What are your advices to cool homes without AC ?
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Yup. A $100-200 window unit(personally I prefer "portable" units with the exhaust hose to the window - keeps the main unit out of the sun that causes it to work harder) will be your best bet every single time. But sure, go ahead and check the price of tinting every window(about $20 per window) or getting blackout curtains(~$20 per panel in my experience) or any of the myriad of lesser solutions. Then, when you've spent as much or more with worse results and finally cave on getting a small unit, you'll wonder why you ever did anything else before. Nevermind the fact that OP basically said "so aside from all the normal passive options, what else is left?" AC. That's what's left. Unless you want to advise them to replace all the insulation/windows/seals in their house.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Window units are the best bang for the buck. Don't worry about expensive ones, $100 goes a LONG way to cooling one bedroom. And it's cheaper than doing the whole house.
We have a big in wall unit in our apartment that can do the whole living space, but we hardly ever run it. We just run the bedroom one, set to like 70-75f, just to take the humidity out and chill it down a bit. A nice place to go cool down if you get hot while doing things around the house. We don't run it when we're not home, because even the cheapest Menards special can cool the room down in minutes, and it's cheaper to not run it when we don't need it.
Beware of the units with the hose... You're paying more, and trading the convenience of not lugging a big unit into the window (small ones really aren't that bad), for the inconvenience of having to dump the water (unless you pay more for one that can pump it out the window).
But by far the worst thing about the hose units, if they only have one exhaust hose, and no return hose? They are less efficient, because they create negative pressure in your house that sucks hot air in through every crack.
For more information see here.
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Hi there, time to share ways to keep your home cool during hot times
So ok, usual ways I use:
- open everything during night
- close everything during day
- external sheets on windows without shutters
- some curtains to prevent heat from going upstairs
I was also wondering if plants could also help inside, any ideas ?
Share your advices !
I've been getting by just fine with a couple standing fans. I've had to turn the ACS on a couple times for my kids when I was around 110F
Before going full blast AC in all the rooms I'll turn on the big Window unit in the living room and set up fans so it blows the cold air through the whole house (our house isn't big) and I find its a good middle ground. It cools down the rooms pretty well.
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Hi there, time to share ways to keep your home cool during hot times
So ok, usual ways I use:
- open everything during night
- close everything during day
- external sheets on windows without shutters
- some curtains to prevent heat from going upstairs
I was also wondering if plants could also help inside, any ideas ?
Share your advices !
If you own the place or can get permission, a mini-split air conditioner is very easy to install with minimal tools, and they're pretty affordable online.
For under 500 buck including drill and bits you could have AC in a few days. It's not free, but it's a huge quality of life improvement.
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Hot showers at night or when you’re feeling extremely overheated. Trust me, that’s way better than cold showers. First shower warm, then get soapy, and then shower as hot as you feel comfortable. I do this for over 10 years now and it’s amazing. My theory is that it heats up the body and due to the outside being cooler, it actually cools your body down - albeit 35°C. By the way I shower with ~42°C regular lol
This seems like a really bad idea and a great way to get someone to pass out and die in the hot water
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Hi there, time to share ways to keep your home cool during hot times
So ok, usual ways I use:
- open everything during night
- close everything during day
- external sheets on windows without shutters
- some curtains to prevent heat from going upstairs
I was also wondering if plants could also help inside, any ideas ?
Share your advices !
From a Deep South transplant who went through plenty of hurricanes with no electricity, a frozen gel pack between your thighs. You’re welcome
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But sure, go ahead and check the price of tinting every window(about $20 per window) or getting blackout curtains(~$20 per panel in my experience) or any of the myriad of lesser solutions.
tin foil and painters tape $1.50 per window.
Unless you want to advise them to replace all the insulation/windows/seals in their house.
winter blankets and old shirts.
couple with a window fan and a swamp cooler can reduce internal temps 10-15°.
poor af growing up. that's what we did. bonus points if you're in a trailer. you can open both ends and have fans blowing from one end to the other.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The main problem with swamp coolers is they don't work very well or at all in high humidity climates due to the way in which they cool air. I'm from East Coast US and it gets pretty damn humid in the summer, which is honestly worse than the heat some days. AC is honestly the best solution if dealing with heat and humidity because it combats both issues even if it can't fully cool a space.
Dryer climates though? Wet towel over a box fan all the way baby!
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Window units are the best bang for the buck. Don't worry about expensive ones, $100 goes a LONG way to cooling one bedroom. And it's cheaper than doing the whole house.
We have a big in wall unit in our apartment that can do the whole living space, but we hardly ever run it. We just run the bedroom one, set to like 70-75f, just to take the humidity out and chill it down a bit. A nice place to go cool down if you get hot while doing things around the house. We don't run it when we're not home, because even the cheapest Menards special can cool the room down in minutes, and it's cheaper to not run it when we don't need it.
Beware of the units with the hose... You're paying more, and trading the convenience of not lugging a big unit into the window (small ones really aren't that bad), for the inconvenience of having to dump the water (unless you pay more for one that can pump it out the window).
But by far the worst thing about the hose units, if they only have one exhaust hose, and no return hose? They are less efficient, because they create negative pressure in your house that sucks hot air in through every crack.
For more information see here.
Upvoted for Technology Connections. If you didn't link that video I was going to. Window units, if you can mount them or get help mounting them, are superior in every way.
