Have You Tried Using Cheese?
And in brief British heatwave news:
Dr Ben Roberts, a senior lecturer in healthy buildings at Loughborough University, said applying yoghurt to the outside of windows can lower the temperature by up to 3.5C.
It was a month-long experiment. Behold your taxes at work.
In May, Dr Roberts and PhD student Niloo Todeh-Kharman conducted an experiment on two identical test houses at Loughborough University by putting yoghurt on the windows of one, but not the other. The experiment found the indoor temperature of the house with yoghurt on the windows was on average 0.6C cooler, but up to a maximum of 3.5C cooler when it was “hot and sunny.”
And before you ask,
[Dr Roberts] told the BBC the yoghurt smells for “30 seconds when drying” but that as soon as it has dried “the smell disappears.”
Oh, and should you be tempted:
For their experiment, the scientists at Loughborough University used a supermarket-brand of Greek yoghurt that has a fat percentage of about 10%.
Do let us know how it goes.
Should clarity be required, this is not some miraculous property of yoghurt, even of Greek yoghurt at 10% fat. It’s merely a function of any substance that can be smeared onto windows before drying white. Presumably, similar effects could be achieved by gluing toilet paper onto your windows, which would also alert neighbours to your cunning. Or by purchasing any of the commercially available window films that do much the same thing, only better.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye, and so forth.
Amazed they had a whole month of hot weather.
[ Looks out of window at dull, overcast sky. ]
Given the amount of 10% fat Greek yoghurt required, and the possibility of repeated applications, and the issues regarding the eventual removal of said substance, it seems entirely plausible that buying commercial UV window sheets, which can be had for £7, would actually be the cheaper option.
Light colored mud? Clay? Chalk mixed with water?
Surely anything other than an edible.
[ Starts nailing cheese and toilet paper to windows. ]
Just curious … did they measure the ‘albedo’ of the particular yoghurt used in the experiment? I expect Cherry yoghurt has a somewhat higher albedo than plain yoghurt, and may not reflect the heat as well.
Lower, surely?
But clearly, we need months of taxpayer funding to find out.
The words insult and injury come to mind.
A solution in search of a problem.
Well, at best, a bizarrely impractical solution – of a sort – to a problem that was solved quite effectively, and cheaply, decades ago.
I don’t put YAH-gurt on my windows. Here in the States we use YOH-gurt. Big difference.
Whoops … lower albedo. So much for my sciency memory.
Pepperidge Farms remembers when David was complaining about dew points in the low 60s. :-p
[ Unintelligible muttering. ]
When it comes to ClimateChange™ there is nothing so stupid that it won’t get funding (if you are of the correct political persuasion, it’s all about wealth redistribution).