Tips on How to Keep Your Home Cool During Hot Weather
Tip 1. Keep your doors closed. This is a pretty simple and easy one tip for you. By keeping the doors closed you are decreasing the flow of traffic that comes in and out of your home and you are limiting the actual amount of cool air that will escape through the door and limiting how much of the hot air from outside that is being let in to your home when someone opens the door to come in or out of your home. Do not leave the main door open even with the screen door shut. This is still letting hot air in and letting your cool air escape out as well. Keep both doors shut to keep maximum cool air inside your home.
Tip 2. Set your ac first thing in the morning- Some people will not like this because of the money it costs to run your ac if it is set on a cooler temperature. However, if you normally set your temperature down to a certain degree each day, for example, say you sleep with it set to 80, but once it gets hot you lower it to 65. By waiting until your home is already hot, you are making your ac work twice as hard to cool your home and thus making it twice as longer to actually cool your entire home. If you lower your thermostat first thing in the morning then it will give your home a jump start on cooling down before it actually gets too hot outside.
Tip 3. Cover your windows.- Even if you have blinds on your windows now, normally you will still have some sunlight and heat coming in. Buy dark colored drapes to hang over top of your blinds to keep the inside of your home cool. If you do not have money to buy drapes, no problem. Find some blankets or thick dark colored fabric and use that to cover your windows. This keeps the sunlight and the heat out and makes the home dark and cool. Do not forget to cover the windows that are on the doors as well.
Tip 4- Do not run your dryer- This is another one of those simple tips, but some people forget how much hot air a dryer actually produces and gives off. If you have the option of washing your clothing and hanging them out on a clothesline to dry, hot humid days are the perfect time to take advantage of it. Remember to wash and hang your clothing early in the morning and then go out to get them off the line in the evening once the temperature has dropped some.
Tip 5- Do not run your oven- Hot humid days are one of the best times to use your slow cooker or crock-pot. You can find many meals on-line to suit a variety of tastes and needs. By not using the oven, you are saving yourself a lot of hot air. The oven puts off quite a bit of heat when it cooks, whereas the slow cooker or crock-pot puts off very little heat when you use them to cook.
Tip 6- Make sure your vents are not covered- If you have vents in your floor, make sure that they are not covered by things that will reduce the amount of cool air that will come out of them. All it takes is for one person to forget and leave a towel over top of a vent to cut down the cool air flow for that entire room. So make a check over all of the vents in your home to ensure they are not covered.
Tip 7- Check for any cracks or loose stripping around doors- If your weather stripping around your main door and or back door of your home are cracked, loose or just worn out, you are basically letting all the hot humid outdoor air in your home while the nice cool air goes right out of your door. Most hardware stores will carry things to replace your old weatherstripping. Or if you do not have the money for that take an old towel and roll it lengthwise and put in front of the door, if your hole is at the bottom. If your hole is anywhere else you can use cardboard and tape to cover the hole until you are able to purchase something else.
