WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:02.091 You ever reach way back into your brain 00:00:02.091 --> 00:00:09.071 and uncover something from the not-too-distant past that seems weirdly obvious yet isn’t popular anymore? 00:00:09.071 --> 00:00:12.391 That’s right, I’m talking about window awnings! 00:00:12.391 --> 00:00:18.069 You used to see these everywhere, especially on those cute brick ranches kitty corner to the house where you grew up - 00:00:18.069 --> 00:00:20.397 I’m sure that’s a universal experience. 00:00:20.397 --> 00:00:22.717 But lately, they’ve fallen out of fashion. 00:00:22.717 --> 00:00:25.870 And I would like to make the case that we should get them back. 00:00:25.870 --> 00:00:32.928 Quick programming note, I’m not gonna be  recommending any specific kind of awning or product line or anything like that. 00:00:32.928 --> 00:00:35.053 I am not here to sell you anything 00:00:35.053 --> 00:00:36.758 ...YouTube ads notwithstanding... 00:00:36.758 --> 00:00:39.339 though I do like spreading ideas. 00:00:39.339 --> 00:00:47.168 And awnings are one of those ideas that our ancestors figured out but as far as I can tell we just decided we’re too cool for these days. 00:00:47.168 --> 00:00:50.628 Which is ironic because window awnings keep you cool. 00:00:50.628 --> 00:00:54.547 That’s their point! Or at least, a central point. 00:00:54.547 --> 00:00:56.444 See, we like windows. 00:00:56.444 --> 00:01:01.427 [WIndows XP error sound] Maybe not that kind, but that kind is pretty universally liked. 00:01:01.427 --> 00:01:05.833 They let in natural light and allow us to look outside and see things. 00:01:05.833 --> 00:01:12.910 But windows are also great big holes in walls which we only plugged with thin sheets of glass. 00:01:12.910 --> 00:01:18.481 While they have gotten surprisingly good over the years at keeping heat energy from moving through them, 00:01:18.481 --> 00:01:22.631 they’re still nowhere near as good as the thick walls which surround them. 00:01:22.631 --> 00:01:25.068 And, here’s the important bit to this video, 00:01:25.160 --> 00:01:30.096 they become a major source of heat gain when the sun shines through them. 00:01:30.096 --> 00:01:32.148 Ever heard of the greenhouse effect? 00:01:32.148 --> 00:01:40.719 That doesn’t just happen in greenhouses, it happens any time the sun’s energy makes it through a transparent window and into an enclosed space. 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:42.418 Like your house. 00:01:42.418 --> 00:01:48.614 Once sunlight makes its way into your home,  it lands on the stuff inside like flooring, furniture, et cetera. 00:01:48.614 --> 00:01:55.675 That stuff absorbs the sun’s light energy which is then re-radiated into your home as heat energy. 00:01:55.675 --> 00:02:01.583 This heat gain from solar irradiance, in the context of buildings, is called insolation. 00:02:01.583 --> 00:02:05.420 Not insulation - but insolation. 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:07.585 Don’t look at me, I just work here. 00:02:07.585 --> 00:02:14.666 Thanks to recent innovations in coatings on the glass, a lot of this energy is reflected away and kept out of your home. 00:02:14.666 --> 00:02:24.447 But, fun fact, the sun is extremely powerful so even with really fancy windows there’s a lot of energy getting inside that ultimately becomes heat. 00:02:24.447 --> 00:02:27.450 Don’t take my word for it, just ask a cat. 00:02:27.450 --> 00:02:30.917 In the winter months this warmth can be a pretty nice benefit, 00:02:30.917 --> 00:02:34.319 but in the summer months - it sucks. 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:36.619 And our ancestors knew this. 00:02:36.619 --> 00:02:42.179 They figured out that if you designed a structure so that the windows couldn’t be in direct sunlight, 00:02:42.179 --> 00:02:48.592 then there would be no greenhouse effect and the interior of that structure would stay much cooler. 00:02:48.592 --> 00:02:55.890 Those grand covered porches you see on fancy old houses throughout much of the Southern US weren’t just for enjoying the breeze, 00:02:55.890 --> 00:02:58.950 they kept the windows entirely shaded. 