Some people decided awnings are unattractive so now every HOA and rental bans them. And the rest of us have to suffer because the pretty people who can afford to pay that A/C bill run our entire society.
This is the entirety of what’s wrong with the US in a microcosm. The majority being forced to live under rules made by people that aren’t affected by them.
Make them better looking and push-button retractable from inside, and people will want them.
EDIT
At 16:40 he suggests high tech awnings that automatically unfurl and retract to provide the ideal amount of shade on each day of the year. Seems like a nearly perfect solution to me
I haven’t watched the video yet, but vernacular architecture back in the day commonly set shading elements like awnings at the right height/angle such that during midday in the winter, sunlight would still directly go through windows and hit interior floors and walls. During summer, the angle of the sun would be high enough that direct sunlight could not reach windows.
You can get pretty far with just those passive designs. There are tools to help you find the dimensions you’d need based on where you live without having to do any calculations yourself.
While that may be true, it doesn’t make people want them any more than they currently do. People want to have their full window view available whenever they want it. This means it needs to be retractable and extendable at the push of a button. And once you have that, it’s easy and helpful for it to also be automated
Shade doesn’t have to block any of the view. Many very modern houses with giant windows use these principles.
View includes being able to see the sky. These permanently block some of the view of the sky.
Speak for yourself, I’d rather not have the sun baking me. We don’t have central A/C where I live and we’re not allowed awnings of any kind. So it’s super heavy curtains. I’d jump for any kind of awnings in a second.
People want to have their full window view available whenever they want it.
damn, too bad you can’t just like, go outside, or something.
People get shot for doing that these days
you should try going outside. Might reduce your chances of getting shot from going outside.
It’s expensive. I got quoted 10k for 4 windows
Better quality of living (in the long run even living longer) and less energy consumption on the AC may change that calculation.
This is the real reason they disappeared - awnings cost money and don’t increase square footage. That’s also why every modern building is a boring box.
We didn’t forget about them, it’s still covered in architecture school. You can even make them look really cool. But they cost money, and that’s a hard barrier to cross.
Eccentric midwestern home owner has strong opinions about home designs, news at 11. I love his channel, did you see his trilogy about oil lamps?
Yes and his dish washer video was awesome as well. Agreed great channel.
i religiously watch the oil lamp videos. For some reason.
Fan of Hannukah?
I’m Suprised people don’t just paint everything white in really hot countries. I’ve always felt that would probably help a lot.
True it would probably look bad a lot quicker.
If I could find it and it was as durable as regular paint, I would paint everything that white that converts visible light into infrared that isn’t blocked by the atmosphere. Yeet that heat right the fuck back into space damnit!
That reminds me of the barium sulfate paint that was discovered a couple years ago. It’s so incredibly good at reflecting/moving heat that it could even cool whatever it’s painted on. I’ll have to find a source on this again…
NightHawkInLight has a bunch of videos on making it
That video was exactly what I was referring to. Lol.
The climate change slogan that works: “Yeet the heat!”
I wanna chant at rallies: “Yeet that Heat! Yeet that Heat!”
Oh they do. It’s just the hot areas in developed countries that pretend they shouldn’t be using white paint.
always been confused why roofing in the NA area is often black, or close to black, it simply doesn’t help anybody.
It’s cause they are built from petroleum
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I don’t know for sure but I assume of it is because light roofs require more maintenance to look as nice. Nothing shows up on a dark brown or black roof. A white or light grey would show dirt and debris. I don’t want to waste my time washing my roof because my HOA doesn’t like the way it looks.
i guess so? But a dark grey roof is already literally made from asphalt. It can’t look much worse that proto road material.
Even then you could easily do a brighter grey color. Doesn’t have to be white, but nearly every roof i ever see is either black, some variant of a dark color. Not a lighter grey or red, those are lot less common.
Also, the color doesn’t make that much of a difference. Like a percentage you can count on one hand. Much more significant gains can be had from ridge vents and other ways of getting the heat out of the attic, and insulation to keep that heat from going into the house.
At least according to my acquaintance in the roofing industry, and obvs this is regarding typical US/Canada SFHs
i could see the utility in it providing natural drafting for ventilation, but honestly, with the advent of modern homes moving towards insulated attics and loft spaces, that’s definitely the correct choice.
That combined with building materials, where I live we build out of Adobe and my house stays warm in winter and cool in summer, the outside looks like mud smeared on the walls.
our house was built in the early 2000s. It has an awning.
Why were they forgotten? Probably because manual awnings suck, and once extended if it’s windy, it’s a rather fun time having it out.
Other than that, they’re pretty good. I actually plan to experiment with passive building cooling using a similar technique, instead of an awning, it’ll be a diffusion sheet of light fabric to block direct sunlight exposure to the walls, hopefully providing a decent bit of cooling, but naturally, i have to get around to testing it in the first place.
I’ve got a large plate glass door in the side of my house, and I’m thinking of installing a pergola outside it. Grow something on it that gets nice and leafy in the summer and bare in the winter.
I had a nice pergola at another house I grew grape vines on. I sure do miss it.
I live on a street corner, and the house across the street from me fronts onto the road we don’t share, if that make sense. It’s like my house points ^ and his house points <. So my house faces his side yard, and he’s let it kind of go native, complete with these gorgeous wild muscadine vines. They’re native to the area and they thrive with no attention at all; I have it on good authority those vines have been there for 60 years. That’s my plan.
Florida used to build houses with metal awning you would fold down over the window for hurricanes. We did away with those because hurricanes got stronger and would rip them off turning them to flying projectiles. Now we have panels and no awnings. Because of hurricane codes
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This article is from 2019 and argues against the methods laid out in research article published at the same time. It does not provide adequate evidence to support your claim that thid is a myth. I Will do some more research later today, but this author writes for a think tank. I’d advise some due dillignece before reading this guys material. Forbes is also right leaning so will have some level of bias here.
