It’s the dogs I feel sorry for. They’ve been lying around the less hot spots in the house – there are no cool spots – and looking at us accusingly. What is the matter with you O omnipotent humans? Why do you not fix this?!
According to the 9MSN weather section, we’ve smashed a record.
At 3.04pm today, Melbourne made history with its highest maximum temperature since records began back in 1859.
The writing was on the wall by as early as 8.45am this morning, when the mercury flew past 30 degrees. The previous February record of 43.2 set in 1983 was reached by 1pm and the forecast temperature of 44 was broken by 1.30pm. The long standing all time record of 45.6 degrees, set in 1939 was broken by 0.8 of a degree.
If the heat was unbearable, at least the humidity was fairly low, it was as a matter of fact only 5% in the afternoon. A figure normally reserved for the deserts of this world. With the heat also came dust, kicked up by the gusty northerlies before a cooler change moves through.With these very dry and gusty winds, registered around 90km/h in some areas comes the very real threat of bush fires. With the cooler change coming through in the early evening, the complete reversal of wind direction could send any fires rapidly in the opposite direction.
The good news is that the change will drop forecast temperatures tomorrow to the mid to high twenties, almost half that of today. Cooler winds for the start of the week too, enough to break out a sweater.
The south wind has kicked in now and the beasts look happier, but dear god the garden.
Our house isn’t air conditioned. We have a ceiling fan in the family room. It was renovated in 2001, when we made the mistake of orienting the family room too much Westwards, and building the verandah too high. We are rectifying this somewhat by bunging on much more trellis and shadecloth (75% block) on the Westward side.
We do have excellent curtains with the sunblocking back on it. In the summer mornings, we close and lock all the windows and shut all curtains so the back of the house is quite dark. As soon as the customary South-Westerly starts up around 5:30, we open all the windows up – they’re a modern brand which slide open at top and bottom to allow the hot air out and the cool breeze in. We open the curtains for a while but then they get closed again. We need exterior blinds.
So our passive solar mitigation is a mixture of good and bad. We lie around a lot doing not very much and freezing wet facecloths which we then apply to our faces and arms.
Our daughter gets it, but our son still tells us that we should get air conditioning, because that’s still the Done Thing and younger kids have grown up with home aircon; I tend to think we need to learn to roll with it. Perhaps I’m being hair-shirty, but I don’t want us to rely on it, for several reasons. Sometimes I think perhaps I’m being silly eschewing aircon when one family doesn’t make a hell of difference; on the other hand, aircon only works when you have power – and our suburb seems particularly prone to blackouts when the electricity companies think we’re having it too good.
How is your house with regard to the passive solar design? What measures did you take to cope with the heat today? Are you, and any pets, ageing parents, horses, goats and gardens, OK? Tell us your experience.
UPDATE (RM): I’ve put up a post specifically about the fires and floods.
We put garbage bags over the top windows with no curtains, shut all other curtains, closed all doors and mostly stayed inside. We don’t have airconditioning but do have lots of fans. It was a lot cooler inside than out for most of the day.
I know you can’t read into a single weather event anything significant about global warming, but sheesh… What a shit day… If this is the taste of things to come I’m moving to Hobart.
I hate the heat, so I feel your pain. But one way to avoid heatwaves might be to move to Brisbane. We’ve only had a few really hot days this summer. And nothing around 40 for some years. Shifts in our weather pattern seem to have been quite favourable on balance over the last few years.
Meanwhile you’re flooded out in QLD – if you could just send some of that rain down here plz…
I don’t know why that YouTube temporarily broke the blog, nor why, when I deleted all the embed code, it reappeared correctly. Life is a mystery. Apologies.
Normally I hate it when my work has an open day. Awkward teens being bullied and prodded by their parents, dumb questions, having to talk salesy shit and fib about the wonderful career opportunities.
Today I loved it. Hardly anyone came due to the heat, those who did were the genuinely keen and switched-on, and I got to sit in the aircon and get paid to mix my band’s demo EP.
Tops!
That would have been me, Helen, rather than the Intertube spirits! I think there was a problem with the embed code to start off with because something very odd was certainly happening.
No floods in South East Queensland!
The curtains are drawn, the fan is on. The kid sat in the bath for a while, we watched dvds most of the day, cold face washers, drinks, icecream, smoothies made with frozen fruit, and constant surveillance of the CFA incident warnings page.
