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Staying Cool When Temperatures Are Rising

25 Budget friendly cooling tips that are good for the environment too

By Maria CalderoniPublished 3 years ago 13 min read
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Staying Cool When Temperatures Are Rising
Photo by Zach Vessels on Unsplash

25 Budget friendly cooling tips that are good for the environment too

It’s summer in the northern hemisphere and with it comes rising temperatures. Many people just turn down the Air Conditioning and go about their days normally. But what about those without AC? And what about the effects on the power grid?

I choose to live without AC so when rolling blackouts were instituted in my area to try to manage the increased power usage due to excessive heat, it didn’t affect my family very much. But those who depend on power for cooling and have not honed other strategies to cope with the heat, quickly turned into one big hot mess.

By Claudia Wolff on Unsplash

Whether your need for budget friendly cooling tips is financial, environmental or you're just one of those people who wants to be as self-sufficient as possible, this information will help cool you down, put a little more green in your bank account and lower your carbon footprint.

25 Cool tips to help you enjoy summer, save money and preserve the environment

  1. Keep windows and doors closed during the day
  2. Cover windows with dark curtains, blinds or blankets
  3. Run appliances at night
  4. Cook after dark
  5. Wear light weight, light colored clothing
  6. Carry a Spray bottle
  7. Keep Cooling cloths in the fridge
  8. Freeze jugs and bottles of water
  9. Limit opening the fridge or freezer
  10. Get in water
  11. Take a shower
  12. Run in the sprinkler
  13. Turn on a sprinkler just outside the windows in the evenings
  14. Place fans in windows after dark
  15. Hang a cold wet towel in front of the window fans
  16. Place a frozen water jug in front of a window fan
  17. Turn on your Heat Pump Fan
  18. Drink water all day long
  19. Enjoy a warm drink
  20. Eat spicy food
  21. Make fruit popsicles
  22. Give young children ice cubes to play with
  23. Walk in the evening
  24. Put a damp cloth in your hat
  25. Plant trees

Now that you have read the list and hopefully started implementing at least a few of these strategies, let me go over each of them again in more detail.

Keep windows and doors closed during the day

By sealing up the house as soon as the temperatures outside start to creep higher than what you were able to lower it overnight you can hold onto that coolness for much of the day. Now don’t get me wrong. The temperature inside your house will slowly climb all day long. The better your insulation, the darker and thicker your window coverings and the fewer times you open doors and windows allowing heat to sneak in, the longer you will be able to hold onto the hard won coolness from the nighttime. (I didn’t list insulation in my 25 tips because it is more of a long game strategy but the better your insulation the longer you can hold onto the coolness.)

Cover windows with dark curtains, blinds or blankets

It’s a simple concept. Block out the sun! Have you ever noticed on a hot day how it feels so much cooler in the shade than in the direct sunlight? Same idea. If you can prevent the sun beating into your house it will stay significantly cooler. This article is about saving money while staying cool so don’t rush out to the store to buy all new heavy duty black out curtains, (unless you were planning to do that anyway). Here are some great solutions for window coverings that I have implemented with great success:

  • Blankets or quilts hung over the curtain rod or even nailed over the window. (don’t worry it just makes a tiny hole!)
  • Cardboard boxes. A great use for boxes you have laying around. They can be cut to fit or taped over the windows
  • Blinds are great if you have them and you can even hang a blanket over the blinds for double protection.
  • Reflective shades like the ones you can buy to put in your car windows to keep them cool. This comes in rolls and can be cut to size.

Run appliances at night

I know this sounds like a no-brainer but having a checklist reminder of all of these things put together can make such a big difference. Run your dryer and dishwasher and washer etc. at night. They all generate heat!

Cook after dark

On the hottest day of the year so far, I kept walking into the kitchen and catching my 13 year old using the oven to make snacks! Don’t cook on hot days! It unnecessarily heats your kitchen and thwarts all your other cooling efforts. Some tips if you really do need to cook on a hot day:

Do your cooking in the evening

  • Use a microwave
  • Cook in an instapot or slow cooker and put it outside in your yard or on a porch
  • And my favorite one is to simply eat cool foods like salads and bean dips on hot days.

