Lower your monthly bills with these practical ways to keep your house cool this summer.
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Cost-Effective Ways to Keep Your House Cool This Summer
1. Dehumidify
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The best time of the year to cool off at the beach is now! But if you’re a homebody, you’re probably thinking of ways to keep your house cool during the summer.
Here’s one: If you live in a humid area, your sweat evaporates slower, so it’s best to wear loose cotton and other natural fabrics to boost cooling.
Lowering the humidity will also help you feel cooler. Of course, there are other ways to keep your house cool.
2. Reduce and Reflect Sunlight
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Direct sunlight coming into your home can increase the temperature. Placing blinds, curtains, or reflective window panels are some of the ways how to keep the sun out of windows.
Keeping direct sunlight away from your room will reduce the warmth in the space.
3. Turn Off Lights When Not in Use
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Light bulbs produce heat, especially the incandescent ones. If you can’t replace this antiquated type of bulb, the least you can do is minimize their usage.
Some homes install solar panels to help minimize the cost of electricity.
4. Be Smart About Your Doors
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If a room is cooler than the outdoor temperature, close the door. This will retain the colder room temperature for as long as possible even in the warmest part of the day.
5. Don’t Cook Inside
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The kitchen can create and retain a lot of heat when you are cooking. The best compromise is to cook during the coolest time of the day.
If you can opt to cook in your backyard, that’ll be a great excuse for a backyard barbecue!
6. Put Smooth White Fabric Covers On Your Furniture
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White fabric covers will help retain less heat in your furniture. These covers will also reflect the light.
Some would say that it absorbs less heat from sunlight. The furniture and interior of the house stay cooler in the process.
7. Open Windows at Both Ends of the House
By opening windows at both ends of the house, you let air move freely throughout the whole structure. This is called a cross-ventilation.
This process helps reduce the temperature in your home. You’ll be surprised at how much cooler it becomes!
8. Set Your Ceiling Fans to Rotate Counter-Clockwise
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Doing this will help move the warmth away from the room. In turn, you will feel cooler. I bet you didn’t think you could do that, did you?
This method of reversing the rotation of the blades will push the warmth to the ceiling instead of blowing it to your direction.
9. Point Box Fans Out the Windows
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When you do this, you push the hot air out. This is one thing many homeowners do not realize.
Sometimes, it’s better to use fans for exhaust rather than creating an artificial breeze.
RELATED: Beat the Heat Without AC: 10 Summer Survival Tips
10. Unplug Appliances or Electronics
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In this age of electronics, heat is a normal by-product. If you have kids or teens playing with their Xbox on large flat screen TVs all day, maybe it would be best to minimize their playtime.
Pull out those plugs if you are not using a gadget. Less heat produced means a cooler interior.
11. Hack a Fan Instead of Turning On the AC
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Turning on the air conditioning is the most convenient solution, but you won’t be too happy once you get your power bill.
Did you ever think of how to cool down a room with ice? It’s a classic, but it’s proven to work. Take some ice in a bowl, place in front of a fan, and you get an instant air conditioner.
It may not be as cool as the real thing, but it’s still pretty darn effective! Better put those ice cubes to good use!
12. Hang Wet Laundry On a Clothesline Instead of Using the Dryer
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A dryer is no different from an oven in the summer. They are heat multipliers, so try not to use them if you don’t need dry clothes right away.
Besides, line-drying will also cool the air coming into your home if the wind direction is favorable.
13. Make Use of Your Bathroom and Kitchen Exhaust Fans
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Apart from drawing out any excess steam, these exhaust fans also draw out the heat from other rooms nearby.
There will be a noticeable difference. You can probably do this at the warmest part of the day when you’re not using your AC.
14. Do Your Laundry and Ironing at a Certain Time of the Day
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Just like cooking in your kitchen, you can do this on the cooler parts of the day. This way, you won’t be adding to the warmth of your home’s interior.
Plus, your work will be much more comfortable − unless you have a strict schedule to keep.
15. Damp Curtain
People from the old days used this technique before the birth of air-conditioning units. This is quite similar to putting ice in front of the fan.
As long as there’s a breeze, that is. You can even add fabric conditioner to add fragrance!
16. Let the Night Air In
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In the summertime, nights tend to be much cooler. Make the most of this by opening the windows before sleeping.
Of course, security should be your primary concern prior to leaving them open as you doze off. Make the necessary preparations like installing grills or just leaving the upper windows open if you live in a two-story house.
17. Plant Trees Strategically
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This may be a long-term plan, but the benefits are also long-term. After a few years, you will be proud of the natural shade you’ve created.
Plant them in locations where you think the sun beats down on your home the hottest, especially during summer.
This video from DIYonTheCheap will show you how to cool down a room with a fan:
Now you have a few more ways to keep your house cool and cut your bills this summer! This list just might do you some good when it comes to getting rid of or minimizing the heat in your home.
If you have barn animals, you can also find ways to keep them cool. Stay off your feet and beat the heat this summer!
Do you have your own tricks or other ways to keep your house cool? Please share them in the comments section below!
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***Disclaimer: The contents of this article are for informational purposes only. Please read our full disclaimer.***
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2017 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
I can see how getting rid of that sticky, humid feeling would keep things a little cooler. Out here in North Carolina it is so hot because you can literally feel the thickness of the humidity with your hands. I’ll have to remember your tips so we can keep things nice and cool in the house.
Rob Lane again:
I built this house after a lot of research of different types, including “earth contact” [aren’t they all??], passive solar and such. I built with 6 inch walls, 12″ ceiling rafters, a 30″ soffit overhang, and a SW angle with 25 of sixty five of that SW face being sliding glass doors.
If I had to do it again I would change a few things, but the basics seem to me to make this a pretty solid and energy efficient house in all seasons.
I could never be cooped up with A/C running 24/7, never hearing a bird chirp or the frogs at night. If I am a few percentage points below maximum efficiency in a sealed abode, then so be it!! ☺
Thanks for sharing such a useful information. The collection was really helpful for visitors.
This information is very useful for all of us, to keep our home cool at summer. Thanks for sharing and keep sharing.
I’d like to know how dehumidifiers would make a room cooler. I have a 50 pints dehumidifier and I’ve never though of using it to cool a room.
water holds heat in the air, remove the water & you remove the heat, evaporative loss. outside u can use water to effect adiabatic cooling with a misting fan, it’s just like rain removing heat from the atmosphere
@Shannon, by using a dehumidifier you reduce the humidity in the room, so that it feels less humid, feels cooler to your body.
Blowing a fan over a dish of ice cubes is ultimately inefficient, as to make the ice, your fridge or freezer had to extract the heat from the water in the icemaker or the ice cube trays, and that heat ends up in the room where the icemaker is located…usually the kitchen or it’s adjacent pantry, which is already too warm because of cooking.
Great-grandma would have all the windows open at night and then closed by 10:00 am, with the curtains closed on the side of the house where the sun was. The big, covered porch helped keep the worst of the sun off the rooms on the south side of the house, which helped keep the interior rooms cooler too. I don’t remember if she had a summer kitchen, but as much cooking as possible was done on baking day to get them through the week without firing up the stove too often. The cellar was always cool, but since it was mostly for food storage there wasn’t really living space; still, if you got sent down for a jar of pickles it was nice to get out of the heat for a minute.