Five Ways to Sun-Proof Your Home (and Keep It Cooler)

Depending on where you live, the summer months might mean lazy afternoons and cookouts by the pool, or cowering in dark rooms with the air conditioning cranked up. Air conditioning is great, of course, but sun exposure plays a huge factor in your home’s overall temperature.

You can’t easily move your house to a shadier spot, but you can take some steps to sun-proof your home. Here are five options to consider.

Repaint in a color that reflects the sun's rays

The color of your house can have a big impact on the ambient temperature inside. White paint has been shown to be very effective in reflecting the sun’s rays—and just about any white paint will do it (it reflects about 80% of visible light, though it will still absorb the non-visible radiation that warms up surfaces). White paint so effective that science went to the effort of inventing the whitest paint possible in the hopes it could have a dramatic impact on cooling down our houses. And while white paint will be most effective, if your home currently has a darker exterior color, lightening it to any significant degree will have at least some impact on the amount of heat it absorbs.

Add a reflective roof coating

Just as you paint the walls of your home, you can paint your roof with a reflective coating to bounce all that heat away. Again, white is the coolest color—a white roof can reflect 80% of the sun’s rays, keeping the roof about 50°F cooler—which means a lot less heat being transferred down into the interior of your house. Coating your roof is a relatively easy DIY job, but you can also hire contractors to take care of it for you.

Choose the right window treatments

The main villains keeping your house hot? Your windows, which just indiscriminately allow all that heat-producing solar radiation to stream into your home. About 76% of the sunlight that hits your window will transform into palpable heat. Keeping that sun out of your house is a key way to cool things down, so invest in some window treatments.

Blackout shades or blackout curtains can be very effective because they stop all the sunlight from getting into your rooms and heating them up, but they can make the house dark and aren’t always the most attractive option. Heat-blocking films can block out the ultraviolet (UV) rays that heat up your house. They’re relatively easy to apply and remove, they're affordable, and they can be a better option than shades or curtains because they don’t obscure your view or make you feel like you’re living in a cave.

Install skylight films or covers

Skylights are great if you lack exterior windows or just love a home awash in natural light, but they can also act as heat beams during the summer. Just like your windows, you can cut some heat-blocking film to fit your skylights—though it can be trickier than applying to windows. If you can't access the skylight easily, or you’re not sure how to cut and apply the film to a curved surface if you have a bubble skylight, you should seek out a professional to do it for you.

As with a regular window, a UV-blocking film will allow your skylight to still be, you know, a skylight. But you can also purchase waterproof skylight covers that will block the sun during the hotter months. These can then be removed when the temperatures fall so you can go back to enjoying all that light.

Add some shade

All the strategies you pursue to mitigate the impact of the sun on your home’s interior temperature will be even more effective if you stop the sun from reaching your house in the first place by increasing the amount of shade cover it enjoys. There are a variety of ways to do this:

• Landscaping can be really effective at adding shade while enhancing your home’s curb appeal. Leafy trees do a great job of blocking the sun, but a trellis with a robust climbing vine along the sunny side of your home is another way to create a living wall between you and those damaging, heating rays.

• Awnings installed on the exterior walls of the home will keep the sun off the walls of your house. A retractable awning offers flexibility because you can roll it up when it’s not so hot out, or when you’re willing to trade heat for light. You can also consider a side awning for the later hours when the sun’s heat is blasting from the side instead of overhead.

Keeping your house cooler in the summer isn’t just about your HVAC settings. Keeping the sun away from and out of your home will have a dramatic impact on your level of comfort—and your AC’s ability to work efficiently.