00:02:58.950 --> 00:03:02.462 In fact they kept pretty much the entire structure shaded. 00:03:02.462 --> 00:03:09.545 And it wasn’t just plantation houses - the galleries attached to historic French Quarter buildings also help keep the buildings cool. 00:03:09.545 --> 00:03:17.251 Notice how the building is in direct sunlight here but almost the entire  structure (other than the roof) is in shade. 00:03:17.251 --> 00:03:19.975 Of course, those examples have multiple purposes. 00:03:19.975 --> 00:03:25.096 I can’t earnestly say that shading windows was “the point” of a covered porch. 00:03:25.096 --> 00:03:32.517 It also created a pleasant outdoor space and protected windows and doors from the elements, allowing you to leave them open in a rainstorm. 00:03:32.517 --> 00:03:35.857 But we did recognize the value of that coverage. 00:03:35.857 --> 00:03:38.297 So much so that in the not-too-distant past, 00:03:38.297 --> 00:03:48.266 there were popular products for your home which provided the shade and cover of an opulent wraparound porch but with minimal materials and easy installation. 00:03:48.266 --> 00:03:50.267 What products, you ask? 00:03:50.267 --> 00:03:51.447 Awnings! 00:03:51.447 --> 00:03:54.947 It appears these really came into vogue in the 1920’s. 00:03:54.947 --> 00:04:00.077 This 1927 article in Building Age and National Builder comes out swinging: 00:04:00.077 --> 00:04:05.467 “A Beautiful home which is devoid of awnings resembles a well dressed man without a necktie. 00:04:05.467 --> 00:04:10.701 The awnings give that finishing touch, just the last point to complete the proper taste.” 00:04:10.701 --> 00:04:13.494 Seems like the author really likes awnings! 00:04:13.494 --> 00:04:15.068 But why? 00:04:15.068 --> 00:04:17.351 It’s all about keeping comfortable! 00:04:17.351 --> 00:04:22.325 “An awning on the porch permits the use of the porch when the hot afternoon sun is shining. 00:04:22.325 --> 00:04:28.724 They will keep the porch shady and pleasant, and this also reduces the temperature of the rooms adjoining the porch.” 00:04:28.724 --> 00:04:30.374 And here’s my favorite part: 00:04:30.374 --> 00:04:37.978 “The fact that the awning excludes the sun from the window glass is quite an important asset in reducing the temperature of the room, 00:04:37.978 --> 00:04:41.329 and in preventing the fading of wall paper and carpet.” 00:04:41.329 --> 00:04:44.025 Sure seems like awnings are the cat’s meow! 00:04:44.025 --> 00:04:48.578 In 1925, Hal and Helen Davis wrote in Better Homes and Gardens 00:04:48.578 --> 00:04:57.587 “Awnings - they have such possibilities, such delightful possibilities, that foolish indeed is a house to go without them, if they can be afforded.” 00:04:57.587 --> 00:05:01.540 That’s right, we just got called fools by the Davis family! 00:05:01.540 --> 00:05:05.732 Honestly this article is a useful tool for understanding how they were spreading. 00:05:05.732 --> 00:05:12.350 It even breaks down the differences in awning configurations by locale and the pros and cons of various types. 00:05:12.350 --> 00:05:14.551 This used to be a big deal! 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:16.779 And they were a selling point for your home - 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:19.517 real estate firms are beginning to learn the value! 00:05:19.517 --> 00:05:21.887 Plus they’re just a fun accent piece. 00:05:21.887 --> 00:05:28.110 I mean, who wouldn’t want to flaunt their unusually picturesque nature with a cool set of Arabian Awnings? 00:05:28.110 --> 00:05:29.640 The spears really sell it. 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:35.012 But hundred year old magazine articles are one thing and the real world is another. 00:05:35.012 --> 00:05:37.431 How big were awnings really? 00:05:37.431 --> 00:05:42.879 Well, if you dingle around on the ol’ Streetview and visit practically any old Chicago neighborhood, 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:52.006 you’ll find plenty of houses which still have exterior window awnings providing that overhang for shade, especially on South and West-facing windows. 