Wear light weight, light colored clothing

Clothing that doesn’t feel heavy and that won’t absorb the sun will help you feel cooler and helps to prevent overheating.

Carry a Spray bottle

They cost a dollar. Give everyone their own spray bottle and rules for how, when,where, who to spray and prepare to be amazed. A little spritz every few minutes is so refreshing and lightens moods as well as lowering temperatures.

Keep Cooling cloths in the fridge

Grab a stack of clean washcloths and put them in a clean bowl of cold water. If you are into essential oils you can even add a drop or two of a cooling oil like peppermint or eucalyptus. You can either wring them out and roll them up all fancy, placing them into an empty container and storing in the fridge or… you can put the whole bowl of water full of cloths into the fridge. Either way, grabbing an icy cool cloth will provide an amazing pick me up when you need it. If you have a fancy gym membership, you may have experienced the cool cloth treatment and you know exactly how great it really feels.

Freeze jugs and bottles of water

Simple. Throw some jugs of water and bottled water into your freezer. This does several things. It fills empty spaces in your freezer allowing it to stay colder with less work and electricity. It also provides you with cooling tools. Grab an icy bottle of water to roll on your neck or limbs in between delightful sips as it slowly thaws. Place a jug of ice in front of a fan and feel the cooler air wafting into your room. (Don’t send me hate mail when it doesn’t reach AC levels of cool. It still lowers the room temperature a little and it feels nice to stand or sit in front of.)

Limit opening the fridge or freezer

It feels so amazing to open the fridge or freezer on a hot day and just stand there with your head sticking inside it I know. (Don’t judge!) But especially if you are experiencing rolling blackouts and if you care about the electric usage just don’t do this. It makes your appliance work way too hard. Try to limit the opening as much as you reasonably can and if the power does go out, Do not open it even once until power has been restored. Losing a freezer full of food is not a budget friendly event. Your food will be fine for quite a few hours even on a hot day if you just don’t open that door.

Get in water

Whether it's a kiddie pool, or a big rubbermaid bin or a bathtub or a full size pool or even better a local lake, getting into cool water feels amazing and will lower your body temperature and even hydrate you a bit. Remember to use sun protection if you will be in direct sun and KEEP drinking.

Take a shower

If you can take a cool shower right before bed, you will find that the fans sucking the cooler night air into your house and blowing it over your freshly cooled body will feel tolerable if not great. I think it feels great!

Run in the sprinkler

This one is kindof obvious. But not only does it cool you off but it dampens your clothing allowing you to stay cool longer. I jumped in water fully clothed the other day before I had to hop in the car and go somewhere. While everyone else kept complaining how hot it was, you guessed it, I was cool as a cucumber (I did keep asking my kids if it looked like I had peed myself and they assured me it didn't. Whew!)

Turn on a sprinkler just outside the windows in the evenings

Remember the strategy of sucking all that cool air in your open windows once the sun goes down. Well, if you have fans in your window with cold, wet towels or jugs of ice in front of them to blow the air through and a sprinkler just outside the window cooling the air that is about to be sucked in through the window you’ve quickly gained a cooling drop.

Place fans in windows after dark

What kind of fans should you use? Inexpensive! Whatever you have in the basement or you found at a yard sale. Sure you can run out and buy nicer, fancier fans and they will work too but my point is, the tech here is pretty simple. Rotate blades to suck air from one direction and blow it the other direction. If you feel like being a bit fancy you can blow the air out of the house for the first few minutes after opening the windows or you can buy a fan with two blades and have one bring air in and one remove the inside air. I have one of these and put it on exchange of air for the first half hour then I set it to just suck in as much cool air as possible the rest of the night.

Ceiling fans as well as an attic fan that exhausts are great additions to your fan arsenal as well.

Hang a cold wet towel in front of the window fans

Letting air pass through cool water lowers the temperature of the air and it feels good. I also use this technique when travelling in a non air conditioned vehicle. Hanging the wet towel from the handle and opening the window. Feels amazing.