The “cool change” has not in fact been “cool”, and included only a short splattering of rain. The wind turned and the fires are now headed in my direction. My keyboard is hot. The mousepad is hot. Time for another (very short) shower.
Hannah is right pissed off!
Or was until an hour ago when we opened up because it was ONLY 35 degrees outside [getting cooler] after the less hot change arrived.
For days she has been sitting under the air con or under the table and going outside occasionally [she can open the sliding door herself] and then coming back in almost straight away disgusted, and showing it.
In the late evening, one of her usual walk times, she has gone out, waited patiently while I water what is left of the veggies and been consoled by 5 mins of ball catching then heading inside for a drink.
We’ve just come in after half an hour of REAL ball catching, the first decent exercise either of us have had for a week or more, we’ve been above 40 every day since forever.
As for air con, well this is the first we have ever had and sorry and all but we have absolutely needed it despite verandahs, curtains, shade trees, insulation etc. .
Thank god there is no such thing as global warming.
Bought a tub of icrecream from the supermarket. Walked the less-than-200 m home. Used a straw, because by that time, and given the load on the icecream cabinets at the supermarket, it was a little easier to suck on than a typical thickshake.
Still, it worked a treat.
Thank goodness my unit is shaded by other buildings on one side and trees on the other.
We should be starting the build of our new house in Adelaide in a few months time. The sorts of things we’re doing:
- R6.0 ceiling insulation
- Double glazed windows
- Good north orientation
- External shade to all windows in summer
- Cross ventilation with features to get natural airflow
even when there isn’t a breeze – eg. low windows on one side,
high windows on the opposite. A couple of roof windows
for ventilation.
- thermal mass
- Light coloured walls and roof
We’re still going to have evaporative a/c installed – I really
don’t see a way of getting through 2 weeks of 40C weather with
25C-30C nights without it. But the idea would be to use it at night
to flush out accumulated heat. I imagine we might end up with a small
r/c a/c unit if it gets really bad as we work from home and need at least
one room cool. We have enough north facing glass that we shouldn’t need any artificial heating in winter.
I feel the same way as Hannah’s Dad about the air conditioning unit in the rumpus room. Without it, there would have been a murder in this house. As it was I shut all three cats indoors ar 9.30 am, much to their annoyance (too silly to know it’s hot) and lay on the couch reading Dr Zhivago. Once it got over 38 I had to go out every half hour or so to hose down the poor chooks. About 3 o’clock I gave up and brought them indoors. The garden doesn’t seem to be too bad I must say. It took the real beating in the earlier bout, burned leaves etc. There wasn’t enough direct sun today to do more of that kind of damage.
Because we are having our wedding in the backyard in a couple of months I’ve been trying to keep things alive, including the small patch of lawn. And this technique not only keeps it green, it actually grows. A couple of times a week, at dusk, throw a couple of wheelie bins of grey water on it, then cover with old sheets and doona covers weighed down with dead potplants. If a heavy dew is expected take them off overnight, otherwise just leave them there and healthyish grass grows underneath.
Next summer I’m going to mulch my lawn over Jan / Feb.
Where I am we’ve had a typical 22-23 degrees and rain this morning. But this summer, as with the last, the number of consecutive days above 30 degrees has been increasing, and in a most unusual bout of hot weather, this year we had 2 consecutive days above 40 degrees a couple of weeks ago – this is almost unprecedented. Long term locals say every summer that it is getting drier, with the number of days rain during January decreasing, and the number of days of excessively warm weather increasing. This is reflected in our dams and our catchments.
I also cannot stand the heat, and really feel for those in the South-East who have been battered in recent days. I hope things get cooler for you soon, and that you stay safe from fires.
Beautiful run of weather we’re having on the NSW Norther Rivers, just ceiling fans in the afternoon for a few hours and glorious cool nights. I haven’t run the aircon for weeks. None of that dreadful humidity we usually get in February.
Just thought you’d be interested.
The cool change came through around midday in Adelaide – down to 33 at 12.30pm, though back up around 35 for an hour or two, before dropping, dropping, dropping from about 3pm. It’s a blissfully cool 26 now, which tells you how far we have moved from New Zealand.
