Our house uses sheer drapes to cover most of our windows which are mounted on runners that are mounted above the window and close to each window. Some times they are used with another heavy fabric curtain which are mounted on runners on the insides of each window and seldom closed. The heavy side drapes are visually pleasing to look at like putting a border on each side of each window and the sheer drapes fill in the middle. My wife loves to close the thin inside sheer curtains to totally cover the windows, even during the summer. Here is the problem this creates. Sheer drapes lets quite a lot of light through but blocks airflow. It is my belief that sheer drapes will impede air flow to the degree the sheer fabric is tightly or loosely made. The proof is simple. Any breeze flowing through a window that has sheer drapes will move out of the way. If you want to cool your house at night pull all the drapes away from the window opening including the sheer. My wife does not like to do that so my trick is to take the two ends of the left and right sheet and butt them together in the center. When there is no wind flow then the sheer drapes close. But if there is any outside airflow into the room, the two independent sheer drapes will separate because they have been MOVED apart at the middle of the window by the outside airflow. The obvious down side to this method is when there is any breeze that moves the sheer drapes apart, people could see into that room.
I wish to share with you some ideas on how to help keep your house stay cool. These ideas have come from years of trying different actions and techniques.
A real important factor that you should try to achieve is to cool your house the best way you can so as to deeply cool the house structure as possible. Think of these factors:
Cool the core portion of your house for as long as possible. The cooling concept here is time. It takes a long time to get the behind the walls to cool down. Once these areas are cool they then act as sources for cooling. Reasoning behind this method is if it takes a long time to cool the inner walls of your house then those areas should still be cool the next day when the temperature rises. Those inner walls should be a cooling source! So, consider start cooling when the outside temperature drops below your current house temperature. This may be very late afternoon or early evening. I have a very good inside the house thermometer (NEST), which I can view on my cell phone. I compare that temperature with a good reliable Internet service provider web site. I like The Weather Channel as I have found it to be reliable for my location. Just a suggestion, you might consider buying a good outside thermometer that is WiFi capable so you can double check what The Weather Channel shows.
CAUTION: Do not think you know the outside and inside temperature by how it feels on your body. Use science by looking at a temperature gauge.
Open windows when it gets cooler outside than in your house.
Close windows when the outside air gets within one degree of the pending outside temperature rising.
If you use any kind of window dressing such as sheer curtains, be aware that they will impede the free flow of air. I do not like sheer curtains covering any window that I might want to open when it is cool outside. I typically slide the sheer curtains open and closed as I think best. If y0u think you need to keep a sheer curtain in place to maintain privacy, consider placing one or two ends of the curtains in line with the window opening so that, if there is a breeze, the curtains will be blown out of the way with the breeze or wind. You will loose privacy when this happens but the curtains flapping back and forth might meet your requirements for some privacy.
Please be aware that turning on lights in a room will add heat into that room. Tungsten light bulbs typically generate more heat than florescent bulbs but florescent bulbs do add some heat, just less than tungsten. Compact Florescent Lights (CFL) and LED bulbs emit way less heat. LED bulbs are the coolest because they emit very little heat. Reference: https://brennan-electric.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-led-lights/
Another option to consider is to install window awnings where sunlight can pass into a window typically from the south, east and west. Sun light passing into a window will heat the inside of that room. I do not yet have these installed but I hope to soon. A small rather nifty advantage is that you might be able to keep a window open when it rains if it has an awning. Awnings are reported to increase the value of a home some times.
Posted: June 19, 2024
Updated: June 20, 2024
Posted by: Score Card
CONSIDER A DIFFERENT WAY TO COOL YOUR HOUSE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUTSIDE COOLING TEMPERATURES.
In past years, in the hot summer months, we would place fans in the windows of many of our rooms to blow cool to cold outside air into the rooms. This year I decided to try a new technique. This method only works when your immediate geogrpahical area naturally cools down at night so the morning temperatures are very cool. My early morning temperatures go down to about 60 degrees F.
First, let me explain the layout of the rooms that I am trying to cool. The bottom list of rooms each has a window and are just a part of the second floor and separated from the rest of the house with a hallway door. It is only this list of rooms that I have cooled using just one window fan!
South large office. This room faces south toward the ocean and thus has a natural breeze from the ocean. This room has two windows.
East side Bathroom. Not often but sometimes there is a natural breeze from the east. Has a medium size window.
North west small bedroom. Almost never any outside air comes naturally into this room. It has a large sliding glass window.
North east small bedroom has a large sliding glass window.
Center hallway connecting each room.
I tried out a new idea to see if it would work. It did! I was really surprised.
The solution was to put a window fan into the north east bedroom, my bedroom, and blow the air OUT the window! The reason is to see if this would draw air into the other rooms by suction and thus exit my bedroom. IT WORKED!
You would think that this window fan would keep me awake. I ran it at it’s lowest speed and it was quiet. If I had turned the fan around to direct the airflow toward me, it would be bad.
