If you’re lucky enough to have a home where your air conditioning unit works well enough to keep your entire home cool even in the hottest parts of the year, then you likely haven’t thought a lot about alternative ways to stay cool in your home. But if you don’t have air conditioning or your a/c is in need of some repair before you can effectively use it, it’s going to be vital to your comfort to know what you can do to beat the heat.
To help you with this, here are three ways you can keep your home cool without air conditioning.
Get Your Body Cold
To get cold, it’s less about the environment you’re in and more about the temperature at which your body is.
To help make your body colder, you’ve got to know what it takes to get your body temperature lower than it normally would be in any given environment. To get to this point, Samantha Toscano and Suzy Strutner, contributors to the Huffington Post, recommend doing things like drinking cold drinks or applying cold compresses to strategic places on your body. Some of the best areas to focus on are your wrists and the back of your neck, as the temperature of these areas can help lower the rest of your body. Additionally, getting your feet cold by soaking them in cool or ice water can also help to lower your body temperature and make you feel less hot.
Take Cover
In many instances, it’s the heat of the sun that warms up an area and can make you feel hot. To combat this, you’ve got to find a way to take cover, regardless of where you are.
To get even more shade when you’re in your home, Alexa Erickson, a contributor to the Family Handyman, recommends that you find ways to get your home under cover. This can be done by planting trees that give cover and shade to your home or by planting vines that will crawl around your home and protect it from getting direct sunlight.
Reduce Radiant Heat
A big part of keeping your home cool without using your air conditioner is to reduce any radiant heat that you might be making in your home.
According to Don Seitz, a contributor to Popular Science, almost all appliances in your home will produce some amount of radiant heating. The trick with using your appliances so they don’t heat up your home is knowing when to use them and how to store them when not in use. Ideally, you should use your appliances during the coolest parts of the day and completely unplug them when not in use.
If you’re wanting to stay cool without using air conditioning, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you accomplish this.
