the ultra low tech method of just planting more shade trees.
Unfortunately with most US build tract housing, there's not enough room between most houses to provide dedicated shade by most any method. I wonder if shade between the roof gaps between houses would be useful.
Problem with shade trees is that trees have the unfortunately tendency to loose branches or fall during severe weather and having them next to your house isn't ideal when that happens. Also, depending on where you are located, those trees may end up being a great way of letting a wildfire spread to your home.
Even if the trees aren't shading the house directly, they will have a cumulative cooling effect; they capture the sun before it hits and warms up the ground, they have constant evaporative cooling, etc.
I once heard a story from a sustainable design architect. The customer wanted to cut down all their shade trees to install solar panels. The architect explained that, after doing a bunch of energy modeling, the shade trees were actually saving fifteen times more energy than the PV panels would produce.
So what happened? Naturally, the customer fired the architect. They only wanted to look green, but they didn't care if it was actually green. :-/
Curiously enough, here in Spain they're still pretty common nowadays, as lots of houses purposely incorporated green awnings, both to protect an exponentially-growing number of these houses from harsh sunlight during summer season, and to presumably 'soften' the arrival to the city of an increasing quantity of newcomers from rural Spain, as they already were very familiarized with them and, the designers thought, would find spots of green on the building more appealing comming from a greener countryside.
awnings also make a difference when getting a home's energy efficiency certificate. having them in your south facing windows helps a lot getting a higher score.
Readit News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k
Because those are the actual reasons.
The problem is that we keep getting 20F-above-normal days in the fall when it lets the sun into the house.
I wonder if global warming will create a business opportunity for retrofitting houses like ours.
In the Netherlands a lot of houses have electrically retractable awnings (or even just mechanically windable by hand), especially above the giant windows facing the back yard.
During winter and bad weather, we retract the awning. When it's too sunny, we deploy it.
typical row house layout with big windows on both sides: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorzonwoning
retractable awning: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonnescherm
Worked great, looked great, and smelled great for the two weeks of bloom in may.
I've heard of grape vines being used in place of wisteria, which might be better in places where the latter is considered an invasive species. There may be other "friendly creepers" with similar deciduous qualities as well.
Let me put it this way: it's cheap enough that a lot of social housing and other cheap forms of housing inhabited by the "lower class" feature them.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persiana
Dutch (northern european?) windows also open to the inside, making blinds impractical unless they’re built into the window frame.
On top of that, historically blinds are uncommon for cultural reasons, they impair looks and the amount of light coming through, even when fully open. It’s already dark enough in here most of the time :)
I've never seen an HOA that bad; that's horrific. I've seen ones that ban window AC units, but never any that had anything to say about central HVAC.
That's the kind of thing that ought to get legislatively challenged, perhaps as an accessibility issue.
I cannot tell you if that is justified, but I can say from personal experience that in some cases the praised Dutch directness turned to racism. Things like, people not believing that you have a phd, or refusing to take your credit card because the color of skin does not match the ethnicity of the name.
But yes, let's bring back the awnings too. Sometimes the low tech ways are easiest and best. I will say that I don't think awnings alone can save a stick built modern house from the heat. Part of the key to old houses staying cool was high thermal mass: lots of brick and stone that could stay cool during the day. As great as modern insulation is at keeping hot and cool separate, a modern insulated wall doesn't cool it's surroundings like a high thermal mass wall would.
Moving to a world where we combine passive cooling and high thermal mass construction with the benefits of modern tech will be key in my opinion.
(Also, removing a given amount of summer heat via air conditioning is considerably cheaper than adding that same amount of winter heat via gas or heat pump in many climates, because the indoor-outdoor temperature difference is much higher in the winter.)
Our house (Australia) has trained vines on the sunny side that are thick with leaves and grapes in summer, bare and leafless in winter.
Ideal for seasonally sensible shade and warmth.
We replaced the old double-paned windows with new triple-paned with 60% IR filter. There's hardly any tint, but boy did it make a difference. Especially in the living room which has a very large window which catches the sun from noon to midnight in the summer.
Before the wood floor in the living room would be baking hot where the sun hit, uncomfortably so at times. Now I can't tell the difference.
We added it just cause it didn't cost much extra, figured why not. Very glad we did.
That only works if you don't have long hot spells. I live in a house with high thermal mass - reinforced concrete filled cinderblock. It was built by a commercial builder as his own house in 1950. There's enough thermal mass to keep the interior temp stable for three days. No need for air conditioning.
This worked fine until Northern California started having week-long stretches of 100F+ temperatures. That didn't happen until about ten years ago. Once all that thermal mass heats up to ambient, it won't come down for days.
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The labor costs for adobe have become very high, mostly it seems because the descendants of the families that started the amazing adobe brick "factories" no longer want to be dirt farmers.
> can probably beat thermal mass construction.
You have to define what "beat" means. My hundred year old adobe did not rise above 81F as an interior temperature this summer, despite outside highs around 100F. That would be possible (or even lower!) with the technologies you mentioned, but my adobe house did that with no energy utilization at all.
They’re not even easiest and best, but they’re additive and in the grand scheme of things awnings (and shutters) are not that expensive, so it’s a small investment for a permanent benefit.
Why does modern insulation hold less thermal mass? Is it just that trapped air has less mass than stone?
Sure, the stone is more conducive meaning you feel the temperature sooner. But it also has a lot of thermal mass, meaning it can give off or absorb more heat.
For my case, I think it's irresponsible to be installing AC without first making sure the house is optimized for keeping the heat out.
Ask the same question to a realtor and they'll know exactly why you're asking.
Dead Comment
I know lots of people who don't mind living in darkness or seem to have a personal vendetta against the sun, and maybe those people would be genuinely better off with awnings, but I don't think they're for me.
Back in the day, windows were small and there were awnings and interiors were dark. Often made even darker with dark wood, dark colors, etc. It could be downright gloomy.
Then a kind of aesthetic revolution happened where windows got bigger, walls got white, awnings went away -- and it's all so much brighter and joyous.
And if your windows let in too much heat in the summer so you have to run your AC more, it can be counterbalanced in the winter when you can run the heat a lot less during sunny days.
In my experience that’s true anyway.
Yes, this is what makes it so hard to replace with artificial lighting! I enjoy that absurdly bright sunlight. My house has extra windows over most of my windows and these specifically allow that sunlight in to add ambient lighting. During daytime most of my house is fully illuminated even with the lights off and blinds drawn because of these upper windows. You might describe what I have as the exact opposite of an awning and it’s one of my favorite features.
Plus, if it bothers you that much, there are awnings that retract or fold away.
This seems puzzling to me.
Large windows are a staple of every luxury new build. Floor to ceiling windows are a status symbol.
Dead Comment
Unfortunately with most US build tract housing, there's not enough room between most houses to provide dedicated shade by most any method. I wonder if shade between the roof gaps between houses would be useful.
Which is a great pity because I’d welcome planting more trees around suburbs.
So what happened? Naturally, the customer fired the architect. They only wanted to look green, but they didn't care if it was actually green. :-/