In the year since this vid first came out, I hope these solar bottle lights have moved across the Philippines and across the world. A while ago, I asked a very wise university professor who thinks about these things professionally if there was any way to cool down the sun-battered corrugated tin shacks in which poorer people live in the tropics, such as the shacks shown in this video. He had two simple and low cost ideas:
“There are two things they can do to ameliorate the situation somewhat – insulation and ventilation.
(1.) If they can find anything that has insulative value, even a bunch of layers of corrugated cardboard, and can cover the entire ceiling with as few gaps as possible, that will prevent some of the heat from radiating to the inside.
(2.) Second, if they can create some ventilation openings, half of them as close to the ceiling as possible and half of them at sitting height (if they are sitting), the warmer air near the ceiling will exhaust and pull presumably cooler air into the lower openings. Also if the lower openings are on the windward side and the higher ones on the leeward side that will help pull the air through. It’s actually the exhaust openings that are the most important.”