00:05:52.345 --> 00:05:55.112 You can see in this image how effective they are: 00:05:55.112 --> 00:06:02.161 this side of the house is being hit with direct sunlight, but the awning is almost entirely shading the window below it. 00:06:02.161 --> 00:06:07.278 Thanks to that awning, the old front room is staying much cooler than it would without it. 00:06:07.278 --> 00:06:15.044 Many of these products also allowed you to leave windows open in the rain - at least if they were installed correctly and you had the right kind of window. 00:06:15.044 --> 00:06:17.383 They offered a lot of benefits! 00:06:17.383 --> 00:06:21.009 Yet despite remaining extant in various styles, 00:06:21.009 --> 00:06:27.746 the functional purpose of window awnings seems to have almost entirely left the public consciousness. 00:06:27.746 --> 00:06:29.430 Why’d this happen? 00:06:29.430 --> 00:06:34.441 I’m gonna say it’s a mix of two factors: air conditioning and fashion. 00:06:34.441 --> 00:06:41.750 The advent of mechanical air conditioning diminished the importance of the passive tricks we used to rely on to keep cool. 00:06:41.750 --> 00:06:46.901 As more and more people started hooking up energy-consuming air conditioners to the power grid 00:06:46.901 --> 00:06:51.097 (boy I hope it can keep up with all that… sorry wrong topic). 00:06:51.097 --> 00:06:57.042 As more and more people got air conditioning, suddenly the temperature in their home was controllable. 00:06:57.042 --> 00:07:03.058 And so long as those air conditioners were powerful enough to overcome the heat gain of solar irradiance, 00:07:03.058 --> 00:07:09.652 the awnings that previously helped keep us cool in a heatwave didn’t seem necessary any longer. 00:07:09.652 --> 00:07:12.090 And, technically, they weren’t. 00:07:12.090 --> 00:07:17.061 So, fast forward a decade or two, and new homes are getting built without them. 00:07:17.061 --> 00:07:20.990 No need for awnings when we can pump the heat right out! 00:07:20.990 --> 00:07:25.806 That meant that all the older homes with awnings started to look dated. 00:07:25.806 --> 00:07:30.261 And if there’s one sin in the fashion world, it’s looking dated. 00:07:30.261 --> 00:07:33.141 As you can tell I take this very seriously. 00:07:33.141 --> 00:07:39.475 Beyond fashion, though, awnings on a home may very well have been a sign that the home didn’t have air conditioning, 00:07:39.475 --> 00:07:45.115 and I’ll bet many a realtor in the 1960’s suggested taking them down. 00:07:45.115 --> 00:07:51.188 "No one wants a house with awnings," they’d say, "those are for old fuddy duddies. And poor people." 00:07:51.188 --> 00:07:56.670 And now, other than that one infomercial, awnings are largely forgotten. 00:07:56.670 --> 00:08:00.359 But dang it, I think it’s time for us  to consider bringing them back. 00:08:00.359 --> 00:08:04.150 For one, I actually think window awnings are pretty cute. 00:08:04.150 --> 00:08:10.688 Maybe not the aluminum ones that you still run across sometimes, though hey - they sure proved their longevity. 00:08:10.688 --> 00:08:16.380 But there are so many different styles of awning out there, plus many more to be discovered. 00:08:16.380 --> 00:08:23.333 And like those 1920’s people, I think window awnings offer a real way to put a personal touch on a home. 00:08:23.333 --> 00:08:28.436 And what’s cooler than a way to express yourself that also literally keeps you cool? 00:08:28.436 --> 00:08:30.464 There’s a lot to like about them! 00:08:30.464 --> 00:08:36.079 Heat waves would be a lot more manageable with window awnings keeping the sun’s heat outside your home, 00:08:36.079 --> 00:08:39.879 and day to day they save money on electricity bills. 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:41.536 How much money? 00:08:41.536 --> 00:08:45.236 Well, unfortunately, that’s not the easiest thing to answer. 