Before air conditioning: How did we ever keep our homes cool in the sweltering heat?
Image courtesy of Pexels, Dương Nhân
Once upon a time, let’s call it BAC (before air conditioning), we kept our homes cool in the summer without electricity. Even in the desert. Nowadays we can’t imagine life without air conditioning. Despite its electricity bills and links to poor health and, ironically, to global warming. From Indian skywells to Middle Eastern windcatchers: Can we learn from ancient methods of passive cooling?
Imagine entering through the door of a home in the desert. As you duck a little, the extreme heat of summer is around you. But, it is cool inside. So, you think it is air conditioned. But it is not. For centuries, cultures around the world have used passive cooling in their homes. Unlike air conditioning, passive cooling forms do not need electricity, technology or chemicals. They do not cost as much (or anything) to buy or maintain, there are no electricity bills. There is nothing to link them to anything nasty. We know passive cooling as a way that uses what is already there. No strings attached. For example, by making clever use of a free and sustainable breeze. Or through the special architecture of a building.
Cool, man
But it is a stark contrast to most homes of today’s West. Because, let’s face it, air conditioning is part of our world of today. It’s simple, it works. All we have to do is touch a button. And book someone to swing by for a regular checkup. And in today’s extreme hot summer climate, who can imagine being without it? But, there are reported drawbacks about our health, and that of the planet. Such reports talk about the effect of AC cooling chemicals on levels of CO2. They call them extremely hazardous to the climate, or a nightmare for the climate, and they urge for alternatives.”
Loops and blind spots
We now know that air conditioning is making the world hotter. And that we need more air conditioning to sort that out. This so-called feedback loop is an issue raised by for instance Dr. Radhika Khosla of the Oxford University India Centre for Sustainable Development on the World Economic Forum site. International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol calls the growing demand for air conditioners “one of the most critical blind spots in today’s energy debate.” The IEA Future of Cooling report too warns that global use of air conditioners and electric fans use a lot of electricity. We are making the world hotter and more unstable. So now, all over the world people are looking for sustainable cooling alternatives.
Global warming: A new cooling reality?
Some say that air conditioning (and central heating) exist to compensate for shortcomings in the way we build our homes. So new ways of thinking can be about the way we build our homes and cities in the future. Take the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), a special scheme in one of the historically hotter parts of the world. “It includes better city planning and building design. It will also embrace novel coolants,” said Stephen Andersen of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, about it. Dr. Radhika Khosla too has co-created a framework to help initiatives on their way with such novel cooling solutions.
Passive cooling, not global warming
Then there is passive cooling. There is a place in Morocco, where scientists compared the indoor temperature of clay-straw buildings to that of more modern concrete villas. They discovered passive cooling was making it 5°C cooler. They also discovered a reduction in energy demand by 65%, and a decrease in the number of hot, uncomfortable hours by 25%.
Such data shows us that there are things we can do ourselves. Starting with the way we build our homes to support natural, passive cooling. So we don’t even have to press a button. Like we used to. We can incorporate all kinds of archways and high ceilings to help create cross ventilation. Our homes can include porches, and trees on the east and west side of homes for shade. We can use wood, or cross-layered timber, with a thick structure all around. All to keep our home cool in the summer, and also warm in the winter.
The land of make belief
Granted, this is all hard to imagine on a day when heat surrounds us. When our house has already been built a certain way. When we are so used to air conditioning. But, shifting our perspective for a moment, experts such as Energy Digital Magazine are here to remind us of something. “Before the days of air conditioning, refrigerators and electrically powered fans, passive cooling techniques were used in architecture as salvation from the summer’s sun,” they said. Adding that today, such ancient cooling designs are starting to become popular for their insights they can give us.
“Before the days of air conditioning, refrigerators and electrically powered fans, passive cooling techniques were used in architecture as salvation from the summer’s sun.”
