Cooling the house??? in THIS weather???

I was all set. My husband and I have decided that we are going to replace our roof (long overdue) with a metal roof. It took a bit of convincing to persuade my husband, but I listed all the benefits of metal roofs:

Reflects the sun's rays, doesn't need replaced in 20 years, can be put down over top of the existing roof, and we can collect rainwater off a metal roof.

Dh was not convinced that it was ok to lay a metal roof down overtop the existing roof (asphalt shingle). But another contractor convinced him this was ok. Since we wouldn't have to dispose of the existing roof, we'd save somewhere between 800-1000 in disposal costs. AND we wouldn't be putting more into a landfill (always a good thing to me). So, metal it is.

When we finally get to putting the new roof on, I am also going to put up radiant barrier, and we are going to cut in a new attic window on the west side of the house, to encourage the breeze from that end and circulate the air better. All of these things should keep the heat down in the attic.

Enter......SOLAR SCREENS. I cannot say enough about these. A few years ago I had found these on the internet. Of course I wanted to order enough to cover ALL of my windows. But it was expensive at the time. And I wasn't sure if it really worked. So, I bought enough for ONE window. Our kitchen window on the south side of the house is small, but the heat load! Oh my. That one windows heated up our kitchen to no end. We added the solar screen, inserting it into regular screen framing (instead of solar framing...which is made for the thicker screens), and Dh was just a bit frustrated with how difficult it was to get those screens into the frames. But he did succeed, we installed the frame, and wow....the kitchen was MUCH cooler.

I always knew we'd cover the other windows, but I just didn't know when. Well, this year I found the screens much cheaper at Home Depot. I bought 100ft for $100. We have 7 windows on the south side of the house that are 6ft high and 3ft wide. A whole wall of windows. Needless to say, we have used that passive solar heat in winter for years. But its not so comfortable in the summer, even *with* the tree that has grown enough to shade the house.

So, I thought if we're going to put these up on the big windows, I want to be able to take them down in winter, to take advantage of the solar heat. I thought too, it would be easier and cheaper to make wood frames and just staple the screens onto the wood frames, then use "hook and eye" (can't think of what they are actually called) to hang them.

At first dh didn't think that kind of hanging idea would work, but that is what we ended up doing, and it works great. He made all the frames. And he didin't just make frames. He stained them, stapled the screens on, and then covered the staples with moulding...really dressing it up. Now it looks like we have 7 giant stereo speakers hanging on our house!

BUT IT WORKS! We were both SHOCKED at how much cooler the house is with these screens, especially our son's room. His room gets so hot in the summer that its not even habitable. Now its a nice even, cool temp.

We dont' need nearly as much a/c, though we are still using it because we got hit with the first heat wave before the solar screens were in. We felt forced to start up the a/c and now we are spoiled with the dry air. So, the goal is to get the roof on, the radiant barrier in, and the new west window. And then NEXT year, hopefully we'll never even get those a/c's out.