With the onset of heat, we can no longer imagine our life without air conditioners, which are worn out so that we can exist in comfortable conditions. But this miracle of technology in a publicly available version appeared not so long ago, so a reasonable question arises: "But how did our parents, grandfathers and grandmothers manage to survive in the extreme conditions of a sultry summer?" Here in this issue we will try to figure out what tricks our ancestors went to to keep the house cool, and what we can use now.
We are all looking forward to summer, but as soon as the thermometer crawls up, we immediately begin to languish from the heat and stuffiness. Residents of the southern regions are especially affected, where in the shade the air temperature rises above 35 degrees. And if you add hot asphalt and heated concrete walls to this circumstance, then it is simply not realistic to hide from the heat in urban conditions if there is no air conditioner. The situation is no better in rural areas, especially if you live in newly-made houses, which were built without taking into account the wisdom of our ancestors. But the architects from time immemorial knew exactly where to put the log house, how to arrange it and what architectural elements would help to keep warm in winter, and in summer - invigorating coolness.
When building stone houses, it goes without saying that the temperature regime will be more constant than in wooden ones. Anyone who rested on the sea or at a camp site in charming and not very wooden huts or houses without air conditioning know very well what a hellish torture it will be to stay inside the "room" on a sunny day.
But if you go into a log house built even a hundred years ago, you can enjoy the coolness and quite fresh air during the day, and with tightly closed doors and windows. And the most amazing thing is that such huts were built by ordinary peasants with the help of primitive tools without computer calculations by a whole team of architects and designers. Although here it was also not without tricks and centuries-old technology passed down from generation to generation.
To understand why old wooden houses have stood for several centuries without damage, preserving not only integrity, but also fresh air and coolness, you need to know where the construction began. The first step was to choose the place and location of the house itself relative to the cardinal points. If oak, linden or chestnuts already grew on the site, then the house was built near them so that they were located on the south side. If not, then the necessary seedlings were planted first. It is always cool under the crowns of large trees, even on the hottest days.
The main component of the house's durability was the correct selection of wood and its thorough preparation. The next step is to create the foundation. Although most of the time it was not at all, but making the right "pillow" and installing piles or stone "chairs" also had to be skillful. This trick prevented rotting of the floor covering (if it was all laid, and not left earthen), lower logs, provided a storage system for food (underground) and coolness. In the area where there was a constant risk of flooding, houses were built on a high plinth, which provided additional ventilation and a fairly spacious full basement.
An important detail: In addition to the correct organization of the floor and foundation, special attention was paid to the laying of natural insulation material. Mostly moss or flax was used, which ideally protected the tree from moisture and decay, and also prevented the appearance of unpleasant insects. The natural components of the frame itself and the insulation did an excellent job with the heat and sound insulation of the house.
Oddly enough for a modern person it sounds, but the main mechanism of the "village air conditioner" since antiquity was still a Russian stove. Yes, yes, it is she who warms in the winter season, makes it possible to cook delicious meals (even in summer), while helping to maintain coolness. It would seem that things are absolutely incompatible, but our ancestors knew what to do and how to use a large-scale brick object that occupies a significant part of the entire house.
When viewed in terms of a large volume of cold material with a stone foundation underground, it is clear how it helped to keep it cool. But if you consider that in the old days, ordinary peasants cooked food in the stove in the summer, then one can only wonder how they managed to maintain a comfortable microclimate. It turns out that there is also a technological trick for these cases. In each Russian stove, a summer chimney is provided with a special arrangement of valves, which allows the smoke to be directed bypassing the heating channels, so that the walls of the stove did not have time to warm up.
This is another trick of our ancestors, just the chimney system is a ventilation shaft that captures air from the underground, lifting it up. This moment in the device of the Russian stove is fundamental, because if there is no air intake from the lower level, the fire will not burn. This is how the natural air conditioning system works, which has been actively used for more than one thousand years and not only in Russia. In hot regions, tiny shacks are cooled in this way, and in giant palaces it is possible to maintain a comfortable temperature, although they do not make stoves there, but special wells with water, but the air intake system and ventilation shafts are organized according to the same principle.
It is also worth noting that everyone who has lived in such houses since childhood knows when to open windows, and when it is better to close them with shutters.
Advice from Novate.ru: In any room on hot days it is better to keep the windows closed, but open at night to ventilate it and let in fresh cool air. But in the case when there is a Russian stove, then even this is not worth doing, the air in the house will never be stale or damp anyway. This method will save even in city apartments, where the windows do not overlook a red-hot avenue, of course. And if, at the same time, in the morning and in the evening, you wash the floors with cold water and put ice bottles around the rooms (you can also put a fan next to it), then even a modern person who is accustomed to air conditioners can easily survive the temporary heat.
Ancient Persians and Egyptians knew how to escape from the sweltering heat when the street was more than 50 degrees. They managed to fill whole palaces with a blessed coolness, in which even modern split systems are useless.