How to Keep your Home Cool During Summer

Everyone loves to come home to a cool house, especially during the sweltering hot summer days. This article will show you steps that you can take to keep your home cool during summer, as well as saving money in the process.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Weather-stripping

1. 
   Close your blinds.

   Close your window blinds, especially on the sides of your house that receive the most sunlight during the day. With the blinds closed some of the heat will be reflected instead of being absorbed into your home. While it is nice to have natural sunlight coming into your home, it also brings in a lot of heat. Keeping your blinds closed during the day will also give your air conditioner a break since it won't have to work as hard to keep your house cool.

2. 
   Weather-stripping.

   Seal around windows and doors. If you can see light coming from under your exterior doors, or can feel air coming in around your doors and windows, then that is a route for hot air to enter your home. You will need to reseal these areas to make your home more efficient. An easy way to seal a window is to open the window and place self-stick foam weather-stripping under the bottom of the window, this will help to fully seal the bottom. You may also caulk around the edges of the windows to seal them. To seal your exterior doors remove and replace the old weather-stripping. The easiest to use is the self-stick weather-stripping. All you have to do is cut it to length and remove the backing to expose the adhesive and press it into place.

3. 
   Ceiling Fan.

   Open your windows at night and turn on your fans. Even after a hot summer day, the night is usually much cooler. Using the cooler outside air to help cool your home will reduce the amount of time that your air conditioner has to run. As long as the outside air is cooler than air inside your home, your air conditioner will not have to come on to keep your house cool. Plus, there's nothing like a fresh, cool summer breeze while you're sleeping. Also, turn your fans on. While fans do not actually cool the air in your home they do help keep you cooler, and you will be able to turn your thermostat up a degree or two. Another benefit is that you will get an air transfer throughout your home. After all, no one wants to be in a stuffy house.

4. 
   Hot Stove.

   Cook and do your laundry at night. Both of these are necessities of life. However, both produce quite a bit of heat. By cooking and doing laundry later in the day you can stop fighting your air conditioner. When the stove and clothes dryer are on they are generating heat that your air conditioner is having to compensate for. By doing these later in the evening it will be cooler outside and your air conditioner will not have to work as hard to keep your home cool.

Tips & Warnings

• Turn off lights that you do not need. No matter how efficient your compact fluorescent light bulbs are, they still generate heat.
• Turn off electronics when they are not in use. Everything that plugs into a wall outlet generates some heat (even in standby mode). While a small amount for each item, this adds up throughout your home.

Resources

• eHow Home and Garden Topic Guide

[bossypants]

on 9/5/2009 Wise suggestions for keeping your home cool and helping save on cooling costs, as well! We don't always think that the same things that let in cold air also let in warm air (Step 2). Thanks!

[Traqqer]

on 5/28/2009 Very methodical set of steps. It sounds so obvious, but when we cook or clean, we fight the air conditioner. Every litte thing we can do to prevent this fight will save us $$. What a peaceful world we would live in if our stove and our air conditioner would all get along. :)