Keeping Your House Cool Without Air Conditioning
This week summer finally arrived. Yay! Well kind of.. This is my first summer in a couple years without central air and it’s definitely an adjustment.
The major challenges to keeping the place cool are
#1 We’re on the 3rd floor
#2 South facing windows
#3 No shade from other buildings to keep the sun from beating down on the brick all day
We did inherit a window ac unit with the place which is good but it’s not big enough to cool the whole place. And it’s in our dining room. We have a blow up mattress in there just in case we can’t take the heat and need to sleep in a cooler room. So far we haven’t had to use it.
So I’ve been doing some research to see if there’s anything I can do besides buying an additional ac unit to keep the place cooler. Of course just buying another unit would be the quick and easy fix but I don’t want to spend the money to buy and run it right now.
Here are some things I’ve done that have helped a little and a couple others that are on my to do list.
- Fans Fans Fans – Fans are really cheap to run. We have a ceiling fan in the bedroom and have been setting up a standing oscillating fan as well as a box fan at night. It’s been in the mid-90’s and I have to say it helps but isn’t completely perfect. The circulating air feels much cooler than still air.
- Close the Blinds or Curtains – The main objective has been to try to keep the heat out. Closing the blinds the ‘wrong’ way, with the blades facing up keeps more sun out. This has helped keep our South facing living room much cooler.
- Use a Dehumidifier – My in-laws who live in Texas suggested this. Drier air feels much cooler.
- Wear Natural Fabrics – Dress for the weather. Seems like kind of a no-brainer but try to wear clothes that breathe and are loose fitting.
- Shut Off Heat Generating Appliances – Keeps tabs on lights, appliances and computers. Shut off what you can.
- Avoid Cooking,Laundry, and Showers at the Hottest Part of the Day – If you can’t avoid these then try to ventilate the room to get the excess heat and humidity out.
- Drink Water – Stay hydrated! If you get really hot run cold water on or put ice on your wrists.
2 Responses to “Keeping Your House Cool Without Air Conditioning”
August 4th, 2009 saat: 10:42 am
An important thing to remember regarding ceiling fans is to run them so they blow air down when it’s hot. This creates a cooling breeze. In the winter, they should be run in the other direction, so they suck the cooler air up from the floor, push it upwards and force the warmer air under the ceiling down.
For your south-facing windows, there are a number of things you can do:
1. Provide extra shade with a vertical overhang over the windows (pergolas, awnings, detachable shading ‘devices’). The sun will always shine at an angle on south facing windows, never horizontally onto them, which is why overhangs work well while still letting some light in.
2. Put blinds or curtains on the outside of the window. Interior window coverings will block up to 65% of the heat, while exterior coverings will block up to 95%. There are relatively few really hot days where I live, so I just hang a white bedsheet outside the windows when needed. It makes the difference between excruciatingly hot and acceptable.
3. Use curtains instead of blinds – preferrably thermal backed ones. Curtains block more heat than blinds.
4. If you have metal blinds, replace them with wooden ones. Metal conducts more heat than wood.
These are the things I can think of at the moment, but I wrote a series about green home cooling a few weeks back. I’m sure you could find some tips you could use there: http://www.renewablesathome.com/energy-conservation/green-home-cooling-mini-series
Thomas Winther´s last blog ..How to green the world by running your mouth
August 5th, 2009 saat: 9:02 am
Thanks for the tips Thomas! I wish I could hang curtains on the outside or put up some awnings. We live in a condo building so unfortunately we’re a little restricted on what we can do to the outside of our place. But when we do replace our blinds I’ll look into wooden ones or thermal curtains.
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