How to Stay Cool This Summer (While Saving The Earth—And Some Cash)
by Alex Pasternack, Beijing, China on 06.29.06
Unless you’re living in the Arctic (and even then) you’ve probably noticed that summer is here. But your melting popsicle and soaking brow aren't the only indicators: with each rising notch of the air conditioner dial, you might also notice the electric bill soar, or Greenland’s ice sheet—part of the earth’s natural “air conditioner”— sink. Feeling too sluggish to even pull myself over to the A/C from my sweat-soaked keyboard in this sweltering Beijing apartment, and sorely lacking that classical Asian air conditioner, I called out to my fellow Treehuggers for their advice: how, I asked, can I stay cool without switching on the A/C, that expensive energy eater whose drips are the summer scourge of every city dweller, whose chills can make us sick, and whose numbing hum can be heard around the world, from the U.S. to Brussels, from Qatar to China to even (yes) the Arctic?
It turns out that there are plenty of cheap, easy, and fun ways to beat the summer heat without beating the environment or your wallet. Green isn’t just cool: cool is green. Here are some ideas from Treehugger...
Be a fan-atic. Instead of reaching for the AC, consider the much underrated ceiling fan. It uses dramatically less energy than an air conditioner, costs less to buy, is a breeze to install, and cools like a charm. And for you DIY types, there’s always the classic hand fan, made out of the nearest newspaper, magazine, or outdoor concert brochure.
Consume the cold stuff. Take advantage of your fridge by filling up some spare bottles with water and keeping them in there. And keep one in the freezer for those extra hot days. Eat small, light meals, and foods high in water content, like fruits & vegetables. Also, don’t you forget the organic ice cream and sorbet (like the UK’s Rocombe makes)! Remember too to keep that fridge closed as much as possible--the more it's open, the more energy it uses and the more heat it releases.
Turn off the hot stuff. Switch off your computer and lights when not in use (try to avoid incandescent and halogen lamps in favor of compact florescent ones), and forgo the oven if you can. In fact...
Get out of the kitchen. Forget your hot indoor stove or even outdoor grille—you’ve already got the sun! Feel some SOUL or make your own solar oven. Heating your afternoon tea meanwhile is simply a matter of leaving some tea leaves in your glass of water and letting it warm on the window sill. (But yes, beware--some say making sun tea could be bad for your health)
Keep it on the down low. Heat rises, so try to stay on lower floors of buildings. If you’ve got a stone or tile floor, wipe it off and lie down on it for a cool respite.
Let in the breeze. Circulate air by opening windows, especially those on the north and south of your house or apartment—but keep out the heat with some white window shades (to deflect the sun) or bamboo blinds. And don’t forget the old-fashioned Israeli air conditioner: drench some sheets in water (or wash some clothes) and hang them over the windows to let the water evaporate in the breeze, creating a lovely cooling effect.
Take a cool shower. It's a great way to chill out fast and keep the air in your home cool too—and considering how quickly you may want to get out of it, a cool shower is also a great way to save water. Also: try throwing some rose water in a spray bottle and give yourself a light misting now and then. It'll also help cover up your less-than-pleasant summer fragrance au naturale.
Plant some trees. If you live in a house, planting trees on the south and west sides of your home will provide enough shade in the summer (and wind blockage in the winter) to save you between $100 and $250 in energy costs annually, says a US Department of Energy estimate. Opt for deciduous trees, which shade in summer and allow light and radiant heat to pass through in the winter.
Go Chinese. The hand fan is only the tip of China’s summer-cooling iceberg. Sitting outside, as older folks do here in the hotter months, isn’t just comfortable, it’s sociable. Find a bamboo mat for your chair—they rarely heat up and don’t soak up sweat—pull up your shirt to cool your tummy (try to ask permission before attempting further nudity--trust me) and relax over a game of checkers, or a cool plate of watermelon, iced tea, or (mmm) pickled cucumbers.
And if you must use the air conditioner. Remember to keep doors and windows closed to maximize cooling. Also make sure you’re using an energy-efficient Energy Star model, and clean the filter every so often so as to improve air flow. In addition, consider using an electric fan to supplement the AC, allowing you to raise the thermostat 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher to get the same resulting temperature--and saving up to 30% of your energy consumption.
Pretty cool, eh? Before it gets any hotter in here, it'd be great to hear your own ideas too!
[Thanks to Mairi, Mike, Kyeann, Bonnie, Jacob, and Petz for the tips, and to Eartheasy and the DOE for some extra info!]
