With most of eastern Canada sweltering in a seemingly-never-ending heat wave, you may be wondering how our ancestors survived similar sweltering temperatures in the days before fans and air conditioning.
A trending tweetstorm might have the answers.
The Twitter account has posted several images and explanations of how houses used to be built in the days before electricity to make best use of shade and cross breezes in the houses of yore.
He explains that one of the biggest factors for keeping a house cool is to have high ceilings so that heat can rise up and away from the floor.
The standard 8- and 9-foot ceilings (2.4–2.7 metre) in today’s houses might save on building costs, he notes, but they don’t make for rooms that can easily cool themselves.
Heat considerations are also why homes in colder climates were typically built with lower ceilings, to trap the heat from the indoor fireplaces.
The architecture buff also notes that in Japan, houses were built with windows and doors aligned so that when they were all opened at once, airflow was maximized without the need for fans.
