When I was looking for a home to move into I didn’t really know what I was doing.
I had some idea which neighborhood I would like to be located in and I knew that I wanted the backyard. Other than that, I wasn’t sure what I was searching for. I knew that I would love it when I saw it. Well, at first I loved the house that I moved into… But I have to say that I hate the energy bills as time goes on. Clearly, I didn’t choose particularly wisely when it comes to finding an eco-friendly house with energy efficiency built into the structure. I say this because my home has large south and west facing windows. Why is this a problem? Because every day I am subjected to air temperature fluctuations created by the geographical layout of my home. Because I live in the south, it’s already plenty hot and humid everyday. My house really doesn’t need additional sunshine to pump heat into the indoor air. Unfortunately, with south-facing windows that’s exactly what I get. Every afternoon the indoor air is heated up higher and higher as the powerful sun to come streaming through my windows. The other issue is having so many west-facing windows, which encourages drafts to flow through my house and complicate my indoor air quality control settings. I have fluctuating indoor air temperatures from room to room, depending on the presence of drafty windows. My windows to the west are slammed with powerful breezes that really give my central heating and cooling system a run for their money. Next time I search for a place to live, I’m going to make sure the house is oriented away from these indoor air quality nightmares.