Be careful of making sun tea (by leaving that glass on the windowsill): it can actually be hazardous to your health.
wet a washcloth with cold water and put it on the back of your neck. keep a few wet washcloths in the fridge, so you can swap them out when they warm up!
One trick my wife and I figured out is to turn the fan on our furnace on. This pulls air down into the basement where it loses some heat and pumps it back into our house.
Also, to maximize our A/C, we've closed all the vents on the first floor. Since cold air sinks, the downstairs stays plenty cool, and the upstairs is actually bearable, particularly with our ceiling fans going.
These tricks, combined with our programmable thermostat that turns off the A/C when we're gone and down at night means our electric bill is only $15 more than usual.
I hate AC's a lot...I hate the noise, the awful stale air they leave you with and how bitter cold they can make a place feel...buuut I have two small kittens and the heat was just getting to them. I had two fans on the floor and one ceiling fan along with a few dishes of water throughout my apartment, but they still did nothing but pant and sleep in the bathtub. I have a fairly small apartment so I was hoping the fans would be enough. Finally, I was told to buy and AC and with a budget of 100 dollars it was pretty tough to find something such as the Pinguino, but I did go for something that uses the smallest amount of BTU's and has an EER of 9.5. I only use it when necessary and since I have a small living room it cools it down quickly, I just wish there was another way to make my kitties as comfy. If anyone has had a similar situation or knows any other alternatives to minimize this AC thing even more, it'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I've been to the Middle East, and was advised not to drink cold liquids when it is hot out. Either warm liquids or hot liquids. I would also suggest getting a floor fan for your bedroom/lounge.
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editor note: Any idea on the reason why cold liquids are not recommended?
For the kittens something I used to do for my cat in sweltering summers was too freeze water in wide flat water bottles which I then wraped in an old towel.
My cat learnt very quickly how to use it effectly (ie, spread eagle) and also learnt to bug the hell out of me when it had gotten warm and to get the next one out for her!
If your kittens have a place they normally sleep putting it in with there normal bedding will help keep the bed cool.
Cold drinks cool the body which in turn tries to raise the tempereature again resulting in increased heat. That´s why drinking warm drinks is better for you in the heat. Cold drinks take up too much energy to reheat cooled body parts.
or you can try coolers- cool green drink. Like having lemon juice by adding few leavess of mint. Or try raw mango juice (sweet or salty). Its very cool & healthy. Just to stay Green!
You have to be careful if you shut off the vents to half of your house - your system was (I hope) sized to your house's Sq. footage, and if you try to force the system to effectively run on a smaller house, you're not running it efficiently.
I appreciate what you're doing, and I've spent many an hour trying to do what you're doing - but you have to be careful about it.
One thing I'd like to do is to get an attic fan, one that exhausts the hot air from the second floor into the attic. You only have to run it for a few hours at night to really cool down the house, assuming that it's cool outside...
I've heard that the reason for drinking hot liquids is that they warm up your core temperature and this makes the actual temperature not feel as hot.
I don't have any a.c., one thing we've found is to pull in cooler night air and then turn off the fans in the morning.
Also, there is a product called a 'chillo' out there, add water and slip it in your pillow - it really does work. They also make pet chillo's which could help the kitties. And I really wouldn't worry too much about the kittens, all of mine have found the good spots in the house, they probably deal with the heat better than I do!
My cats LOVE the heat! They lie on the porch, baking in the sun and refusing to come in. They dream they are lions on the savanna...
That's a great mental picture, KPod :)
Little things help psychologically:
1. do not wear jewelry
2. do not wear underwear
3. wear your hair up
4. turn on night lights only
5. hold wrists under tap water periodically. splash water on neck, behind knees and in arm pits
6. postpone stressful tasks for a cooler day
7. read all the other excellent comments posted here - great ideas
hi, i'm from England and with working in a hospital all day with no air conditioning we drink warm tea, the reason being that hot drinks make you sweat or perspire more and the reason why we sweat is to actually cool our bodies down, when drinking a hot drink and sweating more, the cooler air is able to be felt on our skin and evaporates the sweat cooling our bodies down. Thats why they say have hot drinks to cool you down.
Here is what I did. http://keep-your-cool.blogspot.com/ Turned out pretty cool. I have a steady supply of 60-68 degree air.
Umm... I like trees?
