Insider Secrets Magazine by ecoMaster

TIP #19
SEASONS
LET SHADE BE
YOUR BFF THIS
SUMMER
Summer is coming and we know it’s going to get
hot. Over the years temperatures have continued
to increase, and pergolas can be either a boon or a
bust depending on construction and the material it is
made from.
Looking at two different examples of pergolas, the
first butts hard up against the house which can be a
big issue if you’ve got a LaserLite roof. The sun builds
up and radiates into the house through the windows.
The second pergola example is different. It isn’t
right up against the house, there is ventilation space
youtube.com/watch?v=p7_b7ggmZY8
at the top, which allows cooler air to
come in underneath, and the hot air to
escape. This avoids the heat build-up
demonstrated in the first example.
A great way of creating shade over
a pergola is through the growth of
grapevines, as discussed previously.
When a grapevine is more mature, as the
season progresses and becomes fully
leafed, it will produce a huge amount of
shade.
However, in the meantime, ecoShade
frames (a fly screen frame with the
Renshade material fastened to it using
double-sided tape) can be used. It is
not necessarily full cover, just nearer
the house, and it can make a huge
difference. This means that ecoShades
are installed when the weather starts
getting hot and they come down once
the summer cools off.
HOME DESIGN
COLOUR IS NOT
JUST A PRETTY
THING, IT
REALLY WORKS
Colour has a big impact on the internal comfort of
your home and in particular, we are discussing the
external colour of your home.
As an example, we show you an image of a standard
Melbourne rendered brick veneer home. The front
is painted one half in a dark grey, the other half in a
much lighter grey. Using an infrared thermometer,
we took the temperature of those two different
colours. The darker colour showing the temperature
to be 56 degrees whilst the lighter colour showed
46 degrees.
youtu.be/bBiJupn04P8
IP #20
This means that the dark wall conducted
22% more heat into the home then the
lighter shade. This is particularly important
to remember going into summertime, as
the hotter the weather gets the more heat
that can be conducted into the home just
based on the colour of the walls.
In conjunction with this, we have also
found that dark coloured roofs increase
attic temperatures by 20 degrees. Even if
a home has R4 insulation, the heat that is
conducted is equivalent as having a blow
heater on half blast.
When you are choosing new roofing or
external paint for your home, it is important
to bear in mind the impact that colour will
have on the temperature of your home.
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