If you live in a climate that needs air conditioning to be comfortable most of the year, your roof and walls should be as white as possible. I have seen black shingles on new construction in Texas…
I mean, i wouldnt call this unimportant or inconsequential. This is legitimate fact.
Houses should also be built with concrete or masonry walls. You don’t even have to see it, you can totally hide it and make it look like a normal wood frame house, but that will provide more strength and protection during disaster, and more protection from thermal extremes outside.
I don’t know that I believe concrete walls is going to help protect from “thermal extremes”. My work building has concrete exterior walls and they are frigid in winter and boiling in the summer. I’m sure there may be ways to do it better, but solid concrete is not very insulative from my experiences. Also brick walls aren’t super strong against side to side forces so they do pretty badly in earthquakes and high wind situations like hurricanes or tornadoes. They could be reinforced, but at a point you are framing a house in steel and just using bricks to cover it up - what’s the point of the bricks?
I live in an old brick house with lath and plaster walls. It also was built before air conditioning was a thing.
It does amazingly well in summer. Cool downstairs on all but the absolute hottest days.
Definitely not earthquake proof. If there’s ever an earthquake they should just put a couple tombstones on top of the pile of rubble and leave it be, because there’s no way my wife and I will survive. Not worth someone risking tetanus trying to dig us out.
However, we’re also on the East Coast of the U.S. As I understand it, earthquakes here are on a kind of millennial cycle with lots of time to build up to an apocalyptic level of destruction, so if it happens to be time for one of those, it probably doesn’t matter what I’m living in.
Thermal mass is only going to be good if you live somewhere that is hot during the day and cold at night, because all of the heat still transfers inside because concrete is a terrible insulator. If it stays hot overnight, you’re in an oven that gets hotter every day until summer ends.
That’s why wood rules in cold climates. Traditionally, your (wood-fired) stove sits in the middle, holding your house’s thermal mass, and the walls are light and insulating so it doesn’t take forever to warm up the house.
I mean, i wouldnt call this unimportant or inconsequential. This is legitimate fact.
Houses should also be built with concrete or masonry walls. You don’t even have to see it, you can totally hide it and make it look like a normal wood frame house, but that will provide more strength and protection during disaster, and more protection from thermal extremes outside.
You should look at rammed earth building. It’s extremely niche and not practical with modern construction, but it is amazing at thermal regulation.
I don’t know that I believe concrete walls is going to help protect from “thermal extremes”. My work building has concrete exterior walls and they are frigid in winter and boiling in the summer. I’m sure there may be ways to do it better, but solid concrete is not very insulative from my experiences. Also brick walls aren’t super strong against side to side forces so they do pretty badly in earthquakes and high wind situations like hurricanes or tornadoes. They could be reinforced, but at a point you are framing a house in steel and just using bricks to cover it up - what’s the point of the bricks?
I live in an old brick house with lath and plaster walls. It also was built before air conditioning was a thing.
It does amazingly well in summer. Cool downstairs on all but the absolute hottest days.
Definitely not earthquake proof. If there’s ever an earthquake they should just put a couple tombstones on top of the pile of rubble and leave it be, because there’s no way my wife and I will survive. Not worth someone risking tetanus trying to dig us out.
However, we’re also on the East Coast of the U.S. As I understand it, earthquakes here are on a kind of millennial cycle with lots of time to build up to an apocalyptic level of destruction, so if it happens to be time for one of those, it probably doesn’t matter what I’m living in.
Thermal mass, dude.
It slows thermal creep and helps stabilize internal temperatures.
Thermal mass is only going to be good if you live somewhere that is hot during the day and cold at night, because all of the heat still transfers inside because concrete is a terrible insulator. If it stays hot overnight, you’re in an oven that gets hotter every day until summer ends.
No thanks.
That’s why wood rules in cold climates. Traditionally, your (wood-fired) stove sits in the middle, holding your house’s thermal mass, and the walls are light and insulating so it doesn’t take forever to warm up the house.