Keeping your home cool in the summer can be challenging, especially during the hottest months of the summer. Finding creative ways to cool your home if you don’t have an air conditioner can be tough. But it’s certainly not impossible to do. Even if you do have central air conditioning, it’s always smart to try and conserve energy while keeping your utility bills from going sky high during the summer months. Here are eight tips for keeping your home cool during the summer.
Eight Tips for keeping your home cool during the summer
1. Use Blackout Curtains
Blackout curtains are like regular window curtains but are made from a special thick fabric that helps block out sunlight. You’ve probably seen these types of curtains if you’ve ever stayed in a hotel room.
A lot of unwanted heat creeps in from your windows, even if they are closed. If you don’t have blackout curtains, you can still cut down on the heat getting into your home by closing your blinds and curtains.
Keeping your curtains or blinds closed during those peak sunlight hours will help keep your home cooler, especially during the hottest times of the day.
2. Get Creative in the Kitchen
Try to keep from turning on your stove during those hot summer days. Your stove will make your house hotter! Instead, light up the grill and cook your meals outside while you enjoy the summer weather.
You can also use alternative cooking appliances like an air fryer or a toaster oven to cook your meals while giving your stove a break for the summer.
3. Change your Bedding
If you love warm flannel sheets and heavy blankets in the winter, you’ll want to change that up come summer. Switching your sheets to a lighter linen or a natural material like cotton will help keep you cool at night.
Put away your heavy blankets for the summer and replace them with a quilt or lightweight throw blanket. You’ll sleep much better if you are cool and comfortable.
Heat rises, so if your bedroom is upstairs and doesn’t cool down much at night, consider moving downstairs to the couch or a basement bedroom where the heat isn’t as bad.
4. Invest in Fans
Get a couple of good air cooling fans for rooms that may get warmer than others, such as an upstairs bedroom or home office.
Even if you are running your air conditioner, having a few fans around can help cut your energy costs by allowing you to set your thermostat at a higher temperature while still cooling your home with the fans.
Also, if you have ceiling fans, remember to change the direction that they rotate every season. In the summer, your ceiling fan should rotate counter-clockwise. This forces the air down as opposed to sucking it up towards the ceiling.
5. Cool Your Home at Night
If you can safely do so, leave a few windows open at night and take advantage of the cool air that often hits during the nighttime hours, especially during the middle of the night when the temperature tends to dip the most.
The night air can be refreshing and help cool down your home before the sun comes back up. Once the sun is back up, close windows to keep the heat from coming in.
6. Close Off Unused Rooms
If you have rooms in your home that don’t get a lot of use, close the doors and conserve that cool air for the rest of the house.
If you are using a central air conditioner, you can close the vents in those unused rooms to help distribute the cool air to other rooms that are being used.
7. Limit Your TV Watching
Depending on the type of TV you have, you may be heating up your home just by watching your favorite show. Some TV’s put out quite a bit of heat, enough heat that can make a room uncomfortably hot.
If your TV is a heat-producing offender, consider switching to a newer energy-saving TV or keep it off during the hottest parts of the day.
8. Plant Shade Trees
This may be a more long-term plan, but planting shade trees strategically around your windows can help keep the heat out of your home in those hot summer months.
Ideas for fast-growing shade trees include:
- Hybrid Poplar
- Nuttall Oak
- Red Maple
- Weeping Willow
Plant a tree now and see the benefits from it for years to come.
As you can see, there are many ways to cool your home in the summer and cut your energy costs in the process. Take these steps to cool your home and get more enjoyment out of the summer months.
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