00:08:45.236 --> 00:08:52.551 It's annoyingly hard to get an idea of how much heat energy is actually coming through a window when the sun shines through it. 00:08:52.551 --> 00:08:59.533 It depends on so many factors: your location on the planet, the direction the window faces, the time of the year, time of day, 00:08:59.533 --> 00:09:04.576 and of course the performance of the window itself all matter a lot. 00:09:04.576 --> 00:09:14.401 Still, I wanted to give you some useful information so I reached out to someone who has access to modeling software which can predict the energy needs of a home. 00:09:14.401 --> 00:09:21.590 They took a typical house in Chicago and ran some numbers for heating and cooling demand while tweaking a few variables. 00:09:21.590 --> 00:09:26.963 There’s a lot of interesting stuff to cover here but what I want to highlight first is this: 00:09:26.963 --> 00:09:34.688 Doing nothing to the house but adding window overhangs reduced the annual cooling energy needed by 20%. 00:09:35.196 --> 00:09:37.144 That’s a big deal! 00:09:37.144 --> 00:09:40.618 But you’ll notice that other things had an impact, too. 00:09:40.618 --> 00:09:46.382 And if you notice even harder, you’ll see that those impacts were all double-edged. 00:09:46.382 --> 00:09:50.050 In the past, I’ve mentioned Low-E windows. 00:09:50.050 --> 00:09:57.813 That’s kind of a catch-all term and doesn’t mean a whole awful lot on its own, but broadly it just means high-performance windows. 00:09:57.813 --> 00:10:03.286 And one of a window’s performance metrics is the solar heat gain coefficient. 00:10:03.286 --> 00:10:08.890 You can think of this as the percentage of the sun’s heat energy that makes it through the glass. 00:10:08.890 --> 00:10:17.420 There are windows on the market now with exceptionally low SHGCs: some windows don’t even let a quarter of the sun’s energy through, 00:10:17.420 --> 00:10:23.083 and those are great to have in warm climates  where you rarely ever need to heat buildings. 00:10:23.083 --> 00:10:31.134 But they’re often not a great fit for us up North because over the course of a year we need more heat energy than we need cooling, 00:10:31.134 --> 00:10:35.480 and blocking the sun’s free heat doesn’t make much sense. 00:10:35.480 --> 00:10:37.254 Notice that in our modeling, 00:10:37.254 --> 00:10:42.085 swapping out just the South facing windows to a lower SHGC 00:10:42.085 --> 00:10:47.075 dropped cooling demand a pretty similar amount to adding overhangs. 00:10:47.075 --> 00:10:50.073 But look what it did to the heating demand. 00:10:50.073 --> 00:10:56.157 It went up significantly because those windows are actually working against us in the winter. 00:10:56.157 --> 00:11:01.443 Our winters suck and some free heat from the sun is a very welcome thing. 00:11:01.443 --> 00:11:07.012 So there’s a tradeoff to changing the window’s thermal performance characteristics. 00:11:07.012 --> 00:11:11.582 And have you noticed what the lowest total annual power figure came from? 00:11:11.582 --> 00:11:21.120 Windows with high solar heat gain coefficients for free heating in the winter but which had overhangs to block sunlight in the summer. 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:23.486 That’s the beauty of awnings. 00:11:23.486 --> 00:11:28.657 We don’t have to make the choice between winter and summer performance when buying a window. 00:11:28.657 --> 00:11:37.003 We could use a window best-suited for winter heat gains and then in the summer just block the sun from hitting it with an awning. 00:11:37.003 --> 00:11:43.424 The reason why I’m making this video now is that, well, it occurred to me that there isn’t really a difference 00:11:43.424 --> 00:11:50.778 between a properly-installed window awning and some of the rather advanced home design techniques we see today. 00:11:50.778 --> 00:11:58.230 Those with lots of money to spend when designing their new custom homes might get fancy and install different window types. 00:11:58.230 --> 00:12:07.153 One method I’ve talked about before is installing high heat-gain windows below an overhang so they provide that free heat in the winter but not in the summer. 00:12:07.153 --> 00:12:10.932 And then use low-heat-gain windows elsewhere in the house. 00:12:10.932 --> 00:12:15.895 That’s a cool idea but it’s a lot of work compared to slapping on an awning! 00:12:15.895 --> 00:12:22.686 And the best thing about slapping on an awning (besides how fun that is to say) is that it can be done cheaply and anywhere! 