My house is hot in the southern United States. Trying to add insulation in the attic space during the summer almost killed me last year. The attic was so unbelievably hot. I have developed a roof leak and was thinking about a metal roof on top of my current roof. I was wondering why a metal roof can’t be installed on braces a few inches above an existing roof to function as a roof and shade. The airflow between the two would have to cool the attic, much better than if the heat radiated through straight to the shingles and plywood. We bought a sunshade for our back patio, and I’ve thought about even something as simple as that over smaller homes could drastically help.
In: Engineering
Others have said trees, and they’re not wrong. Though waiting for the trees to grow is problematic. Back in the day, when you wanted to figure out how much cooling and heating was required to keep your house comfortable, it was assumed deciduous trees were on the east/west/south, with evergreens on the north. The idea is that in the summertime, the trees would absorb the sun’s heat, but in the winter, with no leaves on the trees, the sun’s radiant energy could help heat your home.
Forests have the added benefit of lowering the overall surrounding temperature. But this is counter intuitive to building homes nowadays, as one wants to build as many as possible on as little land as possible, in order to earn as much money as possible.
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