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How to keep the house cool without AC, or reduce your use of the air conditioning, with these simple ways to cool the house. An emphasis on simple ways to keep the house cool is the theme here. Cooking in the early morning, cooking outside, keeping the shades drawn are a few of the ways to keep your house cool.
One of the biggest ways to keeping your house cooler, is to use CFL bulbs in place of incandescent bulbs. The old style bulbs put off a huge amount of heat. Also using CFLs will reduce the amount of mercury in the air. This is because CFLs use less energy, fewer coal fired power plants - which put mercury in the air - need to be running.
Using smart power strips, that turn off power to electronics when not in use. HDTVs, stereos, printers are all 'on' when plugged in, even it they are turned off. Monica talked about smart power strips on a previous GF Radio.
Eric is a big advocate of spray foam insulation, and we talk about the use of blown-in insulation using cellulose, which can be put on top of the existing insulation in your attic space.
Using trees to shade your home, or to shade the outdoor air conditioner compressor, is one suggested by Rick.
The house cooling tips were inspired by a post in Mother Earth Living.
How to cut down a tree with a chainsaw is discussed, with our recent chainsaw video. This was quite a large tree to cut down. Again, use a chainsaw with extreme caution, and be very careful. If you are not sure what you are doing, hire a professional.
stumpshot70 is a lumberjack that Eric watches on YouTube.
We talk about digital SLR cameras, aka DSLR cameras. Eric uses a Canon T4i with a 18-135mm lens. Rick is looking at the Canon 70D, which seems to be better at auto focus in the video mode.
Rick's Podcasts Worth Hearing, a curated list of interesting podcasts, can be found here: http://rhkennerly.com/
The article about crabgrass can be read here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=crabgrass-carries-on-chemical-warfa-13-07-09
photo courtesy MorgueFile
Julia
For saving energy, I'd say skip the CFL's and move straight to LED's. CFL's have mercury in them and thus need to be carefully disposed of. Their "long life" doesn't seem to show up and can actually be shorter than an incandescent bulb if it's used for just short periods of time.
I used the "Website" field to link to a YouTube video that argues against CFL's.
We have both types of bulbs in our house, but I'm trying to buy LED replacements as the need arises.
Pat Murphy
As a long time listener I have enjoyed the "geekiness" and the varied topics you cover during the broadcast - it is representative of a regular conversation amongst friends, which to me is very Garden Forky! I have missed Mike's presence and do wish he were on more often. Please don't tell Rick, but I like him, he has grown on me!
Keep up the good work Eric!
Pat
Henry Gorczycki
I love the show! The segment on cooling a house without A/C was interesting. I would like to add the topic of "white roofs" to the discussion. A light colored roof reflects more heat than a dark colored roof; white reflects the most heat. Dark roofs contribute much to the "heat island" effect in cities, which is the heat absorb by structures and pavement in a city, contributing to higher temperatures than nearby rural areas. If most roofs in a city were painted white, the 'heat island" effect would be dramatically reduced.
I live in a one and a half story house without an attic (but with vented space between the insulation and the roof). The upstairs was always stiflingly hot from the hot summer sun--I could feel myself hitting a "wall" of heat as I climbed the stairs. I changed my roof color to white (first by painting with a roof coating, and later by adding a metal roof). Now, there is no noticeable difference in temperature between the first and second floors. I have not had an uncomfortable night's sleep since making the change, even during record heat waves. The metal roof reflects more heat than the white-painted asphalt roof shingles, but the white coating on the shingles worked well at reducing heat gain.
Eric Gunnar Rochow
thanks for the note here. i plan on painting the roof of my house white soon, NYC is promoting white roofs. our roof is silver now, but white reflects even more heat. thx, eric.
Stephen D
I vote for more geek stuff too. I love both Eric's machine fix-it projects and Mike's techie projects. My eyes start to glaze over when they talk about bees for more than 2 minutes (but that's just a tribute to you Eric, that I can muddle through one of your interests and finish out each broadcast)
ps. In full favor of a forum here. That would be awesome!