00:12:22.686 --> 00:12:26.052 Speaking of anywhere, here’s a clunky voiceover edit. 00:12:26.052 --> 00:12:32.560 I’m worried that I fixated too much on the scenario we face here and not enough on warm and hot climates. 00:12:32.560 --> 00:12:44.236 Because even if you’ve got the best dang windows on the market with an SHGC of .2, five average-sized West-facing windows (I’m calling 3 by 5 feet average) 00:12:44.236 --> 00:12:49.582 are going to let in more than a kilowatt of heat for several hours every afternoon. 00:12:49.582 --> 00:12:57.245 That’s not far off from running a space heater on high, and when it’s 100 degrees outside that’s not the smartest move. 00:12:57.245 --> 00:13:02.224 For giggles I decided to look at some new homes getting built around Phoenix, Arizona 00:13:02.224 --> 00:13:10.375 and it’s frankly astonishing to me that in that climate there’s apparently no focus paid on window overhangs. 00:13:10.375 --> 00:13:14.605 Sure, back in the day we didn’t have the fancy glass we do now, 00:13:14.605 --> 00:13:22.767 but if window awnings were popular here in Chicago, where it’s really only hot 4… maybe 5 months of the year, 00:13:22.767 --> 00:13:31.028 it seems to me like there’s a lot of energy and money being wasted by not thinking of ways to keep windows in the shade. 00:13:31.028 --> 00:13:33.621 Now, there's a couple of notes I want to add. 00:13:33.621 --> 00:13:41.613 Both myself and the person who helped me with the modeling here are a bit skeptical of some of the data it spat out. 00:13:41.613 --> 00:13:49.135 The impact of dark closed drapes when there’s already a 2.5 foot overhang seems really high, 00:13:49.135 --> 00:13:58.706 and the fact that those drapes by themselves are lowering cooling power more than the overhangs seems… impossible. 00:13:58.706 --> 00:14:04.413 Drapes on the inside of a window don’t stop sunlight from passing through the window glass. 00:14:04.413 --> 00:14:10.292 At best, if they’re very reflective, they can push some of the sun's energy back out 00:14:10.292 --> 00:14:20.080 but having stood next to a West-facing window with a white roller shade, I can say from experience that that shade gets pretty stinking hot on summer afternoons. 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:27.063 It is always better to keep the sun from coming through the glass in the first place, that way there is no greenhouse effect, 00:14:27.063 --> 00:14:32.663 so how this model is considering those factors seems a bit off. 00:14:32.663 --> 00:14:41.391 Really, if there’s one call to action I want to make here it would be that there needs to be more study on the effectiveness of window awnings. 00:14:41.391 --> 00:14:45.597 It’s quite strange how little information there is on this topic, 00:14:45.597 --> 00:14:52.367 and most of what I’ve found are claims from  awning manufacturers so I’m not exactly taking them seriously. 00:14:52.367 --> 00:14:58.500 But it does seem pretty obvious to me that if you can eliminate direct sunlight transmission through a window, 00:14:58.500 --> 00:15:05.157 then you’re effectively turning any window into a North-facing window no matter which side of your house it’s on. 00:15:05.157 --> 00:15:10.012 And that could make a dramatic difference in the warm parts of the year. 00:15:10.012 --> 00:15:14.183 Unless you’re in the Southern hemisphere in which case, strike that - reverse it. 00:15:14.183 --> 00:15:18.057 Now, it’s not like awnings don’t come with any drawbacks. 00:15:18.057 --> 00:15:23.711 Most obvious is that they make the interior of your home much darker during the day. 00:15:23.711 --> 00:15:29.948 If the awning is made of a translucent material you could still get plenty of filtered light coming through the window, 00:15:29.948 --> 00:15:40.109 but its entire purpose is to eliminate direct sunlight and if that’s something you or your cat appreciates, well a proper awning is going to eliminate it. 00:15:40.109 --> 00:15:50.735 Although, I am quite curious about the potential effectiveness of a transparent awning made from glass with a really low solar heat gain coefficient. 00:15:50.735 --> 00:15:53.262 That might be a way to have the best of both worlds. 