I learned the hard way about the effects of direct sunlight heating.
And it was a lesson learned indeed.
But where I grew up and lived all of my adult life, direct sunlight heating was a good thing. That’s because during the cold winters, I would enjoy sitting in the window with the warm sunshine on my face while the gas furnace was heating our home. But that was up north and it’s a different animal down south. My wife and I learned all about it within six months of moving to the south. Our living situation now is radically different from living in the city up north. First of all, we have property and no neighbors. So when we moved into this house, we didn’t put up any sort of window treatments. Instead, we enjoyed the view and didn’t have to worry about nosey neighbors. We moved down here right after Thanksgiving and were blown away by how mild the winter weather was. We knew it was going to be better, but we had no idea what we were going to experience when it came to perfect winter weather. However, it didn’t take long for us to realize that direct sunlight heating is not a good thing down south. Once the air conditioning kicked on, the first utility bill blew my mind. The HVAC professionals were kind enough to point out that I needed solar shades or drapes to reduce the high cost of air conditioning in my home. I called them in a panic thinking that the air conditioning was all messed up. They came out and gave me my first lesson when it comes to cooling a home down south.