Place a frozen water jug in front of a window fan

Feel free to put these jugs all over. You can even take one to bed with you if you like.

Turn on your Heat Pump Fan

When I bought my house the former owners asked if we were using the AC in the summer. Puzzled, I said no. We only have a furnace and no AC unit. They mentioned that they just turn the fan to “cool” all summer and set the thermostat to 70. I was so surprised at what a difference this made. It is just a big fan but it sucks the warm upstairs aie into the basement where it cools a bit and then bowls back out through my vents. Not AC but another piece that helps.

Drink water all day long

There are plenty of articles out there about staying hydrated and the risks of overheating or heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Suffice it for this article to say, DRINK lots of water. Caffeinated drinks and sodas are somewhat dehydrating so if you do drink any of these drinks in the excessive heat please double up on your water consumption as well.

Ways I encourage my kids to keep drinking include setting a quart jar on each person’s drink tile with the goal of finishing it before dinner. And no one leaves the house without a full water bottle.

Enjoy a warm drink

This one seems rather counterintuitive but actually enjoying a warm herbal tea encourages a person’s body to sweat which is one of the best cooling mechanisms we have.

Eat spicy food

For the same reason that a warm drink can be helpful, some good spicy cuisine that puts sweat beads on your upper lip creates enough sweat to help cool you off as well.

Make fruit popsicles

Who doesn’t love a healthy treat? As simple as fruit juice and fruit chunks in an ice cube tray or a fruit based smoothie poured into pretty popsicle molds, popsicles serve to cool us as well as add to our hydration.

Give young children ice cubes to play with

Depending on the child’s age, sitting them down with a bowl of ice cubes to play with or one ice cube on a high chair tray will cool them off, ease the cranky and provide developmental play. When mine were little I would wrap a single ice cube in a washcloth and rubberband it, holding the cube in place. This was a great teether as well as a personal cooling unit.

Bonus, if you are wearing or carrying your baby because they will drip on you as well. (The little mesh feeder bags work wonderfully for this too.)

Walk in the evening

Exercise in the coolest part of the day early morning or later evening rather than risking the dehydrating effects of mid day exertion. And whenever you go out, drink extra water. I do suggest carrying water with you anytime you are out and about.

Put a damp cloth in your hat

First of all, wear a hat, it keeps the sun off your face. Secondly grab a cool cloth and stick it in your hat, rewetting it as needed to keep your head cool. I also take a cold wet cloth to bed with me on hot nights and place it on my face or neck.

Plant trees

This one is a long game strategy but if you are house hunting it bears noting if there are mature trees anywhere near enough to shade your home. A house with good shade is significantly easier to cool whether you use my cooling strategies or have air conditioning.

A few final notes

As the seasons and the weather changes your skin actually acclimates to the new temperatures. Have you ever noticed that you can turn your shower to almost its hottest setting in winter and sometimes it's still not hot enough but in summer it feels too hot. This is the result of our skin acclimating to the new temperature conditions. If you do not have AC your skin will get used to the warmer normal it just takes a bit of time. It’s why the people at my house are reasonably comfortable while many others feel overwhelmed by the higher temperatures when their power suddenly leaves them without AC.

You don’t need to track the exact temperatures however, I find it useful to know when it is hotter inside than outside and just how effective my various systems are so that I can fine tune things as necessary. We have an upstairs thermometer and a downstairs thermometer.

Don’t forget your pets need extra water too and keep them in shade or indoors wherever it is coolest. Pets enjoy water play to cool down too.

If you live in an area with heavy humidity some of these strategies like using the night air to cool down the house will be less effective. The water techniques can still help however.

My list, while thorough, is certainly not exhaustive. I’d love to hear your additional budget friendly cooling tips.

Stay cool! I'm going to go drink some chilled vegetable juice and jump into the kiddie pool!

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About the Creator

Maria Calderoni

Born a lover of stories. I love to read, write and tell them. Tales of inspiration, resilience and struggle.

A life long learner, I enjoy nothing more than sharing interesting and useful things I have learned so far.

Please join me.

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