Cheap Ways to Keep Your House Cooler
- Ceiling fans can make a house cooler by keeping air moving, causing hot, stale air to exit through open windows and cool fresh air to come in. They also make the air feel cooler than it actually is by keeping it in motion. Ceiling fans use a fraction of the electricity that air conditioners use.
- Green plants absorb heat, give off oxygen and moderate their immediate climate, as well as shading the walls of your house. All of these activities help keep your house cooler. Planting deciduous trees around the south side of your house is one of the most effective and least expensive ways of keeping your house cooler during hot summers. In the winter, the trees will shed their leaves and allow the winter sun to add warmth to your house.
- Running a stove in a house that you're trying to keep cool is clearly counterproductive. Putting together a simple outdoor kitchen can allow all the heat from your cooking activities to dissipate outside rather than filling your house. Your outdoor kitchen can be as simple as a camp stove or as elaborate as a large barbecue or even a roofed area with a permanent stove and sink. You can also keep your house and yourself cooler by cooking less during the hot weather and just eating fruit and salads.
- Incandescent light bulbs and electronics such as computers and televisions emit heat. The more of these things you can turn off during hot weather, the cooler your house will be.
- Keeping the sun's heat out of the house in the first place is the best way to keep it cool. This is what trees do, and you can augment their effect by using awnings over the tops of your southern windows and shades to reflect the sun's heat back outside.
- Beefing up your attic insulation will prevent heat from creeping down through your ceilings. Your roof can get hot during hot, sunny days, and the more you can separate it from your living area the cooler you will be. Added attic insulation will also keep you warmer in the winter.