Summertime heat can be hard to handle but so can high power bills to keep your home cool. By removing the heat from your home and working to keep it cooler, you can save money and be more comfortable, even when it gets really hot and humid outside.
Try these simple hacks to lower the temperature in your house this summer:
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1. Darken the windows
When the sun comes into your home, it heats the air and surfaces it lands on. While you can help reduce this somewhat with vinyl privacy films for really hot days, the best option remains with completely blacking out your windows.
If you have plenty of time to plan or are looking to keep your home cooler all summer long, invest in quality thermal blackout curtains. These curtains will help keep the sun and heat out but come winter; they will also help keep your heat trapped inside and stop your windows from radiating the cold into your home. Quality thermal blackout curtains are a great overall investment for any home and season.
In a pinch, should a major heatwave roll through, you can get away with blankets or a towel over your windows. Pay particular attention to south-facing windows that will get the most sun during the day should you run out of materials.
2. Use fans to your advantage
Fans are a great tool for cooling your home. There are many different kinds of fans but it is important to use them properly to get the best results.
- During the cool nights, when the outside temperatures drop lower than your inside temperatures, you can use window fans facing inwards to help pull that cool air in to cool your home off. During the heat of the day, you can turn fans facing out to help push the hot air you do not want in your home back outside to help you keep your home cooler.
- If you have ceiling fans, keep these on. Flip the switch if you used them to help heat your home in the winter to ensure that they are going counterclockwise for the summertime. This will help create a cooling breeze in your home.
- Use two fans to create a cross breeze to help cool your home. For the best results, place the fan that is pulling air in where the area near it is headed and not as hot. Place the other fan in another window facing out to pull the hot air out and create a cross breeze that runs through the house to help cool it.
- Fans in the attic pushing air out is a great way to cool your entire home. Heat naturally rises, meaning the attic is the hottest part of the house. Use an outward-facing fan to help remove the old hot air leaving room for cooler air and continuing the process of removing extra heat in the home.
- You can also use your furnace fan to help draw hot air out of upper rooms through return vents. Set your furnace to fan only for 15 minutes every hour to recirculate the air in your home. This is especially useful if you do not have central air conditioning.
3. Cook without heating your home
One of the biggest sources of heat inside homes over the summer is from cooking. For the best results, you want an alternative cooking option like using the grill for cooking outside.
You can cook outside with other cooking tools as well. An Instant Pot, slow cooker, and air fryer all work outside with a quality heavy-duty extension cord. If you have issues with critters, place a large laundry basket over the cooking appliance and top with something heavy to keep animals out of your food.
Opt to make meals that use as little cooking as possible. Pay particular attention to the oven and boiling water. Both of these can release massive bouts of heat and energy into your home. Boiling water also releases steam that adds humidity to your home, making it feel hot and sticky.
If you must cook in your home, block off the kitchen with doors or curtains if possible to reduce how much the heat and humidity spread around your home.
4. Get a dehumidifier
In the winter, everyone flocks to get humidifiers to help with the dry air. In the summertime, high humidity levels make the air thick like soup and can make it easy to overheat.
Whether you have an air conditioner that pulls the humidity out of the air or not, you can benefit from using a dehumidifier to pull moisture out of the air, making it feel cooler and lower your cooling bill without a lot of extra stress.
Instead of worrying about how you will afford to keep your family cool this summer, use these tips to cool your home down, prevent more heat from forming, and lower your overall power bill no matter what situation you are already dealing with in your home, even if you are on a tight budget.