To keep our condo from becoming unbearably warm, our air conditioning was running nearly nonstop.
When I realized how high our energy costs were while in the summer, I knew it was because of how taxing the two of us had to run the air conditioning unit. Both of us lived in what some people would consider a glasshouse. Both of us have several walls that are solid glass; the front as well as sides of our house, then for nearly the entire afternoon, the sunlight is coming through those windows. I know I didn’t realize just how poor the sunlight was for our home, but not only was it causing a lot of solar heating in the house, but it was destroying our furniture. What used to be a deep gray color was now only dark gray on the unused side of the pillows, then all the color was being drained from our furniture. The paint on our walls was not only fading, but it was cracking as well as peeling. My wood floors were drying out. To keep our condo from becoming unbearably warm, our air conditioning was running nearly nonstop. I knew I had to do something, or not only was our air conditioning going to be breaking from overuse, but I would have to redo our entire downstairs. Our Heating plus Air Conditioning company told us about solar powered window blinds. Once they were in place, when the sunlight got to a particular position on the windows, the blinds would automatically close. I had never thought of our condo as being modern, but with solar powered blinds not only was the inside of our condo protected from further disfigure, but I wasn’t using the air conditioning nearly as much as I had been.