Top 5 Home Exterior Sun Control Tips

One battle that many homeowners wage is a fight against the elements, or more specifically, an ongoing attempt to keep them from compromising the interior environment. And yet, unless you’d like to hermetically seal your home, chances are that your house will be exposed to the natural incursion of sun, wind, and water at some point. The roof may leak and exterior air will certainly sneak in around doors and windows, especially when they’re opened. But these occurrences can be tempered with roof repairs, weather stripping, and so on. What you may find more problematic is controlling the effects of the sun, particularly its ability to heat up your home interior. Solar rays can not only make your home uncomfortable, they can also jack up your electric bill as you’re forced to run fans or air conditioning day and night to keep the place cool. However, there are a few things you can do on the exterior of your home to control the amount of sunlight that sneaks in. Here are some tips to try.

1. Trees. There are so many benefits to be gained from planting trees around your house. They not only provide the shade your family needs to enjoy outdoor spaces, but the right trees can also help to shade your house, potentially lowering the interior temperature by several degrees on sunny days. They can also act as a wind break in winter to keep away the coldest gales. Of course, the life-giving oxygen they create and their ability to clear toxins from the air couldn’t hurt, either. But in terms of what they can do to control the effects of the sun on your home, their shady branches can certainly help to stave off the worst of the heat.
2. Energy film. This cling-film for windows is specially designed to divert the majority of heat-producing solar rays responsible for ratcheting up the temperature in your home. In fact, most keep away about 90% of these rays, significantly reducing the demand for air conditioning. As an added bonus, this can also help to stop the fading of furniture, drapes, carpeting, and other objects that the sunlight coming in through the windows can cause.
3. Double-paned windows. Perhaps one of the most effective ways to control your interior temperature, summer and winter, is to install additional insulation, and upgrading to double- or even triple-paned glass is definitely a good option. It can be expensive, but considering what you stand to save on energy bills, they could pay for themselves over time, not to mention increase the value of your home.
4. Retractable awnings. If you live in a climate that suffers all kinds of severe weather, including storms, you might not want to have permanent awnings over windows, since they could be damaged during inclement weather. For this reason, retractable awnings that stop the sun from coming in your windows during the hottest part of the day could be a great boon. And during times that they’re not needed, all you have to do is retract them.
5. Sunshades. If your climate has more sun than anything else, perhaps permanent shades will be the most convenient option for your home. With plenty of different architectural louvers to choose from, you should be able to find products that will give you both the shade and the durability you need to control the sun coming into your home year-round.