Power Windows

We have air conditioning in our house. We don't use it much, maybe four weeks a year. It keeps the main floor cool, but it doesn't do a very good job on the upstairs, probably because the builder hired the low bidder. So if it cools off at night during one of these hot spells, we will open the windows to let the house cool off overnight, and then shut it up again in the morning. There are a dozen windows that participate in this activity, and in one of my idle moments I thought, you know it would be nice if they were power windows and I could just flip a switch and they would open or close automatically.

Of course, I wouldn't actually want something like that for my house. My house is already overflowing with fancy gadgets, so many that even with a mean-time-between-failure of ten years, it seems like something breaks every blamed day.

But for some kind of commercial establishment, where you would have to pay someone to go around and open or close all the windows, it might be a worthwhile kind of thing.

But lets go one step father. Lets include shades and storm shutters with window, all powered, all remote control. Install the window and you are done, no drapes or shades required. No nailing up plywood when the hurricane comes to visit. No closing the storm shutters when you close up the house to leave for vacation.

Of course, shutters and blinds don't give you the same ambiance that drapes and curtains do, but they are a lot less hassle to install and maintain.