Natural ventilation
To cool your home using natural ventilation, open doors or windows on the side of the house that a breeze is coming through and open doors or windows on the opposite side of the house. You will be able to cool more of your home if you make the air take a longer path through your home between the inlet and outlet.
This effect can be further optimised through careful design of your home and by creating windbreaks that can force wind into doors or windows. Windbreaks can also be used to force wind to move along a wall, which will create a vacuum that pulls air out of the windows.
If you have a multi-storey home you can further intensify natural ventilation by using the 'chimney effect'. This means opening windows downstairs and upstairs during the night. Cool air will come in via the ground floor and absorb the warmer air that has accumulated during the day. The air will then rise and leave via the top floor.
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Exhaust Fans
In Tasmania we usually associate exhaust fans with the mechanisms used to get rid of moisture in bathrooms or kitchens. Exhaust fans, however, can also be used as a highly effective method of cooling.
Usually in the form of 'window fans', they reproduce the conditions already discussed in the above Natural Ventilation section. They can be used to create a through-breeze by being positioned to pull air in one side of the house and expel the air on the opposite side.
They can also be used to accentuate the chimney effect by installing fans upstairs and downstairs.
If the wind direction constantly changes in your area, it is best to use a reversible fan.
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