I remember in elementary school during heat waves the teacher would turn off the lights and turn on the fans. It was rare for anybody to have AC back then. In the 90’s when my place was built they slapped an AC unit on the roof and declared it a luxury development. The patio doors and windows didn’t impress me as they were cheap single pane glass.
My cooling project began after I first moved in and found when I got home at 5pm during the summer my living room felt like a furnace. Seems the last half of the day the sun shines into the living room and super heats it. I did research and replacing the single pane glass with dual pane low-E glass would reduce the heat by more than half. It was still hot though. Next I tried a 6 ft round umbrella from Pier One imports. This reduced the heat more. The fabric was low quality and holes appeared after a few years being out in the sun. Next I tried a 6X10ft umbrella from Costco with Sunbrella fabric. This cooled down my living room more. I liked the Costco umbrella alot and bought a 2nd one to cool my living room more. This worked well for about 5 years until the crank on the umbrella broke.
Around that same time I started working from home and I was more concerned about staying cool without AC. I did research and found the biggest umbrella that would fit on my patio. Patio Productions had a 8X10 umbrella that did the trick. Also I was looking for the longest bottom pole available so the umbrella would be higher than my patio walls so instead of trapping heat now heat could vent from my patio. They had a 45″ bottom pole that worked with a little help from some wood from Lowe’s. This made my living room cooler.
During heat waves it still got over 80F in my living room. Originally my living room was blistering hot due to direct sunlight. Now the sun was heating up the umbrellas and the area under the umbrellas. Some of this heat eventually got into my living room.
I decided to shield my patio from heating up with car sunshields. The folding ones were fairly thick and did a good job deflecting heat. It was hard keeping them in place. I found the thin flat car sunshields combined with clips were good at holding the folding sunshields in place under the umbrella. This triple layer does a good job keeping the area under the umbrella from heating up.
At night I leave the patio door open then in the morning when it starts to heat up I close the patio door and keep that cool night air inside. I have also replaced most of the light bulbs in the house with LED bulbs that only use a small amount of electricity. It rarely gets up to 80F in my living room now. Next time I need an umbrella I wouldn’t get a white one as bird poop and other stains are more noticeable than on the tan umbrella.
This summer I noticed a hot spot in the center of my umbrella where I can’t put sunshields due to the center pole. I ordered an outdoor sunshield to lay on top of the umbrella. This didn’t work as the sunshield would not stay in place.
I bought a second sunshield and clipped it to the first one which made the new double length sunshield long enough to traverse the entire umbrella allowing me to clip it to the umbrella.
I was also thinking of adding more wood to the bottom of the umbrellas to raise the height and allow for more ventilation.
So far my patio umbrella with the Sunbrella fabric from Patio Productions has been doing a great job. I would shop there again as they have a huge selection unavailable at places like Home Depot and a helpful staff.
During the winter I remove the umbrella shading my living room. Letting the sun in during the day heats up my living room and the dual pane low-E glass keeps the cold from getting in at night. Thus I don’t need to use the heater.
You can see my previous posts on my cooling project:
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Bear and I appreciate your sun shielding as we are cooler out on the patio during the day! The plants are happy too!
That’s great you are happy out there!
Quite a journey! Thankfully it’s been a little cooler thus far this year (I think) but then again our hot months are normally September and October. Hopefully all of your hard work will continue to keep you guys cool!
It’s a never ending process of constant improvement. I’d glad it’s been cooler this year. I’m still finding hot spots in my shielding and finding ways to eliminate them. Putting a sunshield on top of the umbrella was tricky as is keeping it on the correct spot.