We’ve been using the aircon during the day, but shutting it off at night. We have been letting down the blinds in our family room to keep the heat out, and drawing the curtains in our room. Our girls’ rooms are comparatively cool, FSM be praised. Our room is the hottest in the house, and on some nights, we have retreated to the lounge (known as the lounge room across here, I know – you can take the woman out of New Zealand, but…). Ice water bottles for the girls for school, iceblocks (“icecreams” over here, I think, even when they are frozen flavoured water and not a hint of dairy about them) in the freezer for after school, DVDs to watch. I have felt a bit siege-like about it.
Our cat became very fond of our cold slate floor.
I’m with Chris. We have an old double brick bungalow, it is well oriented, and well-protected with verandahs, pergolas and covered decks. So it is a very cool house. However it would have been fearsome had it heated up inside, because there would have been no way of cooling it. So I would have hated to have tried to manage without air conditioning.
You must be inland Ken. No cool nights down here on the coast, and the easterly has been blowing in humidity for weeks now. Never any lack of rain though. Everything is green and lush as per usual.
We have a double-brick house that’s well-sited for a Sydney summer, but our current warm weather — not as hot as Melbourne & Adelaide, I grant — has heated the house up and thermal mass is now working against us. As a result, we did use the elderly a/c unit in our bedroom today and will this evening until we go to sleep. If it were not already there, I would not be rushing out to get one, but it does make things a bit more comfy — I did find it handy when I was pregnant! It didn’t quite hit 41 in my part of Sydney, but the 20% humidity and breeze made things reasonably comfortable even outside. Just a matter of making sure the animals are OK and not expecting to do too much. Occasional outbursts of crankiness from the kids, but a dip in the paddle pool did us all good. The other important thing is good cooling food. We had Weis’ bars for dessert tonight.
Hi Helen, my rented shack, is of the fibro variety with tin roof, no insulation, (yet) and a cement slab porch on the northern and western sides. Genius! Huh? I have two thermometers and at 12.30 I can attest, it was hotter in the house than it was outside. I don’t bother closing any windows or doors as the house heats up from above. Inside now, everything is warm to touch. The only good things I can say about this house are that it has fly screens, is very cheap, very private and on a nice coupla hundred acres tucked up under the range–there was a creek too . . .
I filled the bath with cold water this morning and used this to wet towels and dunk the cat. The horses seemed to be holding up ok till about 3 when they started to look a little frazzled and so got duly hosed which they seemed to enjoy and were then given a meal in the shade to discourage the rolling in the dirt act. I have a well which is pumping (as in now) water up into the tank on top of the hill, water which I use for the horses, further dunkings of cat under garden tap and watering garden and lawn. I am trying to avoid the dustbowl look. I am sleeping in the inner section of the tent on the lawn and have been doing so for about a couple of weeks–very pleasant, as its mostly mosquito netting with great views skywards.
I have two large green frogs living in my septic who come up via the loo every night. Because of the frogs and what toothpaste, let alone what listerine might do to their skin, I now clean my teeth at the garden tap. My house it seems is almost becoming superfluous to my needs. The frogs hunt daddy long legs in the night while I’m out on the lawn asleep. When I come in, in the mornings they have vanished, back down the loo no doubt.
It was 46 today under the tin, on the concrete porch at 4.00pm I am looking forward to Autumn. Better go turn the pump off.
My brand new, gravatar (btw) is missing a star- it got cropped. It was a photo of Venus Jupiter and the Moon a few weeks back.
So you’ve had *one* hot day in Melbourne, and you Victorians are squealing louder than than the MCG full of piglets.
Oh *gasp* *sob* my Adelaide heart bleeds for you, the tears run down my cheek. Why over here we’ve merely had two frakking weeks of high 30s – 40s temperatures without a break. (And without anyone in the rest of the country noticing or caring.)
But I really don’t mean to suggest that it has been anywhere near as bad as your *one* day.
Paulus it’s not a contest to see whose heatwave has the biggest dick. and fyi the same appalling weather as Adelaide had was also experienced in Victoria,
Don’t take my comment as anything other than traditional jocular inter-State stouching.
… As for your fyi, I notice that Melbourne has had rather mild and pleasant weather up till Friday …
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW3050.latest.shtml
Unconfirmed reports of 40 deaths in the fires. Its pretty grim.
Sounds like a nice place Caroline.
Seriously.
No, Laura is correct – it has been in the high 30s pretty consistently and in Victoria you have the icing on the cake of constant bushfire alerts.
