It’s summer here in the midwest. It’s hot. Humid. Uncomfortable. It’s hard to imagine anybody being able to live in 100 degree temperatures with 95 percent humidity, especially without electricity?
Right?
Well…
Some of our neighbors have lived through these midwestern summers all of their lives without power.
Where can I leave my horse?
I took a picture this morning of one of the Amish families that sell at our local farmer’s market. The market, located in our town square, is held every Friday and one of the things that we, as a community, have to deal with is what to do with the Amish horses to get them out of the sun and heat. We live within a block of where the market is, and we offer our yard as a equine parking lot. We have lots of shade, some grazing area if they are on a line, and easy-to-access buckets and water to keep the four-leggers hydrated. We also have a compost pile we for the manure left in the yard.
I can see there are some people out there having heart attacks at the thought of letting horses park on their lawns… but that’s not how we roll. Our land is a “working yard”, and horses are welcome to rest in our shade at any time and enjoy a nice cold bucket or two of water.
My point?
It’s not too hot for horses to be out and even working, but it is too hot for them to stand around on concrete with no shade (the county doesn’t mind vendors using the courthouse lawn, but they draw the line at horses on the grass).
The horses need shade from the summer sun, and they need water. Just like the people.
They don’t need electricity to live in the summer, either. Just like the people.
Well, just like the people to a point.
Summer heat? No electricity? It can be done… but planning sure helps
Amish houses are designed around having great air flow, so that they can be as cool as possible during the summer months. They are also designed around fireplaces for winter heating.
The windows open. They are large. Spice is going to take over this article and tell you why.
Cooling – Because, Physics.
If you make air move faster, some of its heat energy is converted into the energy of motion, so it cools. This natural law has being put to work on the porches of warmer climates for decades at least to aid in cooling. Have you ever seen this kind of construction on the side of a porch?
You can use more decorative patterns, but this is the traditional. Light colors absorb less heat. You want the spaces fairly small to break up the breeze and make it speed up, but not ultrafine as that can discourage air movement.
Our back porch, built for cooling before air conditioning was a thing, has one side covered in this kind of construction; and it was common on porches in Missouri and points south. When the weather got so hot sleeping in the bedrooms was too stifling, people would set up cots on these back porches (screened, thankfully, to discourage mosquitoes) and sleep much more comfortably.
Now it seems people don’t like the look of them and how they block the view; they’ve gone out of fashion. Wouldn’t it be a nice prep though, to have some suitable panels (perhaps screened as well) ready to set up during power outages in the summer for energy-free cooling?
Homemade? Yep
A ‘modern poor’ version of this approach is becoming popular in the densely populated, sweltering cities of the tropical belt, such as in India and Central America. They make window panels out of nothing more than cardboard and re-purposed plastic bottles. Here’s a link that shows how:
http://www.cleverly.me/diy-ac/?ref=fb
The benefit of this approach to a prepper is that you can build them to the size of the windows in the house you intend to shelter in, costing you zero cash, and just set them aside somewhere. The storage spot doesn’t even need to be temperature controlled as so many of our preps demand.
When they’re needed for cooling, you just haul them out and set them up. There’s no reason they wouldn’t work with security bars as well if you like to go that route.
Because, Biology.
News flash: Plants absorb solar energy and use it to build their molecules! Yah, you knew that. But if the plants absorb the solar energy before that energy reaches the walls of your home, the house heats up less. Yah, you could’ve figured that out on your own too.
Less often considered biological fact: When plants lose water, that evaporation takes away heat; just as our sweat evaporation cools us. Plants doing photosynthesis evaporate a lot of water. That’s why it really is cooler under tree cover than under non-living shade.
Why not make use of these facts? Place trellises on the sunny side(s) of the house. Plant some lovely cooling flowering plants that like to climb trellises at their base.
Trellises to support plants along the sunny sides of the house both cool and beautify.
Upsides:
1) It’s a great stealth prep, as it looks like you are just beautifying your property.
2) You are beautifying your property.
3) If you use plants that die back or drop their leaves in the fall, you get the sun blockage during the warm months and no sun blockage in the months when you’d like the solar heating.
4) You can choose the plants to give additional benefits. Not only are roses lovely enough to work great on the most visible spots, but rose hips are useful for herbal teas. Peas, grapes, and berry brambles aren’t quite as lovely, but are also nice and provide food. Grapes and berries even do it every year with little effort invested. If you choose thorned varieties, it can discourage people from creeping about your windows. (You can plant the trellises close enough to the house to prevent them from providing cover for creepers.)
5) The benefits start piling up as soon as you get the work done; no emergency required. It reduces cooling costs.
Downsides:
1) It does take a little work to set up. 2) It will take a little maintenance to keep the plants happy. Choose varieties wisely and this will be minimized.
Keep cool and happy, good people!
I smiled through the whole article! Thank you