floor plans for ventilation and air conditioning

The ideal floor-plan for cooling depends on climate and on the intended cooling methods. Air conditioning or ventilation strategies demands specific floor-plans.

Air conditioning and room size & Hot climates

If you intend to use air conditioning (namely in hotter climates, with their higher cooling demands) the room size and the ceiling height should be… small. That’s crucial to get lower AC needs. Large high-ceiling height rooms will inevitably cause large air-conditioning bills.

That’s a simple truth. And nobody needs a big house to get comfort or to be happy.

Home orientation and shape for Ventilation

To get low heat gains (in summer and in hotter climates) you should consider a good home orientation to the dominant breezes.

To get ventilation and cooling through it, the home should be narrow, eventually with elevated floors (in hotter climates) and without significant internal obstructions... These elements will enhance cross ventilation and also heat removal.

Air conditioning & floor-plan

Since air conditioning should be used selectively, consider the following to get air-conditioning savings (namely in hotter climates, where air-conditioning bills can easily soar):

- Bedrooms (and other largely used rooms) should be located in the parts of the home that are less exposed to heat gains (the center of the home?) and benefit from high levels of insulation.
- Choose and locate the rooms to be air-conditioned according to their use.
- In hot climates avoid using air conditioning in rooms and parts of the house involving high indoor-outdoor traffic. Also avoid using air conditioning in scarcely-used rooms. Use it only in the most used rooms (bedrooms, living rooms…).

Combining air conditioned rooms with natural cooled ones

When using air conditioning selectively (namely in hot climates) some non-conditioned rooms can be used as thermal buffers to other AC cooled rooms and parts of the house.

The floor-plan should take that into account (you should cool naturally some rooms - using shade, ventilation, landscaping, overhangs -, in order to minimize the use of air conditioning).