Keeping cool or fighting heat: A shift in perspective
Over in China, green roofs have helped reduce average land surface temperature by 0.91 °C, Dr Radhika Khosla pointed out when talking to us. And according to the creators of her own framework, there are things city developers can do too. They can incorporate passive embedded urban solutions, such as greening cities through street trees, green façades and green roofs. Dr Khosla also told us: “A shift in perspective comes from recognising that we have many ways to stay cool and achieve thermal comfort. Ways that don’t require air conditioning.” She added: “Such passive solutions, including shading and ventilation, have been available to us for generations. They allow for a much more sustainable cooling, energy and climate future.”
“A shift in perspective comes from recognising that we have many ways to staying cool and achieving thermal comfort.”
Passive cooling around the world
How did buildings keep cool in the heat of the day before the invention of air conditioning? People are asking this question more often today.
Stepwells: a thousand steps
First, we could head over to India. It is known for its traditional stepwells. These structures were designed in protection of (desert) heat, but also used for crop irrigation. In times of drought, these structures were an integrated feature in a building. With a cooling pool of water at its base, encased by a tall set of steps, stepwells provided areas where people could swim, bathe and engage in religious rituals. Lavishly ornamented, sometimes they were surrounded by thousands of symmetrical, narrow steps.
They say one of the first Indian stepwells was developed around 1,500 years ago. But even today, ancient stepwells are keeping some buildings cool. One of Rajasthan’s most ancient architectural buildings for instance, where such a structure in the Pearl Academy of Fashion is said to keep indoor temperature 20 degrees cooler than out.
Windcatchers
For centuries, people in hot areas such as Iran, Egypt, India and Africa have used windcatchers and their use of natural airflow. Over in Australia they are being referred to as windtowers. In Sydney they are found to be particularly effective. There are many different designs, some incorporate a tower or chimney inside someone’s home. We also know windcatchers as icons of Iranian culture. In fact, one of Iran’s major cities, Yazd, is called the City of Windcatchers. People had to create them long before air conditioning, and it took creative thinking in a world before electricity.
Skywells
Over in China, there are reports how people are constructing more buildings according to traditional skywells designs today. How they are keeping Chinese homes cool in today’s heat. ‘The ancients have much to tell us,’ writes one news network about such tall, narrow courtyards found in China. Scientists are looking into how downdraught cooling such as skywells can be used for today’s alternative solutions.
Perforated building facades
Perforated exteriors of buildings, also known as breathing walls or ventilated facades, too make use of passive cooling. You can find them around Mediterranean regions and Asia, as well as the Middle East and North Africa. Such structures allow people to control airflow and create an optimal indoor air quality. They can leave humidity and pollutants outside.
Bamboo cooling
Developers are also creating newer passive cooling methods today. Such as an urban cooling bamboo system, which uses hot air, water and bamboo. Experts say this system can be useful even in the toughest of heat waves.
Other cooling systems
There are also other reports about substitutes to air conditioning. Take swamp coolers which can be used in dry climates. Then there is geothermal cooling, described as renewable energy systems that “move heat from a building to below the earth’s surface, using the ground like a heatsink.” Plus, residents are using radiant cooling systems in North America, which circulate chilled water at the ceiling of a building.
Every little bit? Keeping it cool ourselves
Making our own cooling system with plastic bottles, or by placing ice in front of a fan.
Getting a ceiling fan that spins counterclockwise.
Placing fans in ways that together they create an air stream or cross breeze.
Making use of kitchen or bathroom extractor fans to help carry out some hot air.
Opening windows from the time it gets cooler outside than in. But keeping curtains closed from morning until it gets hotter outside to keep cooler air in.
Blinds, shades, cloth or shutters on the outside of the window can help block heat before it reaches your home.
Getting special, heat blocking or reflective, lined curtains.
Using cotton sheets at night.
Put your socks in the fridge for a bit before you wear them!
Placing wet curtains in front of open windows.
Creating shaded areas outside, with more shutters, trees and tall plants and shrubs.
Refraining from cooking and using lights during the day.
Greening our roofs and buildings.
Getting indoor cooling plants that release moisture from their leaves as temperature rises. Take ficus, aloe vera, snake plant or bamboo palm.
Discover more from PERSPECTIVE LIVING MAGAZINE
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.