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Sure, you can cool down the hot summer season with yummy frozen treats, chilled drinks, and that annual out-of-town beach trip. But as soon as you reach home after a relaxing holiday, you are not prepared enough for the worst things to come during summer: heat stroke happening at your own home.
To prevent this, you often rely on air conditioners either nightly or on a whole day basis and all of us have to face the ultimate consequence in the form of high electric bills. But don’t worry; you can still save your beloved home from so much heat without relying so much on costly portable, mini-split or window mounted air-conditioning units.
Below are some simple yet fool-proof tips on how to keep your house cool not just during summer, but for the whole year round:
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Choose cotton-made linens for your bed sheets
Remember how we often complain in sweating more than the usual when we wear satin or silk-made clothing at daytime? The same logic applies to your favorite bed as well. At this season, cotton-made linens are the best choice – not only it is lightweight, but cotton is also breathable and excellent for promoting airflow and ventilation in the bedroom.
Another tip is to choose light-colored linens, and you can choose between the soft, comfortable Egyptian sheets or otherwise.
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Wear loose clothing
For daytime and evening chills at home, less is definitely more. Have your loose, soft cotton pieces of shirt and shorts ready for the season so you are always ready when the weather gets hotter than the usual.
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Create your own cross-breeze
You will require a fan to do this. Position the fan across from a window so that the wind from outside and fan breeze combine together to create a cooling cross-breeze. If you feel fancy, you can set more fans throughout your room to make the airflow even cooler.
Sleep alone in the evening. Sorry for love birds and so-called summer lovers out there, but this is actually better than cuddling or spooning if you wanted a cool environment during the night. Besides, cuddling with a partner increases body heat and makes the bed sticky instead of creating a cool, calm oasis for your room!
If you want to create a permanent cooling fan, than you should really consider getting a ceiling fan. Those are especially designed to create the best airflow through the room without making too much noise!
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Turn off lights when not needed
This is already self-explanatory as light bulbs give off heat, even the environmentally-friendly CFLs. Lucky for all of us, summer means just keeping the lights on until eight or nine in the evening. As much as possible, take advantage of the natural light, and after dark just keep minimal lighting for kids’ rooms while you have the advantage not to have any lighting at all for your room.
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Unplug all electronic appliances (except the fridge) when not in use
This means that unplugging at night and every time you leave the house. Even when turned off, gadgets and home appliances still consume electricity and emit heat, and by unplugging you are helping out in reducing the total heat in the house. Not to mention, it greatly saves electricity and your home budget will thank you even when the bill comes out!
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Closing the window in the morning and opening them at night
Close the windows and curtains in the morning before the day heats up, and then open them again when nighttime comes. This may seem counterintuitive for your cooling-down goal, but if you think about it, the wind is practically cooler at night. This also allows the cool night air to circulate and prevent a good deal of the heat from the sun from reaching indoors. Another tip is to put houseplants in front of sunny windows so they could absorb natural energy from the sun.
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Do your household chores during the cooler parts of the day
You may use a clothesline to dry out your clean laundry, while you can cook outdoors or choose to make meals that don’t require cooking. Also, pre-cooking large amounts of grains or vegetables in the evening helps in reducing daytime cooking needs, and also saves you time throughout the week.
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Eat cold meals!
Now that we suggested choosing no-cook meals, eating cold meals has the same cooling effect as drinking a nice cold glass of water as it helps keeping your internal temperature lower on a really hot day. Cold soups or a simple watermelon salad are good startup choices.
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Have your attic insulated
Now, for our last tip, you do not need to do this immediately as it take good planning and budget to get it done. To effectively cool down your beloved home, install attic insulation. Like we said, this process costs some money to be completed, but you can seek advice from your local government or utility company for installation tips and they may even offer you rebates, discounts and affordable financing programs for energy-efficiency upgrades.
Insulations – especially at your own home – lasts years longer and greatly helps making your home a really cool place to live in. And even if you use air conditioning in the future, insulation will keep more cool air inside in summer so you do not need to worry about setting the thermostat into really low levels. And during winter time, insulation will keep your home warmer, so you have the best of both worlds!
With these tips, your home will not feel like an oven even during summer. Plus you don’t always have to turn on the air conditioning so you save on your electric bill in the long run.