Allright today was the first night of me testing this way to keep cool my dad told me and so far its working really well. I filled my bathtub up with cold water (no hot water at all) and dumped some salt in it (my dad says the salt makes the water even colder). Then I put a fan in my bathroom facing towards my bedroom (which is connected to my bathroom). My bedroom is about 5 degrees cooler than the living room. It would probably cooler if I didn't have such a tiny and wimpy fan (the fan only goes halfway up my calf including the 1 1/2 inches it is off the ground) With that large mass of cold air in your tub the cold water evaporates and pushes the cooler air out through the fan. My dad probably explained it better than me because he majored in environmental science (and physics and geology..yeah triple major) in college. I don't know how well this would work for a larger space but all I needed was my bedroom cooler and it worked so its made me happy. Hope it helps someone else.
try to hang wet towels around your bedroom it will help the air cooler.
My mother always told me not to take cool showers in the summer, take a warm one instead. Like the previous post said you don't want your body to have to work harder to cool off and the extreme changes in temperature only make your body more exhausted. Besides you will feel cooler after getting out of a warm shower with the moisture evaporating from your skin. "evaporative cooling"
No matter what you do, one thing to do along with any method is, DON'T FIGHT IT. If you sit there and whine and groan and complain because its hot you will absolutely make it worse for you and anybody nearby. If you're hot you're hot. If you can't get cool at the moment then just relax. Working yourself up will make you hotter. If you CAN get cooler then shut up and do it and quit complaining and bothering the rest of us! I like it hot. I am glad its hot. It means its summer. Sometimes I like to go out in my car and sit for a few minutes. Its a sauna. It clears my sinus out. Sometimes it cures a headache. The trick is not to constantly find ways to keep cool, its to learn to be comfortable in the heat. If you constantly find air conditioning and places that are cooler then you won't be able to take the heat as well when you need to. And drinking hot liquids on a hot day and taking a hot shower IS RIDICULOUS! You might sweat a little and feel relatively cooler for a few minutes but drinking cool liquid and taking a cool shower will lower your temperature, which is very important to keep from over heating and dehydrating. Basicly, USE COMMON SENSE! If you don't have any, get some!
i learned a trick while working at a local animal shelter for keeping animals cool in the heat and it doesnt involve ac b/c there was no money in our small budget for that. when cats/ dogs get to hot they lay down as low as they can and they pant with there mouth open. the cheapest way to cool them down safely is to wet down a towel with the coldest water you can get from a tap and place it on the floor close to were the animal is laying. dont force your animal to go on to it though. it will cool them down without the air blowing onto there cute little faces, which might cause respiratory problems later on in the animals life. i hope this helps for all you animal lovers. ad towels tend to work best cause they stay wet for a long time, animal blanket didn't seem to stay cool for very long. i hope you and your animals the best of luck this very hot summer
well, i have an awesome way to keep cool. it's great 4 kids like me, and it's fun!!
ok, so take your tennis shoes (i don't suggest doing this with your brand new Converse high tops or your shiny Etnies!! :D ) and soak them in the bathtub or the sink. when they are soaking wet, put them in the fridge 4 about 15-20 minutes. take them out, slide them on, and you should be good 4 a couple hours!! :D it really works! but i suggest wearing them outside and not where they can drip. you can also do this with a pair of socks, too!! but be sure to get your parents permission before doing this!!
Madi's cool water in the bathtub and Elizabeth's cool wet towels should work well in low- to mid-humidity climates. But they probably WON'T cool the air in high humidity climates. This is because water in dry air will evaporate, and the water's state change from liquid to gas requires energy (heat), which the water takes from the air, thus cooling the air. But water will not evaporate into air that is already full of moisture.
Folks in the dry-aired West often use swamp coolers for the same reason that the wet towels and cool bathtub water work. Folks in the humid Northeast and Midwest tend to rely on air conditioners which also dehumidify the air.
Another important way to stay cool is to make sure your attic's got good ventilation, and insulate the floor of your attic. The ventilation makes sure that the heat beating down on your roof doesn't cause the air in your attic to get hotter than it is outside. That's bad because you're actually adding hot air to the top of your house.
The insulation prevents the attic's hot air from heating the air in your home.
I am glad someone mentioned the warm drinks as my husband always says this also...he is from Romania (Europe) and that is what they also say. I am glad folks have explained why because I tell People I work with this and naturally they all think my husband and self are crazy! :-) Now, I can have an intelligent response! :-) Great topic! I have had posts on this topic as well! Love this site.