Took this technique I learned in prison to make it bearable during the heatwave:
- Wet the window with a sponge or rag.
- Put aluminium foil up against it. Shiny side out. Cut beforehand on angled windows like that or use the roll on vertical surfaces.
- To cover the overlap, just wet the foil already on there, but be careful not to pull it off at the edge. An overlapping strip will stick to the other ones.
- Use masking tape to cover any overlapping edges that come away, as well as the edges that have a hard time connecting to the windowsill.
This keeps out an incredible amount of heat; you can feel how hot the foil itself gets during the day, while keeping the inside nice and cool.
https://www.ecofoil.com/collections/bubble-foil-insulation
Just one brand, there are more than this, but basically… NASA invented fancy-pants aluminum bubble foil, literally to protect astronauts and equipment from 100% unadulterated sunshine.
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/node/9314
It is stupidly cheap for how well it works.
They basically open sourced the patent, but, the industry that makes insulation stuffing for your attic is extremely not fond of this stuff, as… you basically only need 10% of their product, if you line the inside of your attic with radiantbarrier.
I got like a 10’ x 4’ sheet of it, put it between the two panes of my south facing window. Definitely works, makes the AC’s job significantly easier.
If you look into building codes in North America, you’ll find out that they were almost all decided by industry board rooms with no public engagement. You don’t need a conspiracy to make every cheap and sturdy form of construction illegal, when the people that wrote the regulations were literally owners of Portland Concrete, several timber companies, and several “insulation” companies. You don’t need a conspiracy when a group of rich people just acted in their own self interests.
We should be able to build adobe style homes that require almost nothing in the way of sellable construction materials, along with attached root cellars, and ice cellars. That would bring the cost of the average home down to $10,000-20,000, while eliminating the need for HVAC systems, as well as a refrigerator and freezer. Both of which have to use energy to function less well for food than engineering technologies that are hundreds of years old. A fridge can’t keep an apple or orange at peak freshness for 6 months. A properly packed root cellar can, even in summer months. A freezer will create freezer burn eventually. A proper ice cellar won’t, even during the dead of winter.
I basically agree with what you’re saying here, yeah, basically a bunch of totally unquailified PTA-like organizations are actually responsible for a surprising amount of norms and standards in the US, which are treated as if they are very smart and good rules, made by very smart and good people.
I think the stylistic quibble here is… what you in your example call ‘not a conspiracy’, I call ‘a conspiracy’.
A conspiracy doesn’t need to be secret or well hidden or non obvious, non mundane.
A conspiracy is literally just when a bunch of people decide to do something, and then do things toward that goal.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/conspiracy
But, we as a culture have a rather hysterical relationship with the word conspiracy, because it is so often used by people promoting … basically either extremely racist, or convoluted/incoherent, or sci-fi nonsense level plots.
But but, taking the very literal and basic concept of what the word means… and just replacing ‘illegal’ with ‘immoral’ or ‘devious’ or somesuch… people conspire very often and frequently, and its usually extremely straightforward with little to no significant attempt to ‘hide’ the conspiracy at all.