Include

[peterjohnson64]

Originally Posted by CGSwans

Perhaps a new thread is a good idea, but I will just note that passive solar design involves both heating and cooling features. An obvious part of the plan would be being able to block out the sunlight - such as roll-down shade screens.

Mods - please feel free to move my post and Peter's reply to a new thread. Perhaps call it 'passive solar herp room'?

I fully accept what you are saying but again someone has to roll down the sun shades. Every person that lost animals on 1 Jan 2006 also had foolproof cooling systems in place that merely needed a person to do one thing. That may have been to turn on the air conditioning, open the garage door to let the heat out, open a window, pull down a blind. Whatever. Problem was, in a small number of cases on that day this wasn't done and resulted in animals dieing (usually the person was away and relied on a parent or relative to perform this action). So, if you are going to leave the blinds down ALL summer then that is fine. Otherwise, one day when you are out and about you will realise that you forgot to do something. Unfortunately, that will be too late. You MUST design a room that does not get hotter than 30 odd degrees without intervention. It is easily enough done.