Cool Car, Cool House

Writing the last article regarding aluminum cast block engines sparked up a bit of nostalgia--summer rides home from the waterpark in Dad's Cadillac. The sun would bake the cars for hours while we were sliding down curved sections of fiberglass deluged with water. After a few hours, we would call it quits and head home. After finding the Caddy, Dad would unlock the doors and we would jump right in. Everybody else in the parking lot would open their car doors, roll down the windows, and wait a couple of minutes for the stifling heat to dissipate from the car. Not us, we were half way home, while everyone else was busy burning the underside of their bare legs. What was the Professor Foil Senior's secret? He used a foil sun shade to minimize the amount of radiant heat that could be absorbed into the leather seats.

If a foil backed cardboard sun shade can work for a car, why couldn't it work for a house? It already does. Housewraps are being used in new construction everywhere across the country. The lightweight and reflective radiant barrier properties of this building material make a huge difference in the total amount of heat transfer allowed through the walls of the building structure. In fact 96% of the radiant heat that attempts to traverse through the protected structure is blocked. How can this be professor? Simple, the inert properties of aluminum make this possible.

By the way, the sunshade in Dad's old Cadillac wasn't the only cool accesory item. So was the digital display that calculated our gas mileage (economy) and remaining miles (range)!