It’s the humans (and their pets) whose houses were approached by fire that I feel for. Today friends and former neighbours of ours stayed to defend their house and saved it and themselves, up in the Jeeralang hills [in the Strzelecki Ranges] south of Churchill [Victoria]. Their neighbours, who have young kids, decided to get out before the fire arrived and lost their home.
This is not an unusual circumstance in Victorian bushland. A week earlier the fires stormed into Boolarra, Darlimurla etc; perhaps 20km – 30km from Churchill. 30 homes burnt down. These people had the inconvenience of heat wave conditions, plus serious danger.
Take care.
I feel lucky that Sydney and surrounds have been pretty much spared the heat wave until the past few days. But yesterday I came home and there was thick smoke all around. It was a fire that was some ways away but another has started near the F3 on the Central Coast and tomorrow could be dangerous. I never want to go through this again.
Our townhouse doesn’t do heat that well (I’m sweating profusely as I type) as we only use the aircon downstairs. For the Little One, we have an evaporative cooler that works well in her room.
The good thing is that when a change comes her’s and our rooms cop the southerly breeze and quickly cool down.
Good luck, Shaun.
Not too bad in Armidale. But some years ago when it was a real scorcher here and I got quite heat-stressed I found getting in a deep cold bath and staying there for ages, armed with cigarettes,several packets of chocolate biscuits from the fridge, (though they melted pretty quickly), a book and a bottle of ice-cold reisling and a chilled wine glass to drink it from was a good way to beat it once the first flush of the heat-stress was gone.
We’ve been fine today. My house is attached to another on either side, and is, I think, insulated. We need two or more days of over 35 degree heat before the house gets unlivable. It was at best low 30s inside. I left the house to visit a neighbour at about 5, and my eyeballs dried up… it was very awful outside.
I knew there was more than one reason I didn’t live in Adelaide…
Err..don’t mean to rain on the Melbournian’s parade, though I’m sure a downpour would be a blessed thing right now…but as an Adelaidean who endured the worst of melbourne’s 3 day spell in late January, before a brief sojourn home and another visit to Melbourne again this week just passed…Paulus is right, Melbourne was extremely pleasant this week. Yeah, today must have been horrible and I was glad I avoided it by getting home last night..but really the furnace that greeted me on arrival in Adelaide was a reminder of how a city feels when it is subjected to relentless heat for days on end. It’s a pissing contest I’m loathe to win, but Adelaide truly is an oven.
Thanks Ambi but where I am should have no problems. If the fire crosses the F3 though then things will be very dangerous.
Not where I live I might add. We’ll be fine but those on the hill will be anxious.
Paul Burns,
aside from pesky neighbour kids, you do paint a vey pleasant picture of your pastimes and habits
And yes – responding to another thread – our childhoods were wonderful, and thank you for saying so.
Ambi @ 31,
There’s no doubt I have a good life and enjoy life’s small pleasures to the ultimate. But surely that’s what life is all for. As for the kids, they were just in here ringing up the local football club. (I know its eleven at night, but, among other things they’re little owls and its better than 6 am in the morning, I suppose.) I actually think it might have been a ploy to get on the computer, but I was using it.I really quite like them, nevertheless I think I’ve more or less worked out a deal with the grown-ups responsible for them that they don’t come here any more because they’re deleterious to my health, sort of.(I need a fair bit of sleep because of the medication I’m on, and the kids can be pretty rowdy, especially if they’ve had a sugar hit.) We’ll see.
They thought it was quite hot in my lounge-room where the computer and phone are, and asked me if I had the heater on. It’s just the concrete blocks the flat is made from.Nowhere near as bad as Melbourne and Adelaide though.
We very rarely have bushfires near Armidale city, but we do get smoke from fires burning in the gorges, etc sometimes, miles away. Though a few years ago some goose set fire to the horse-paddock near my block of flats. It was empty of horses and the fire brigade got onto it pretty quickly. Lucky.
Yes, we’re all going to move in with Paul
I hope you weren’t reading your valuable or hard to get books in the bath, Paul. It would be a bugger if they got splashed.
The rule, no sex after midnight no breakfast before 8 has been added to. No sex until the temperature drops to 24.
Well, I can’t do much to relieve the heat you’re all copping, but I can show you some nice pics of the opposite. As you no doubt know the UK’s been copping record amounts of snow (like feet of the stuff); it’s been very cold, and everything is very pretty. Lots of snowy goodness here.