Not bigger and stronger… But more frequent and on average skewing toward the stronger end of the cat 1 to 5 scale.
my neighbour installed awnings a couple years ago, they look great
Not to mention they are less work than trees
You can definitely put them up and take them down faster.
Maybe, in the future, we’ll have rapid up/rapid down trees? With AI. Maybe they’ll get the ability to walk, too, so they can stand where they provide the most shade.
Oh, AI Tree Ents? That’s the future we’re going for? I mean, I’m in, but I didn’t realize that was even on the table!
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I’ve been planning for the last year some eco home upgrades, and awnings on the south facing windows are high on the list. With so many possible upgrades and so little money it’s difficult to know what to do first.
do the cheapest and most simple things you can do first, even if minor, it provides a small window for you to royally fuck up and gives you some room grow into
Awnings would likely be a pretty cheap and impactful one.
I’ve put 500mm of insulation in the loft, plenty of mistakes made there.
Just managed to get an electric awning to go over the lounge window for £140, fingers crossed it all goes well and if so I’ll do the upstairs windows too.
15 more things on the list though.
don’t worry, the list will grow shortly enough :)
There is always something new to be doing unfortunately.
In my house in North Carolina, I put up radiant barrier foil in the attic. It was cheap and made a huge difference in the upstairs temperature. I stapled it to the joysts so there was an air gap on both sides of the foil, and so that the hot air would rise out of the roof vents.
Better idea. They’re called trees.
Honestly, I kinda hate the big tree in our front yard. It has these tiny leaves and every fall we have to clean the roof and gutters repeatedly until it finally drops everything, because those stupid leaves stick to everything and clog not just the gutters but the downpipes. This tree has caused our basement to flood during fall because one storm can simultaneously blow off a ton of leaves, instantly clogging the gutter, and then pour rain down the front of the house. We spent hundreds of dollars last year on a new gutter solution for 6ft of gutter. You read that right. Six feet of gutter cost us about $450, and they STILL wouldn’t guarantee it would fix the problem because of the stupid tree.
We keep the tree trimmed and healthy, but every time the trimmers come out I dream about telling him to cut the stupid thing down. Awnings would be easier -_-
Are you going to elaborate on why it’s better or did you just want to be a contrarian?
https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/using-trees-and-vegetation-reduce-heat-islands
https://news.wisc.edu/study-suggests-trees-are-crucial-to-the-future-of-our-cities/
Trees create a cooling effect past shading the area. It’s a combination of shade and evaporative cooling.
Those links discuss cooling outdoor spaces. They don’t compete with awnings for keeping sunlight from warming up your house unless you plant them close enough to do so and come with a ton of downsides (roof damage, leaves clogging gutters, roots breaking pipes and foundation)…not to mention how long it takes a tree to grow tall enough to provide that sort of shade
Trees will shade far more surface area than just a window. I’ve got 9 around my house. They block direct sun through the windows all summer. While not blocking any light in the winter. They also keep the siding and sections of the roof cool.
while i don’t disagree, we should probably stop building suburbia as that would solve our problem. Suburbs completely decimate everything in the way and require replanting of the entire foliage, often leading to really shitty growth.
Is it not enough that trees look better?
IDK why you have to choose one or the other, though.
Why would that be enough when we’re talking keeping a house cool?
I am VERY pro-tree. A lack of trees is why I moved (and why I decided against buying a few homes)… But trees are not a “better idea” for this purpose so it was a useless statement to make
Shade?
Better idea, they’re not mutually exclusive
trees near buildings are a nightmare, they can often grow weirdly due to lack of sun, and often make maintenance and clean up on the tree itself a nightmare, if it grows to close to your house you need to do something about it. They are also generally liabilities during storms, especially if they hang directly over your house.
Like a previous commenter said, they can be problematic for foundations and driveways and things like that. It seems fairly common that surface level root structures will expose themselves and start to pop through the top layer of dirt, primarily due to soil erosion and compaction i imagine, but that’s another problem for grounds keeping as well.
Speaking of grounds keeping, trees make grass grow really inconsistently, and also generally provide “dead spots” where the grass will get almost no sun, and almost certainly die. Also mowing under them is hard. Trees don’t really grow at human accessible heights all that often. And when they do, they’re not as good for providing shade.
I live in Chicago. So does Alec. Stop the video at 5:44. All the trees are doing far more cooling and shading to the entire area than shitty old window awnings blocking single windows.
i live in the midwest also. Suburbs around here hate planting trees next to houses, and when they do, they’re often too close to the house, or too close to other trees, or like i previously mentioned, cause other issues.
No offense but they are also fucking ugly
It sure why you’re being downvoted, it’s is unfortunately true. Makes your house look like a diner most of the time…
There’s a house near me who has disgusting cheap awnings on their house. I want them so badly to just take them down. They have all kinds of trees casting shade on their house anyway.
Why do you care that much?
These things are technologically obsolete imo. The same result can be achieved with glass coatings, without requiring the extra work to install/maintain or replace these appendages.
These awnings work against losing heat to the night sky, the same effect of which can be achieved with anti emissive coatings that reflect heat radiation back inside.
The awnings also work against the sun when it’s high in the sky, for which there are now anti solar coatings which will reflect more light from certain angles.
Nostalgia is nice, but the modern solution is easier + cheaper to install and maintain.
A tldr image: https://www.agc-glass.eu/sites/default/files/styles/max_1300x1300/public/2024-05/diagram-coatings leaflet.JPG?itok=s97bN-aV
Longer promotional article: https://www.agc-glass.eu/en/sustainability/glass-sustainable-architecture/energy-saving-glass
