great site! loving it already (8
needless to say since this an intro thread...another newbie here.
i live in arizona (the hot part) so this is our low-energy time of year. i have spent all winter trying to do more to reduce our outrageous summer electric bills. up until about a year ago i focused mainly on the house itself. my new focus is the yard. i've planted trees, cacti, and shrubs all winter hoping for some relief this coming summer. it took a long time to get the soil modified enough to be fit for planting. i ended up here searching to see if a goofy idea i had has been tried before. got sidetracked because i'm loving the site...hoping to figure out how to best keep the inside at least 40 degrees cooler than the outside. |
Hello, welcome to ER:)
Before you started planting, what improvements did you do to the house? And what is your goofy idea? |
Welcome to the site.
Do tell of your ideas and things you done recently. We love to hear about that stuff. :) |
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before planting: -replaced downstairs carpet with tile, although that was probably more about the disaster of five kids in a dining room with carpet. -bought curtains and lined them with two additional layers...the middle layer being pieced together from whatever i could find. all of them have one thick layer and two thin -put cheap and ugly window shades between blinds and windows -made exterior sun shades from a recycled sun canopy -the usual caulk maintenance routine -fashioned assorted temporary shades for air conditioner (it's not really big enough for the house--it died on us several times the first two summers), including sunflower walls to provide some afternoon shade for it. now i have an arbor there and need to figure out what will grow on it in summer heat. we only use the unit about six hours a day unless i can't keep up. -climbed into both attics and stapled up an assortment of dollar store car shades, 1/2 roll of recycled mylar, aluminum foil...on the west facing side of the upstairs attic i used the insulated reflective rolls. -added insulation to attic over garage -put in foam sections on garage door -where practical, added a back to shelves in garage. -assorted windows have mylar--we have on hoa so this is tricky. we do it anyway in the back hoping they can't see it through the exterior sun shades. goofy idea is not entirely well-developed-- i want to construct some sort of wall a few feet from the house. i'm considering making it the back of a raised bed and attaching a trellis. however, i want the back of it to have a couple of shelves to house my two bins of gardening tools without being attractive to black widows. what i really want is based on the shade system used by the metro phoenix light rail system-a durable living screen with attached raised bed. they use bouganvillas--i would prefer grapes. |
Sounds like you've been busy! :)
Interesting idea with the raised bed. Although, I am a bit unsure of what you are talking about with the storage bins. |
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