Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "How This Midcentury Modern House Harnesses the Sun" video.

  1. People want the cheapest house possible and contractors have enough to worry about, just keeping up with all the new recommendations. Some of the best designs and green designs are actually frowned on by local, state and federal governments. It costs extra, if you're only thinking modular, mobile or stick-built, to do things like build into the Earth. Most new housing outside the big cities is modular home on a concrete slab. All my older homes had full basements, because they were built before air-conditioning was a thing. Things like building a home with long axis north-to-south, to minimize the surface area of direct sun. Cool on the west side of the house until after noon (longer if you have shade trees, which my older homes all had). Cool on the east side after noon, with shadows starting and growing longer in the late morning. The 1951 house I'm in, now, has eaves the perfect length, just like you're describing. Permaculture crowd want the long axis east-west, with strategies for shade in the summer, but soaking up as much sun as possible in the winter. I think you need more than just eaves, when you're building this way. I think you need natural shade. I always plant trees wherever I put down roots. LOL! But I also love setting up trellises. If you're in a hurry, the trees are spendier, but the extra expense is more than worth it, because you get that lived-in look a lot quicker, and not look like somebody out in the sagebrush country with your trailer and a bunch of scraggly seedlings.
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