notes

Bonjour. I'm not a big fan of French imports into the English language but sometimes (think croissant) there is no good proper Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Literally broken sun, the idea of the brise soleil is to act as a sunbreak, reducing the amount of sunlight entering a window (or glass door) to reduce glare and unwanted solar heating. Our house has more glass than average and most of it faces south. This is quite deliberate, to maximise passive solar heating on the winter months. We do not, though, have air conditioning and so, like most homes this last summer, the house got a little warm at times. This was the first time I recall it being advisable to keep windows closed to keep the heat out. Most of the south-facing glazing is quite well shaded by a 60cm roof overhang and (deciduous) trees which give summer shade but lose their leaves to let the sun and light through in winter (while simultaneously capturing CO2). However, our kitchen has a 5.4m run of glazing without s...