00:15:53.262 --> 00:15:56.782 And it would leave your view of the sky mostly unimpeded. 00:15:56.782 --> 00:15:58.781 Then there’s maintenance. 00:15:58.781 --> 00:16:05.328 The aluminum ones that still hang around were designed in response to the fiddle factor of fancy fabrics. 00:16:05.328 --> 00:16:12.592 Those fabrics would fade with time and required periodic cleaning, and depending on the design of the support structure, 00:16:12.592 --> 00:16:16.860 removing the fabric from the awning could be a pain in the butt. 00:16:16.860 --> 00:16:23.730 A rigid awning made of aluminum mostly took care of these problems, and that’s most likely why they started spreading. 00:16:23.730 --> 00:16:29.037 Then again, materials science has improved dramatically since awnings went out of fashion, 00:16:29.037 --> 00:16:32.766 and some fabric awnings can be selectively deployed. 00:16:32.766 --> 00:16:36.852 A roller-awning can be retracted when you don’t need or want it, 00:16:36.852 --> 00:16:41.417 and don’t look now but throw some Wi-Fi and actuators into the mix 00:16:41.417 --> 00:16:50.821 and you’ve got yourself a Smart Awning that could deploy exactly as much as needed and stay retracted on cloudy days or in inclement weather. 00:16:50.821 --> 00:16:55.294 The last main drawback to awnings that I can think of is pests. 00:16:55.294 --> 00:17:03.959 Through providing shelter for your window you’re also providing shelter for living creatures, and while I’d be pretty cool with a robin’s nest outside my window, 00:17:03.959 --> 00:17:06.822 a wasp nest is less cool. 00:17:06.822 --> 00:17:10.786 Then again, if the window is screened it’s not like that really matters all that much 00:17:10.786 --> 00:17:15.841 but I’ve dealt with my share of wasp nests and usually it’s best to not have to deal with them. 00:17:15.841 --> 00:17:23.264 But to be honest, all of those drawbacks seem pretty minor to me, and many of them aren’t even a thing all the time. 00:17:23.264 --> 00:17:29.181 I can tell you that I would freaking love some awnings on my home - particularly on the West side. 00:17:29.181 --> 00:17:33.326 I’m still doing that thing where I only run the air conditioning in the overnight hours 00:17:33.326 --> 00:17:39.516 and one of the most interesting things that technique has revealed is the dramatic effect of the sun. 00:17:39.516 --> 00:17:48.678 On cloudy days, even though it might be quite hot outside, my home only heats up by 5 or 6 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of the day. 00:17:48.678 --> 00:17:54.305 But if it’s a sunny day at the same temperature, that just about doubles. 00:17:54.305 --> 00:18:01.349 Of course, not all of that is heat from the windows - the  attic’s also getting stupid hot from the sun, and so are the walls. 00:18:01.349 --> 00:18:04.229 So it’s not easy to isolate that variable. 00:18:04.229 --> 00:18:12.904 But I can say it is truly remarkable how quickly the rooms on the West side start to heat up once the sun reaches those windows. 00:18:12.904 --> 00:18:15.349 Awnings aren’t the only solution, of course. 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:23.627 There’s been a whole bunch of Europeans just champing at the commenting bit to let you know all about those exterior roller shutters they’ve had over there for a while. 00:18:23.627 --> 00:18:27.351 Those are interesting, and they’re starting to be sold here, 00:18:27.351 --> 00:18:32.344 but I’m curious to know how hot those shutters get in the sun. 00:18:32.344 --> 00:18:40.385 When closed they seem to trap a bit of air between them and the window glass, so while I have no doubt they’re blocking the sun, 00:18:40.385 --> 00:18:48.359 it seems to me like the window will be getting quite warm as the shutters radiate their absorbed heat into that airspace. 00:18:48.359 --> 00:18:53.726 I’d rather have an awning, then that heat isn’t trapped and I can still look outside! 00:18:53.726 --> 00:18:58.720 Then there are exterior blinds. I’m starting to see these spread, often on porches. 00:18:59.280 --> 00:19:06.902 They’re basically the same idea as Rolladen  but usually fabric and not integrated into the window frame or anything. 