While all of these might offer some cooling in your home, nothing beats air conditioning.
I actually don't have a picture from outside, as it was a bit warm at the time I was taking the picture! It was meant to be a version 1 and immediately replaced with a pvc frame and a pair of hooks to install it without a step ladder in the morning, but it turned out to be pretty robust so far, and I ended up leaving it up for several days during extended heatwaves.
FWIW, it isn't either/or - we practice keeping the shades, curtains, and windows drawn when it is hot, open when it is cool.... and we have air conditioning. Best of both worlds.
I’m in central Texas and it isn’t uncommon for rooftop solar to generate enough power to cover central a/c. Peak sun and peak a/c happen at the same time.
Yes, it's best to keep the heat out. Good insulation helps, but no insulation is perfect and eventually (thanks to the second law of thermodynamics) some will get in.
One thing I'll never understand is not having shutters, only curtains. I live in France, almost everyone has shutters. But in other countries it's often different. I lived in Thailand for a couple of years and had only curtains, so the sun would still get past the window pane, heat the curtain, and the AC would then have take this heat outside again. This seemed massively inefficient.
I thing the best compromise is using whatever traditional, passive means of cooling we can, and then AC as needed.
Maybe electrical energy is massively subsidized or just cheap in general. Installing shutters can be a large up-front investment, especially when installed by somebody else. It may take many years of burning energy with an AC to earn that back.
Also maybe the home isn't even yours, but you are renting. The owner doesn't care about your energy bill.
A cursory web search tells me shutters can influence the DPE ("diagnostic de performance énergétique".) A bad rating means you can't rent your property.
From a quick search, older versions of the DPE ignored shutters, modern ones take them in account and their effect ranges from neutral to positive depending on details (materials, insulation, fit). It’s not entirely clear if both high seasons are considered (insulation and fit I’d think a lot less critical in summer).
There’s definitely a cultural or historical component. In my experience shutters are extremely common, near universal, in southern Europe but much less so in northern. Which is a shame because a modern PVC roller shutter, well installed and with insulated slats, also does wonders in winter.
https://immobilier.lefigaro.fr/article/seulement-54-de-logem...
> By what measurement? […]
The measure of the air's temperature.
It does not matter if you have shutters: if the air outside is 30C then eventually the air inside will eventually get to 30C (good insulation will simply mean it takes longer).
If your outside is >30C then the only way to keep your inside <30C is to transfer the heat (which an AC does via an evaporator, refrigerant, and a condensor).
Instead of adding a 2nd condensing unit, try adding spray foam and double glazed windows. I can keep my 2400 sqft Texas home ice cold with a small 3 ton system. There are similarly sized homes right down the street from me with 5+ tons of capacity across multiple condensing units.
The biggest problem with oversized cooling systems is latent heat removal. It's much better to have a slightly undersized system running constantly through the hottest part of the day than it is to have a very powerful system running with 50% duty cycle. It's also significantly better for system life (capacitors last much longer this way). During summer months, my hvac system cycles maybe one time between the hours of 10am and 10pm.
Can you name one? That isn't the same argument as against all needless waste?
What I'm seeing is we can't even talk about shutter designs without talking about AC instead. Using AC may not harm society, but some people knowing about it kinda does.
Never mind that these same people would go absolutely out of their minds if you suggested tearing down and remodeling most cities, which are basically radiators at night since there's concrete everywhere.
So instead of trying to somehow mitigate the issue of "AC heating the outside air", by, for example, installing the outside units on top of the buildings, so most heat wouldn't be at street level where people walk around, many people who can't breathe in their apartments just use portable ACs which dump the heat right outside their windows. Bonus points for these being very unefficient, so now electricity consumption is even higher.
In the specific case of France, they also tend to forget that most of our electricity is essentially carbon-free.
Which is not great because it's wasteful, so you're making the same "moralistic argument". Unless your point is just that it's hypocritical, of course.
Part of the moralistic argument against planned AC rollout is electricity consumption. But not doing it is actually generating more consumption in practice.
We are also (rightly) suspicious of people attempting to remove or restrict some personally favored appliance or tool. Often the early stages of this process appear as social media influence campaigns about how the thing in question is unnecessary or harmful. (I don’t think AC is at risk of being restricted here, but I can see why others might be overly protective.)
Many northern areas of the US still have buildings without AC, mostly older buildings.
Don't know about "Europe", but here in France this is the main reason. Even if you live in an apartment you own, you have to fight multiple bureaucracies (city / HOA) to be allowed to install a split AC. Detached houses tend to fare better, but, even there, you should make sure you don't step over some arcane permit-requiring line.
The result is people adapt how they can, usually buying portable ACs that have terrible efficiency, so the whole "AC's are bad 'cause they consume a lot of electricity" consideration goes out the window. See how these are sold-out everywhere and people are fighting over the units when available.
Bonus points for not being able to run it at night if your windows aren't at a certain height above street level, because no one in their right mind would sleep with a street-level window open.