Apparent disadvantage, but not, with this method. Because I put the exhaust fan into my bedroom all the air from the other rooms flowed into my room thus keeping my bedroom warmer for a bit longer. As the outer rooms received outside cool air that air then cycled into my bedroom. Thus, my bedroom took a bit longer to cool down, after the other rooms did. I did not find this a problem when sleeping.
NOTE: This cooling method takes time to achieve results. Here is a sample of my recording this on my cell phone:
Today was hot, 80 degrees. The rest of the house is 80 degrees. My room is 76. Wife’s bedroom is 80 Fan set to mid speed to make up for late start (normally set to low). ——————- Started cooling process late. Time: 8:30 opened windows Wind 3.4 Outside temp 66.0 My room 76 Office 74.5 Bathroom 73.9
——————- Fan now set to low speed. Time 9:50 Wind 0.8 Outside temp 63.1 My room 73 Office 69.9 Bathroom 72,3 ————-
Time 12:46 Wind 0 – 2.0 Outside temp 61.5 My room 71 Office. 67.6 Bathroom 70.0 ————-
Time 3;53 Wind. 0.9 Outside temp 61,2 My room. 69 Office. 65.8 Bathroom 68.2 ————-
Time 5:12 am. AWAKE Wind. O – Outside temp 61.5 My room. 68. (notice that this room is a bit warmer because it is the exhaust room.) Office. 65.5 Bathroom 67.8 ————-
ADVANTAGES:
You use less power, one fan instead of 3 or more.
You use less power running only one fan.
I really felt much safer being in the same room with the fan, in case something would go wrong with the fan.
Note that this suction house cooling, worked with just a few rooms. I have no idea how this might work for your house.
Posted: 6-12-2024
Posted by: Score Card
Solving Problem Adding A Topper To An Existing Bed.
I had to travel to my sister’s mobile home residence while she was away on a long vacation. I went to her place on weekends so that I could take care of her yard plants surrounding her mobile home. I decided to stay over night each weekend. Her home had two bedrooms and I decided not to use her bed but the second bedroom. Problem for me was that the bed in that second bedroom was not that comfortable to sleep on. I went into town the very next day and found a store that sold mattress toppers. A topper is typically a short thickness, soft padding the same dimension as the bed that it will be placed upon. The topper I chose was 3 inches in thickness of foam. The store, quite conveniently, also offered a slip on cover for the topper for me to buy. This topper cover completely encased the foam except at the bottom where there is a large opening that has elastic edging to keep the cover tight across the foam. The whole unit was easily rolled up so I could drive it back to my sister’s home.
I faced a new problem. The topper now made the bed taller and that bed mattress cover, a large bed sheet really needed to be tucked in while pressing down on the topper so to minimize how much of the mattress cover was needed.
After my sister arrived back from her vacation, I returned home but I took the topper with me. At my house, my bed mattress is quite tall and adding a topper really made it quite high.
Note that measuring the regular mattress with the topper resting on top shows that the side height is about 14 inches.
My mattress measurements.
Mattress = 11 inches. (The industry size of standard mattress depth is 7 inches.)
Topper = 3 inches
TOTAL. = 14 inches. It is recommended that you measure the total side mattress dimension so you buy a good bottom fitted sheet. We are seeing fitted sheet side height up to 20 inches for some products.
When buying bed sheets look to make sure that the bottom fitted sheet side dimensions will not only cover the mattress sides but also be longer so that the elastic on that sheet is well under the bottom of the mattress. For example, if your mattress is 11 inches high, buy a side dimension larger so the fitted sheet with it’s elastic ends lays well under the mattress.
So, I then had to go shopping for a bottom bed sheet that would fit tight over and around these two mattresses. My first bed sheets purchase did not work after a purchase from a very good national chain store. I checked around and found a pretty good solution at the Sit ‘n Sleep store. The solution was that one of their products, DreamFit has very wide elastic bands at each corner of the bottom sheet and these bands are attached far enough away from the corner of the sheet that it really grips the mattress. (see image below).
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Note the wide corner strap that definitely holds the bottom sheet in place.
In the image below I took a picture of the Sit & Sleep, very small store demo exhibit, that explains how the bottom DreamFit sheet fits remarkably well on to most mattresses.
Problem that I faced is that my total mattress height was about 14 inches. The DreamFit bottom sheet still worked because of the very wide corner elastic bands. The elastic that runs around the whole bottom did not help because they landed along the sides of the mattress (see top image).
NOTE: My daughter recommends these bed sheets. Eucalyptus sheets can help regulate body temperature, keeping you comfy and cool all night long. Plus, they’re hypoallergenic and resistant to bacterial growth, which makes them ideal for sensitive skin.
Our house seems to need Wifi extenders to improve getting good Internet on our computers and cell phones.I did a fair amount of research and chose the product “eero mesh WiFi system – router replacement for whole-home coverage (3-pack)” which cost me $129.99.The website rating was pretty good at 4.4 and achieved an Amazon Choice recommendation.But, after installing the units, we experienced random short periods loosing our Internet.The cause was the Eero units.I found some web sites that support that a lot of people were having this problem.There were a few simple web site solutions that I tried but none worked for me.I finally gave up and called Amazon customer support.I talked to a man located in India, a terrific fellow, who understood the problem and immediately approved my returning the extenders.He sent me a return shipping label to my computer within minutes.I had saved the original box.How it was repackaged was real easy and I was able to get my package ready to ship out in less than ten minutes.I dropped the package off at the FEDEX store and those people accepting the shipment with no problem.Within less than one hour, I got a message from Amazon that my full purchase price was returned to me!YIKES! INCREDIBLE! Amazon had no way to check to see that I had sent them back all three units! That really impressed me!