I lived in Adelaide for three years in the 1960s and remember in 1967-8 summer, I think, the temp going to 107F one night and 105F the next, dropping to 92F overnight. As far as I can make out that tops out at less than 42C. It’s the hottest I’ve been and at the time thought it almost reason enough to leave.
So the run they’ve been having lately is bad indeed.
I noticed several times now weather people saying that with global warming you can expect more of the same. When Howard was our supreme master they would never have said that, for fear of getting their funding cut or their file marked “never to be promoted”.
Caroline
“I have two large green frogs living in my septic who come up via the loo every night. Because of the frogs and what toothpaste, let alone what listerine might do to their skin, I now clean my teeth at the garden tap”
That is quite simply the sweetest thing i’ve read all week.
Sorry to hear about the deaths in Vic
27.3 degrees outdoors here in Canberra at 2.15am Sunday. Inside it’s still 30 degrees. The daytime temperature peaked at 40.7 at about 4.00pm.
Can tick a lot of the green boxes: North-facing house, insulation in walls, under floor and in ceiling, two whirligigs in the roof, insulated curtains, lots of shade trees at all points of the compass and some DIY window double glazing.
I’m sick of sitting in the half-dark day after day week after week – curtains closed, windows closed and the fans whirring, wet towels draped around my person and minimal clothing. These measures just leave me very un-productive between about mid December and mid to late February. I agonize about installing reverse cycle air-conditioning but I’m beginning to suspect that the difference in energy costs for several fans and the extra water for several brief showers during the day and running an air-con unit may not be as great as I have always believed.
I woke up to this heat wave, global warming stuff, which I can’t bear, a long time ago. And acted! I moved to Switzerland in 2001. I feel sorry for all of you suffering right now. I’m thinking of you (and my family and friends in Oz) as the snow flakes fall here. Stay cool!
We have woken to 19 degrees here in Adelaide, and free water falling from the sky. I have opened up every door and window in the house, and the cool air is flowing in. Blissful.
Helen @ 33.
It was a Balzac Penguin Classic, Lost Illusions, one of my favourite books. I remember because I’d only just started reading Balzac for the first time, and was reading as many of his novels as I could get my hands on at the time.Took me about six months.
Going to Ebor this morning for a Socialist Alliance meeting. I gather it’ll be heaps hotter over there than it is here in Armidale, which is about 8 degrees cooler than Tamworth at the moment. Apparently Tamworth is in the 40s.(So the taxi drivers tell me.)
Hannah’s Dad, aside from the house which I’d bulldoze given were it mine, you’re right is an exceptionally nice place to live.
Thanks Sublime cowgirl. The frogs are even sweeter. I think the intelligence of frogs is widely underrated–possibly not rated at all. Do you think if I kissed one . . .?
I’m only 3 km from the beach carbonsink but tucked under a hill that stops the worst of those bloody nor-easters. It’s 21 inside now and might get to 28 or 29 in the late afternoon, which seems cooler to me than most summers. Then again I’m just back from 8 weeks in the Philippines so my body might have acquired a new set of thermal benchmarks.
A couple of years ago me mum was reading a fair bit of Lovelock and came to the conclusion that we have already stuffed it and we may as well enjoy the fruits of western civ while they last. She bought us an air conditioner, as many stars as possible, but an energy guzzler non the less. Dr Honey is 39 and a bit weeks preggers and spent most of yesterday sitting in the lounge with her mum and the Hbomb while i ran errands and kept on running out to the garden to reattach the shade cloth over the vegies that kept on getting ripped appart by the wind totally futile.
the house is the oldest on the street, 54 year old weatherboard, and has no eaves on the northern side, but it does have canvas pull down shades which help.
the garden is toast and i will spend the rest of the morning, Hbomb permitting, pulling out dead plants and planting some autumn/winter crops.
this last two weeks have been instructive and will certainly inform the renovation that we intend to do in a few years.
Having been on this planet a fair while now, my recollection is that Adelaide has always been the hottest town in the country, so Adelaideans generally know what to expect from a heatwave (and they really do win any pissing contest).
But it is ususual for Melbourne (and Canberra) to be so much hotter than Sydney and Brisbane for so long, so I reckon this is this first real sign of shifting temperate belts across our country and the globe – and its happening counter-intuitively (southern cities hotter), although I am betting the AGW modellers are on to it.