00:19:06.902 --> 00:19:14.960 Again, those will absolutely do the job of blocking sunlight from hitting the window, but they also block the view when in use which awnings don’t,   00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:17.542 at least not the view out. 00:19:17.542 --> 00:19:20.795 If I seem gung-ho about awnings, well I am! 00:19:20.795 --> 00:19:25.071 I think they’re cool and have been tragically overlooked for the past half-century. 00:19:25.071 --> 00:19:27.557 Which brings me to one last thing. 00:19:27.557 --> 00:19:34.933 I live in a townhome which means if I wanted to install window awnings, I’d need to get the HOA involved. 00:19:34.933 --> 00:19:36.573 And that’s not fun. 00:19:36.573 --> 00:19:41.653 So - circling back to that earlier call to action where I said we should do more research on them, 00:19:41.653 --> 00:19:48.715 if it turns out that window awnings actually could  reduce a typical home’s cooling costs by 20%, 00:19:48.715 --> 00:19:54.029 then whaddya say we go ahead and neuter an HOA’s  ability to forbid their installation? 00:19:54.029 --> 00:20:01.806 Or, if that sounds too extreme, at the very least force HOAs to offer an assortment of approved styles and colors. 00:20:01.806 --> 00:20:08.983 Something tells me we’re going to want to find more and different ways to keep cool as these heat domes keep happening, 00:20:08.983 --> 00:20:16.596 and if something as simple as a window awning is as useful as it seems to be, uhh we should probably encourage their use. 00:20:17.280 --> 00:20:19.742 Alright, well that’s it! 00:20:19.742 --> 00:20:28.966 If anyone out there is involved in evaluating building energy codes and all that fun stuff, please chime in with any info you might have on this topic. 00:20:28.966 --> 00:20:35.168 I really didn’t find anything specifically about awnings and how much they could reduce cooling costs, 00:20:35.168 --> 00:20:44.278 and from what I’ve heard there really isn’t much attention paid  to the effects of window overhangs at all outside of hyper-nerd circles. 00:20:44.278 --> 00:20:50.590 If window awnings were helpful before air conditioning, then surely they’re still helpful now. 00:20:50.590 --> 00:20:58.165 And given how a lot of new housing stock, even in places like Arizona, is getting built without window overhangs at all, 00:20:58.165 --> 00:21:05.838 either these new windows are miraculous marvels or we just kinda forgot the tricks of the past. 00:21:05.838 --> 00:21:08.228 Here’s to giving some of them another go. 00:21:09.195 --> 00:21:11.714 ♫ blisteringly smooth jazz ♫ 00:21:14.397 --> 00:21:16.087 …pretty universally liked. 00:21:16.087 --> 00:21:20.324 They let in natural light and allow us to look outside and see things! 00:21:20.324 --> 00:21:22.425 But… what was that? 00:21:22.425 --> 00:21:24.762 Probably nothing you heard but I stopped anyway. 00:21:24.762 --> 00:21:27.098 There’s gotta be two good takes in there. 00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:30.254 I forgot how to tie a tie, I had to look it up! 00:21:30.254 --> 00:21:31.905 It’s been too long. 00:21:31.905 --> 00:21:34.995 Those grand covered porches you see on fancy… 00:21:35.503 --> 00:21:37.292 I am restarting this line. 00:21:37.292 --> 00:21:42.008 An awning on the porch permits the use of the  porch when the hot afternoon sun is shining. 00:21:42.008 --> 00:21:44.291 They will keep the porch shaft and pleasant, 00:21:44.291 --> 00:21:49.149 and this also reduces the temperature - I can skip the rest of this line because I already recorded the thing with the tie. 00:21:49.149 --> 00:21:51.959 That might be a way to have the best of both worlds. 00:21:51.959 --> 00:21:53.765 And it wood pfftehh…. 00:21:53.765 --> 00:21:55.836 [falls apart] 00:21:55.836 --> 00:21:57.710 [angry sigh] 00:21:59.209 --> 00:22:01.891 OK, so we gotta come up with some sort of pitch. 00:22:01.891 --> 00:22:03.454 Oooh, pitch. 00:22:03.454 --> 00:22:04.934 Baseball! 00:22:04.934 --> 00:22:08.761 Awnings: like a baseball cap for your house! 00:22:08.761 --> 00:22:10.861 Or maybe.... 00:22:10.861 --> 00:22:12.530 AWWWWWW 00:22:12.530 --> 00:22:13.587 nings.