We have tiny eaves on our house. It& #39;s an aesthetic and we have air con which means we can make the house bearable when it hits 30°C+ inside in summer - I understand how we& #39;ve ended up here - but BUUUUT what if we used https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✨" title="Sparkles" aria-label="Emoji: Sparkles">architecturehttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✨" title="Sparkles" aria-label="Emoji: Sparkles"> help it passively heat and cool https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤔" title="Thinking face" aria-label="Emoji: Thinking face">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😲" title="Astonished face" aria-label="Emoji: Astonished face">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😎" title="Smiling face with sunglasses" aria-label="Emoji: Smiling face with sunglasses">

Little known fact about my mum - she studied architecture at university and used to be a draftswoman. We were talking about how we want to increase the growing space in our backyard and mum was like YOU NEED A PERGOLA and I was like https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤷‍♀️" title="Woman shrugging" aria-label="Emoji: Woman shrugging"> okay

Basically the idea is that we want to make a big, fake eave (that& #39;s the roof overhang btw) outside our north-facing ranch slider and kitchen window but instead of having roof on it, we grow plants on it!

Mitre 10 even had a video on how to make one https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Down pointing backhand index" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index"> https://youtu.be/n7Dx4AsbRxI ">https://youtu.be/n7Dx4AsbR...

It& #39;s like a big wooden frame which gives me lots of new space to grow things like grapes or kiwifruit or passionfruit on top and means that in summer, when those plants are lush it, shades the windows making it cooler, and in winter, when they& #39;re barren, the sun can get right in

You might be thinking, if you have air con, why do you care - just blast it. Well for one, passive heating and cooling (where your house is designed to achieve the climate you want in the first place) means we save money on our power bill (yay) and also saves the planet (huh?)

Yeah! Climate action includes how you design your house! Our electricity is approx 80% renewable but anything we can do to be more energy efficient means we& #39;re putting less demand on our planet - including less likely to need to fire up places like Huntly coal.

We& #39;re still a way off installing solar and getting our gas removed so this is a more affordable step we can take right now towards what our zero-carbon home will look like. And! The builder came round this afternoon and we& #39;re all set to go next week! https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😍" title="Smiling face with heart-shaped eyes" aria-label="Emoji: Smiling face with heart-shaped eyes">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✨" title="Sparkles" aria-label="Emoji: Sparkles">

Anyway, back to the original image in this thread - mum spent all of today working out how far out the pergola has to be from the house to make sure it blocks direct summer sun, but still let& #39;s in winter sun using https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✨" title="Sparkles" aria-label="Emoji: Sparkles">mathshttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="✨" title="Sparkles" aria-label="Emoji: Sparkles"> and lots of cursing