Mark, no thanks to Brisbane, your beloved home town. Its the humidity that is the killer for me. Canberra is 38+ this morning but the dry heat is more bearable. And the worry is those mosquitoes travelling south towards Brisbane from Cairns bringing dengue fever etc, the least talked about, but for me the most deadly early signs of AGW. These tropical diseases will take the kids first…
Tasmania is definitely the place to be if we really want to escape future heatwaves, but then I guess separate problems might develop there eventually (like a real estate boom pricing the state out of reach!)
Anyway, as I mentioned on another thread, there is a new DVD in the stores now called “Ice Spiders”. Thoroughly recommended for these really hot days.
When Melbourne suffers the discomforts of days like 7/2/2009 it is merely taxing for city dwellers.
When that weather is endured by folks living in the heavily forested areas of the state, the effects are often catastrophic.
7/2/2009 was one of the four catastrophic days in the history of Victoria.
We lost a house on Ash Wednesday 1983. That was traumatic. But at least the fire consumed everything and we were well covered by insurance. I believe that the sheer misery of cleaning up after those floods in FNQ would be worse. I extend my sympathy to flood victims.
My thoughts go to all in VIC and SA, especially to the bushfire victims. My dad is long-time RFS who’s seen some truly nasty stuff in his time as a very active volunteer. His face was completely white the time he described the sound and sight of a 50m-high firewall racing away like an F1 car and razing everything in seconds. I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for people.
I’m surprised more people aren’t aware of the value of evaporative coolers. Far cheaper to run than A/C (far less emissions), and really quite effective in dry heat. Will knock 10 degrees off or more.
Kinglake, a little town near the town where I spent my teenagerhood, has apparently been completely destroyed.
Shocking.
My brother has a house at Mirboo North, just next to Boolarra which has had so much (arson-generated) fire in the last week or two. I went to stay at Mirboo two weeks ago and the Catholic church there was celebrating the Festival of St Paul – which included a full fireworks display, with exploding rockets, at nine thirty in the morning, in a bush gully opposite a residential area!!! Madness!
That didn’t cause the fire, but I couldn’t help wondering what the attending CFA thought of it all.
Look. Andrew Bolt is right.
.
It’s all the Greens’ fault. The reason public transport broke down is the Greens. The reason it’s so hot is ’cause we didn’t build another dam, the Greens. And of course there’s bushfires and the Greens did that to. And they won’t let us have air conditioners. And all we with (what is it?) two people in the upper house elected last week.
.
Sneaky them Greens.
Hi everyone, I’ve put up a post about the Victorian fires, and the Queensland floods. Perhaps we can take any specifically fire-related conversations there.
The heat in Sydney is not too bad compared to elsewhere, but it’s causing havoc to our double brick ‘californian’ bungalow, as cracks apparently caused by lack of water and extreme heat grow ever larger and larger. Our predecessors planted some lovely trees – lemon tea trees etc too close to the house, and they have apprently caused the cracks with their invasive roots in search of water.
We’re reluctant to get rid of them, but haven’t got much choice.
Went to see Revolutionary Road last night partly to escape the heat, and the place was packed.
I was lucky enough to be able to bring forward my flight to the Gold Coast and escape the worst of the weather in Melbourne yesterday. Flew with Tiger out of Terminal 4 at midday. The hundred metre walk along the tarmac and 10mins queuing on the air stairs were insane – couldn’t stop thinking of Total Recall. Arrived two hours later to a more than pleasant, easterly breezily, 29 degrees.
The other week in Melbourne though, we had some success in our uninsulated, un-air conditioned rental by placing up-turned mattresses in front of as many windows as possible.
Trip out to Ebor was pleasant, but was scorching hot on the way back. Had the car wiundow open all the way. Wouldn’t want to ba a hitch-hiker out on the raod today.
adrian wrote:
This might be ground shrinkage rather than specifically tree related. The old advice used to be turn the sprinkler on low and leave it until the clay expanded again, but most places don’t have enough water to do this any more.
We have discovered to our dismay that painting the house dark blue makes it hotter inside. This, of course, should not have been a surprise, but her indoors says it’ll be better in winter
“I’m surprised more people aren’t aware of the value of evaporative coolers.”
Me too, wilful, never hear them mentioned (although every store in Canberra sold out of them last week, as they flew out the doors of K-Mart and Target by the pallet-load).
