Sometimes you see a study and wonder how drunk someone had to be to come up with an idea.
This is one of those times.
Dr Ben Roberts, a senior lecturer in healthy buildings at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, England, somehow decided that the best way to cool down a house in the summer time was to smear yogurt on the windows.
And you know what?
It worked!
[He and his colleagues] 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'.
For Americans, yogurt will cool a house by about 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Here's how it works:
The yoghurt forms a thin film on the window itself and reflects some of the incoming solar radiation as it is a light colour.
This means not as much heat passes through the window.
So, in other words you could put a light colored film on your windows and get the same result.
(Roberts must really like yogurt or something.)
It's not like there aren't drawbacks to using yogurt instead of a film.
He told the BBC the yoghurt smells for ‘30 seconds when drying' but that as soon as it has dried ‘the smell disappears'.
Sure it does.
And it's not like 8 degrees is going to make that big of a difference either.
You're still going to have to run the fan, which means your whole house will smell like old yogurt.
If you ask me, we should go ahead and cancel this culture.
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