The French are painting their windows with chalk to beat the heat | Hacker News Reader

The French are painting their windows with chalk to beat the heat

bbc.com

22 pointsgeox15 comments

An acquaintance in London painted his windows with Yogurt. Based on this advice https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/paint-your-windows-...

He said that it helped.

I would put mylar sheets on my windows instead, although the best is of course to have shutters The traditional shutters from south east France are great to block the sun but still allow light https://volets-thiebaut.com/modules/boixmultiblocs/images/7a...

You can also get UV/IR-reflective coatings on your windows, either in the glass when they're installed or as aftermarket foils on existing ones. We have them on all of our sun-side-facing windows and they do a great job. They also provide privacy if you use the heavier-duty commercial-grade ones, which look like a mirror from the outside.

emergency blankets works great and are cheap too

however, you get even better cooling with a coating that radiates the heat, it cools below the air temperature which feels so wrong

NighthawkInLight on YouTube has explored this and created recipes, the results still feel impossible to my intuition

radiative sky paint

https://hackaday.com/2023/07/03/cooling-paint-you-can-actual...

Using CaCO3 which is calcium carbonate, like the article.

This science-lecturer-esque guy is using Barium Sulfate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNs_kNilSjk

It’s supposed to be yogurt.

Anything But A Heat Pump™

Have you been to Paris? Go on google earth and poke around. Theres no place to put the condenser. Most people rent so even if there was they can’t drill holes for the lines and even if they could, most buildings are historic so they can’t. Central AC/heatpumps on some rooftops could work.

Window units can be added to basically any existing home. And like you said roofs are an option. France could afford AC with their relatively cheap power but it’s just culturally and politically unpopular despite heat related deaths being extremely high and loss productivity it’s certainly more than the cost to retrofit.

Paris would need significant infrastructure work across the distribution system to handle AC at NYC’s rate of 90% on summer heat wave days.

If you live in a historical rental flat you often can't install AC.

Also we do tend to consider the environment here. All the heat kept out doesn't have to be pumped.

People have no issues heating their house during colder months, but cooling them during warmer months... No they can't do that, that's bad for the environment. Both require energy to change the temperature a certain number of degrees, they're not any different.

You can do both

It's not either-or

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