Ducted evap coolers are those funny louvered boxes on rooftoops around Canberra. We have one (thankfully). They are significantly more effective than the portable evap units that mostly seem to make the room very humid and so then stop working. The inside of our house peaked at about 26 when it was 39 outside. They are great for getting the cool night air into the house too.
We have never noticed the electricity on our power bill, and I checked the water usage and in the hottest periods when it is on high flow it uses about 4L/hr. Sounds ok to me.
Chris wrote:
Make sure you get RFL (Reflective Foil Laminate) in the roof. Bulk insulation stops working as effectively once the ceiling space becomes extremely hot. RFL will stop the roof space from heating up.
I’ll second aidan’s recommendation of RFL, otherwise sold as sarking or sisalation.
Ideally, buy 1 or 2 BIG rolls of the heavy-duty stuff and wrap the entire exterior of your house, not just the roof, with it.
Something else you might consider that’s also fairly low cost – double up on plasterboard for just the interiors of exterior walls, or at least use thicker sheets for those walls. We actually used three layers on one particularly exposed wall of one room.
aidan and Nick – yes, we’re definitely having sarking installed as well, just forgot to mention it. Going with hebel power panel walls and insulation we should get around R3.0+ for the walls which is not as good as I want, but going higher seems to get quite a bit more expensive so it’ll have to do. Will have to find out more about reflective linings in the walls and see how feasible that is. As we’ve found out its one thing to want good environmental design, its another to find a builder who is affordable who has enough knowledge to do it.
Ideally, buy 1 or 2 BIG rolls of the heavy-duty stuff and wrap the entire exterior of your house, not just the roof, with it.
Wot – like Christo?
Wouldn’t you get sued by the neighbours if they got retinal damage from looking at your reflective silver wrinkled house?
Helen @ 60 – we’d like to get a plain shiny metal roof but apparently its very hard to get council approval for that these days. So we’re going for as light a colour as we’re allowed. Same goes for the exterior wall colour. Mirrors would be nice, but I’m sure the neighbours would complain
No, Helen
You face the blue side outwards (it’s there to prevent blinding glare during installation). So then you end up with an awesome blue wrinkled house that will always look delightfully uncompleted.
Nick @ 62 – Its more effective if you install it shiny side out/up. Getting a builder to do that can be difficult as it makes life harder for the workers (can be a bit blinding on a sunny day).
Just a word about hebel, white ants and mice go thru’ it with ease unless you use toxic prevention.
zorronsky – thanks for the warning I didn’t know that. I’ve had a previous place eaten away by white ants and certainly don’t want that to happen again! Mice won’t be a problem – we have cats
I had my corro roof repainted with what is meant to be an insulating paint [insulpaint - apparently it has a cellulose fibre added to the paint which prevents the roof from heating som much to begin with], this summer convinced me it works to some degree. But I have a barrel vault roof that is vented at both ends, to maximise airflow and vent the roof-space in the evenings. I think both things combined are quite effective.
This years task is to install some internal cross flow ventilation as well, louvre windows in the main living space. Also, I am renovating the kitchen and have gone with an induction cooktop, to replace one of those horrible solid electric stoves that would hang on to the heat for ages after being turned off, I’m also installing closeable vents above the fridge to move the warm air into the roof to vent, hopefully making it more efficient.
oh and my neighbours painted their roof white and I cant wait for my trees to grow so I am spared the reflection. Interestingly the guy that did my roof said that when they did the roof-space testing of their paints, the soft green yileded the lowest temps…lower than white. My roof is soft grey, and that is nearly as good.
NO!
Definitely not for the roof. The RFL becomes much less effective if it gets dusty or dirty. If you install it shiny side up, this is guaranteed to happen. Shiny side down pointing into the roof space is the recommended method of installation.
Bung “heat reflective paint” into google. There are some interesting products out there. I don’t know if they would make much difference if you already plan to have RFL in the roof.
Agreed.
The ‘non-shiny’ side also has important non-oxidisation properties.
Not to mention, you’ve just reversed where the manufacturer tested and determined was the best place for the fire-retardation layer, which isn’t a call I’d be prepared to make on the strength of some semi-misguided forum myths re. ‘cooler in summer’ vs ‘warmer in winter’.
aidan @ 67 – I know someone who has looked quite deeply into this – he had a long argument with his builder and had to bring some insulation experts in to convince them to change. Its they way they’ve always done but its not optimal.
Nick @ 68 – the way to avoid the argument is to just buy the versions which are shiny on both sides.