In summer, lower shades on windows facing the morning sun to reduce solar heat gain.
Welcome to Week 37 of 50 Ways to Reduce Your Waste Line. Last week, we talked about trying to use products that come with less packaging. This week, we ask you to lower any shades in your east-facing office before you leave at night to reduce solar heat gain the next morning.
One Thing You Can Do:
While having natural daylight in our workspaces is aesthetically appealing, it comes with a negative effect on our buildings’ cooling systems during the summer months. The room temperature of the areas near the windows rises as the sunlight comes through the windows. And during the summer time, the temperature may rise above a comfortable level. By simply lowering shades in a typically sunny east-facing office before you leave each day, you can help reduce early-morning heat gain in your office from the morning sun. This helps to keep the room temperature comfortable in your office throughout the day, while also reducing the strain on the College’s HVAC systems.
Additional Information:
This phenomenon is the same as that experienced in commercial greenhouses. While the resulting convective heating is desirable in greenhouses, it is not at all desirable in building office spaces during the dog days of summer.
It was the understanding of this process that gave rise to the term “greenhouse effect,” which relates to the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere emitted from human activities, which have been increasing substantially since the Industrial Revolution (1800). The GHG, including carbon dioxide and methane, exist naturally in the atmosphere. But the drastic increase of human activities has significantly increased the atmospheric concentrations of the GHG and this results in climate change.
Other ways to reduce solar heat gain in buildings include planting shade trees, installing curtains (of the non-sheer variety), installing fixed and/or mechanical louvres on the exterior of the windows, along with the application of window film or other aftermarket window treatments.
Join a Sheridan Green Team:
The 50 Ways to Reduce Your Waste Line is an initiative created by the Green Teams and led by the Office for Sustainability.
Would you like to get involved and help your campus to be more sustainable? You can join a Green Team! Please feel free to email one of the contacts as below:
HMC – Jacinda Frazer (jacinda.frazer@sheridancollege.ca)
Davis/Trafalgar – Wai Chu Cheng (waichu.cheng@sheridancollege.ca)