Questions on cooling a home in Phoenix (condo, house)

[shiphead]

The past year I have watched shows and read home magazines with great home ideas to keep a home cool in a hot place like Phoenix. Here are some of the ones I have ran into.

1.) Solar powered attic fan.
The point is that it does not take any electricity from the house to run and would imagine it would help with taking out the heat in a house. Heat rises, i understand that, but if an attic is full of heat it would dissipate to the rest of the house?

2.)Passive floor cooling
I heard this from my father and watched on HGTV put this system into a condo in NJ. Having water go down a pipe, into the ground taking up the moderate temperature and coming back up being much cooler, in turn, more dissipation around the house keeping the heat out. Trane advertises assisting this method with coolant. Would this be enough for Phoenix without a/c or a good addition?

With those two in addition with common sense upgrades like solar window covers, better windows, and others.

Would this assist in keeping an electric bill and cooling comfort to a lower level then blasting an a/c all the time?

Input and comments are greatly appreciated.

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by w1ngzer0

The past year I have watched shows and read home magazines with great home ideas to keep a home cool in a hot place like Phoenix. Here are some of the ones I have ran into.

1.) Solar powered attic fan.
The point is that it does not take any electricity from the house to run and would imagine it would help with taking out the heat in a house. Heat rises, i understand that, but if an attic is full of heat it would dissipate to the rest of the house?

2.)Passive floor cooling
I heard this from my father and watched on HGTV put this system into a condo in NJ. Having water go down a pipe, into the ground taking up the moderate temperature and coming back up being much cooler, in turn, more dissipation around the house keeping the heat out. Trane advertises assisting this method with coolant. Would this be enough for Phoenix without a/c or a good addition?

With those two in addition with common sense upgrades like solar window covers, better windows, and others.

Would this assist in keeping an electric bill and cooling comfort to a lower level then blasting an a/c all the time?

Input and comments are greatly appreciated.

A lot of 'green' gadgets and ideas work, but the expense is very high. Many shows on TV get a big break because the stuff is free and labor cheap. This is why Bob Vila left PBS. The rule of thumb is that it will take 20 years to recover the expense, that is if the installation never needs to be fixed.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Check out the Department of Energy site. They have some good information in there. I would suggest a radiant roof barrier. You can also have a radiant roof system installed, a combination of insulation and the radiant attic matterial. It is harder to do it on a home that is built allready, but possible. Reflective window material also is a good move. We opted for 6 inch walls, additional insulation, radiant roof barrier, a covered patio at the back of our home, (the south side of the house.) Maintanence on the airconditioning system is something that you should do at least once a year.