After having an outside back yard pool removed, and also an outdoor pavilion that offered shade along the side of the pool, it was a shock to see that a pavilion beam had been bolted to the back yard house wall. What was shocking was viewing the huge number of varying size holes left after the beam was removed from the wall. There were a LOT of holes! I counted 114 small holes and 19 large holes in the stucco wall. The stucco wall that held the wood beams was painted a dark color prior to the pavilion being installed and a light color after the beam was mounted to the wall. It was difficult to see what was dirt, where the beam was attached and what was paint as seen in the image below.
After experiencing a variety of outside vendors perform home improvements, I have come away with the belief that quite a few of these businesses can make significant mistakes. I would never allow any business to attach anything to a home that I have control over without approving the mounting method. The example shown here is simply dreadful and a mistake.
Back yard image of stucco damage. Note the dirty brown horizontal line across the wall.
Next image shows the problem of holes in the stucco, the wall being painted prior and dirt collected behind the prior wood beam. This article will try to solve these problems.
NOTE: The method and products shown here is only to offer you a singular view into a solution that might not be the best for you. I am sure that there are other solutions. This article reveals some products that were used for this project. Please do not accept our termite solution as it has not been tested for your health and safety.
I used the following wet solutions to clean the dirt on the stucco and applied the chemicals with a stiff plastic brush:
Bleach and warm water. (I was not impressed with this method.)
Simple Green. (This may have worked but not sure. I really was looking for a faster and clear winner method)
Tide, Heavy Duty. I had a Home Dept employee suggest this method. Not sure but I think this method may have been good enough.
I came to realize that the brush movement was very important. I used a soft upward and hard downward stroke.
After trying to clean the wall, which never seemed to be clean, I shot a termite killing foam into each hole. The reason for this is that plugging the holes with new stucco patch took some time before this project started. Termites could have entered those holes. The holes in the wall were under the second floor and above the first floor ceiling so the chemicals were confined and I assumed safe to apply. I did detect the second floor was creaking a bit more and think this was due to termites getting into the holes.
I next needed to find a solution for plugging the holes before I applied stucco patch. Some of the holes were so large that I was afraid that the stucco patch would not properly fill in the holes and collapse some time in the future. A Home Depot employee recommend a very good product. It is Loctite Tite Foam.
I had no idea of how to use this product but I soon devised my own method. I shot the foam into the larger holes. Immediately, I found out that the foam expands in all directions including coming back out the hole I shot the product into! Yikes! It was obvious that I had to cut the excess foam off the part that was in the wall. I decided to cut the foam bubble back just behind the normal stucco surface a little bit, maybe a quarter inch or more. You obviously do NOT want the foam to show but must be covered by a layer of stucco. I totally had to guess how much foam to push back from the opening. I did find out that I could push the foam back into the hole to any depth I wanted! I quickly came to love this product. I just had to figure out the needed simple solutions to small problems with using it.
Image above shows how the foam expands back out the hole it was shot into. Note also that the wall was painted a brown color where the wood beam was bolted but the rest of the wall was painted a much brighter color.
When I first shot this product into my first stucco hole I was a bit shocked to see this expand right out the hole that I shot this stuff into. It was obvious that I had to cut this foam bubble away. There is NO hurry for you to rush to cut this foam excess. I personally, like to wait for the foam to age a few minutes. Just make sure it stops expanding. The foam appears to not change consistency much as a few minutes pass so I reasoned that is is much better to wait for the foam to finish its expanding action. I think at least five minutes is enough time.
I found that a very sharp knife blade that is pushed into the bubble worked way better than trying to cut with a slicing sliding action around the large bubble. For some reason the knife had a problem slicing but worked perfectly pushing the blade into the bubble. Maybe it was because the knife was not that sharp.
I still used the knife to pick away at the remaining foam after the large bubble was removed. I think the whole task of making a proper foam cut out and scraping the excess foam away took no longer than two minutes for each hole.
I found that a paint can opener worked perfectly for pressing the foam back into the wall just enough so a new stucco patch could easily fit in and match the existing stucco wall. I used the paint can opener scraper side to remove any foam from either side of the hole. This tool was perfect for this.
Hole in stucco that has had Tile Foam applied and trimmed is now ready for stucco patch.
The image above shows the large hole is now ready for stucco patch to be applied. Note that the small holes, I reasoned, should not be a problem. I will apply stucco patch to large and small holes. I used a putty knife to apply the patch and used the putty knife to wipe any patch that was sticking beyond the surface. I then scratched the surface with a real stiff wire brush to add some roughness to the patch to possibly match the rest of the wall texture.
