Build A Breezy Home In Hot Climates

How To Build A Breezy Home In Hot Climates

Ian Mutuli
Updated on
Ian Mutuli

Ian Mutuli

Founder and Managing Editor of Archute. He is also a graduate architect from The University of Nairobi, Kenya.
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Living in a hot climate isn’t a treat for everyone. While you can enjoy avoiding wearing plenty of layers of winter clothes over your body, enduring the hot temperature might not be the best option either. While staying out could make you sweat, staying indoors should make you feel comfortable.

Your home should be a place wherein you can fully relax and enjoy the day comfortably. However, living in a hot climate might make that a challenge. To ensure maximum comfort, below are some tips on how you could build a breezy home in hot climates:

Install Air Conditioner

Building a home in a hot climate location will make everyone feel uncomfortable, because of the intense heat. To allow everyone to enjoy a day inside their house, installing an air conditioner (AC) will help keep the entire home cool. This will help create a breezy home and allow everyone to enjoy the cold air by staying indoors and keeping their bodies away from the heat outside.

As you add an air conditioner inside your home, ensure that its power and cooling capacity is appropriate to your room size. Aside from the floor area, you shouldn’t forget to note the ceiling height and any environmental factors such as the room facing the sun. All these factors must be considered to help you purchase the right unit that would sufficiently cool down your home, as well as save you extra costs on your energy bill. Moreover, you should also buy from a reliable brand like Daikin air conditioners or any other known brand that has proven its reliability and cost-efficiency in the market. 

Place A Center Courtyard

One of your top priorities when building a home in a hot climate is to promote air circulation as much as possible. Even with a large house, it might trap the air inside, keeping the entire home warm and uncomfortable. If you’re planning to add a courtyard inside your property, you should ensure that you place it in the center of your home so that it can promote proper air circulation. 

Placing a central courtyard would help keep the warm air out of your home. Moreover, it would be a great accent to your home as you allow nature to be a part of your household. With this, you can either add great outdoor furniture, grow some low-maintenance plants, or even add a water feature that’ll help bring a serene ambiance inside your home. Doing this adds life to your courtyard space and promotes proper air circulation at the same time. 

Shade Using Plants

Living in a hot climate region will guarantee intense sunlight during the day. While you can always set up a roof or a canopy to shade your home, using plants and shrubs would help keep your home away from the intense heat. This would be a more economical solution while also adding beauty to your home. 

Apart from allowing the plants to shade your property, they can also help emit healthy oxygen for everyone to breathe in. In addition, this can also help prevent any allergies and health concerns as every plant strives to give you a healthy environment. However, ensure that you place each plant and tree strategically and avoid placing trees within three feet of your home. While they can provide maximum shade, their insects might have easier access to your home through the tree’s branches. 

Consider High Ceilings

Another way you can ensure proper air circulation inside your home is to consider switching to high ceilings for the entire property. This will help to allow air to run in the whole room flawlessly and avoid trapping any heat inside. The more space that the air can move, the greater chances you’ll reduce heat indoors.

Apart from minimizing heat by switching to high ceilings, it can also make the room look well-ventilated and bigger since there would be plenty of space that you can see. The minimum recommended ceiling height is nine feet. However, you could try making it to at least 12 feet for a slightly higher ceiling and more air circulation, since you’re going to spend most of your time lounging in there. 

Use The Right Window Treatments

To help your home achieve its best cool temperature, you should use the right window treatments to keep the heat outside. Even if your home has a high ceiling and high horsepower capacity AC, it might not be able to cool the room effectively, especially if the intense heat keeps infiltrating from your windows. To keep them away, you could try various window treatments for your home and choose the best one that works right for your needs.

You can begin by using a black-out curtain as it’s effective for keeping the light and heat outside of the room. However, for maximum effectiveness, you should purchase thermal curtains or blinds as their main role is to absorb the heat and prevent them from coming inside your home. While they can be a little bit expensive compared to your regular curtains, they can help reduce your electrical use, making it worth the investment. 

The Verdict

Building a breezy home in hot climates is truly a challenge. But with the proper planning, you can allow yourself to feel comfortable any time of the day inside your home. Just follow these tips mentioned above to achieve maximum coolness and comfortability even during the hottest days of the year.  

Ian Mutuli

About the author

Ian Mutuli

Founder and Managing Editor of Archute. He is also a graduate architect from The University of Nairobi, Kenya.
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