Why many old French houses stay cool without air conditioning

I got talking to some Americans in the village bar last night. They are house-hunting and hoping to leave the US for good. (I did not ask why. I think I already know.)

Anyway, they are looking for a house with a pool and a double garage and good security. Oh and air conditioning.

The air conditioning was, in fact, their main requirement, although they knew it would be hard to find. Apparently American francophiles all know that French houses do not have la clim.

"I just cannot live without it," said the wife.

"I do not have it," I said.

"How do you manage?" asked her baffled spouse.

"Well, I have an old house," I replied, but they just shook their heads, and I realised that they thought I meant something built in the 1970s.

"No, really old," I said. "Not like 1970, like 18th-Century old. So I don’t need air con."

The fact is, in some places the external walls of my house are nearly a metre thick. The rest of the walls are only a couple of feet thick. It takes a while for a canicule (heatwave) to penetrate walls like that.

Traditional buildings

Better still, they are wood-framed and in-filled with mud. A layer of breathable lime cement stuff outside, a coat of sandy limewash inside, some antique wallpaper and, bingo, an authentic French farmhouse.

I believe it is called la construction en torchis (wattle and daub). Adobe is when the mud is made into bricks.

Anyway, this mix of clay, gravel, straw, and horsehair is bliss to live in; warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and you can often put fixings directly into the walls without needing wall plugs. (Indeed, if you drill into these walls they tend to crumble.) They are nicely soundproof too.

With heavy wooden shutters and thick chestnut doors, my house does not need air conditioning. When it was 45C outside last summer, it was still only 25C inside.

I just have to make sure I close the shutters as the sun slides round the house so that it never shines directly through any windows.

And obviously I keep the doors and windows shut except at night, once the mosquitoes have gone to sleep.

I turn all the lights off and indulge in a spot of moon-bathing. So soothing, so cool.

I tried to explain all this to my new American friends but their faces were priceless.

“You live in a mud house? With no air con? You keep the doors closed in the summer? You lie around naked in the moonlight?”

They clearly thought I was utterly bonkers.

I bit back an invitation for them to come round and check out my naturally air-conditioned house in case they thought I was trying to inveigle them into some dodgy French nudie-sect.

"Well, you’ll see," I said.

But I don’t think they will. I reckon they will buy a new-build bungalow sitting on its own patch of neatly manicured garden with a double garage, a pool and air conditioning. Just like back home.