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Aren't there AC systems that just evapourate water from municipal supplies to the atmosphere?
I mean, yes, I'd agree that blowing air over a standing water body isn't AC, but we're getting close.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]As another person stated, that's an evaporative cooler or "swamp" cooler.
AC works by "moving" heat energy from one place to another by way of the refrigeration cycle. This helps you feel comfortable by both cooling the air and also as a byproduct it removes humidity from it. If you want a nice long video on how that works just search "technology connections air conditioning" on YouTube and enjoy. Very informative.
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Apparently window awnings make a considerable difference.
I was searching to see if someone had posted this already because that was exactly what I wanted to contribute. Excellent work!
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Wet curtains, and if that's not enough a wet towel on the head (not your home, I know, but something to remember when your brain threatens to overheat and you've got no energy left to pursue another solution.
Just keep in mind this only works if the humidity where you live is on the lower side. If you deal with high humidity where you live you won't experience nearly as much cooling from those wet curtains or the old wet towel over a box fan trick.
The towel on your head still works though because it's on a much smaller scale unless you're dealing with near 100% relative humidity. Double that with a fan of some type and you're in business.
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Hi there, time to share ways to keep your home cool during hot times
So ok, usual ways I use:
- open everything during night
- close everything during day
- external sheets on windows without shutters
- some curtains to prevent heat from going upstairs
I was also wondering if plants could also help inside, any ideas ?
Share your advices !
Get a box fan and a coil of copper pipe, run the coil all around the front of the box fan like a snake going back and forth, on the top end of the pipe attach a box for icewater, and a bucket to catch the outflow.
Put an adjustable valve at the end going into the drain bucket and let it dribble a bit. You'll have to adjust it to get the longest cold air time/least having to get up to empty the valve
It's not super efficient but it's cheap and can be made with parts in the garage
You'll need a lot of ice tho
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From a Deep South transplant who went through plenty of hurricanes with no electricity, a frozen gel pack between your thighs. You’re welcome
another on back of the neck, and for the ladies, small ones under the boobs
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Hot showers at night or when you’re feeling extremely overheated. Trust me, that’s way better than cold showers. First shower warm, then get soapy, and then shower as hot as you feel comfortable. I do this for over 10 years now and it’s amazing. My theory is that it heats up the body and due to the outside being cooler, it actually cools your body down - albeit 35°C. By the way I shower with ~42°C regular lol
Biologically: being hot all over makes your capillaries close to the surface of the skin expand so you can dump heat into the air quicker
A hot shower raises this above ambient, giving you even better capillary cooling for a while, plus hot water tends to evaporate quicker, taking more heat load with it.
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This seems like a really bad idea and a great way to get someone to pass out and die in the hot water
Sheesh there is literally no thing so harmless that some internet rando won't claim its deadly
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Hi there, time to share ways to keep your home cool during hot times
So ok, usual ways I use:
- open everything during night
- close everything during day
- external sheets on windows without shutters
- some curtains to prevent heat from going upstairs
I was also wondering if plants could also help inside, any ideas ?
Share your advices !
There kind of.. isn't. I've been battling heat with extreme prejudice my entire life. MAYBE the closest thing to a solution is to drink lots of ice water and then hopefully you're not one of those people who can't sleep if its hot (i am).
Try to "store" as much "cold" as possible. i.e. if you have a half working a/c unit, run it at 100% at night and once the temperatures get as low as they're going to get, close all the windows, cover the windows, unplug fridge or whatever is producing heat you can afford to shut down and maybe if you're lucky it will be around 1 or 2 pm before it heats up to utter bullshit temperatures.
If you have a way to get unlimited free ice (IMPORTANT: and NOT from the fridge in the living space you are trying to cool), you can use that to cool things down in the evening when everything is the hottest. If you have to buy the ice, just buy a ac unit because it will pay for itself in no time. And if you're doing this because you can't afford the electricity, maybe see about wiring up a solar panel and battery which, again, will pay for itself if you could've afforded to literally buy bags of ice every day. And if you're doing this to protect the environment, get a ac unit that doesn't contain ozone-layer destroying coolant (i.e. most of them). Buying ice for cooling is incredibly inefficient.
You can also take the ice-based cooling strategy further. Get a bucket. A fan. A big radiator (you need quantity(sq area) not quality, get a shitty heater core one and not a pc watercooling one). A pc watercooling pump. Some tubing, along with whatever barb fittings and pipe clamps you need. Make it so that the radiator is sitting in front of a fan while having water from the bucket being pumped through it. Add your ice to the bucket. This system will dump the "cold" from the ice into the room as quickly as possible, MUCH quicker than just setting the ice in front of a fan to melt by itself. If you actually have a truly unlimited source of ice this will provide nearly the same amount of cooling (while the ice is fresh at least) as an actual window ac unit. I do this irl sometimes and usually keep one mostly set up and ready to go just in case my a/c stops working.
It's going to take time to find a cheap or free radiator if you're living like this for financial reasons but bending some copper tubing around the fan also works decently. If you buy it at the hardware store its likely going to come coiled up in a box and already in the perfect shape for this.
At a certain point, obtaining the amount of ice you need to maintain this becomes a problem. If you REALLY don't want to buy an ac unit at this point as maybe some kind of personal challenge or whatever, its time to science the shit out of it. Get a refrigerator. Put it outside, as leaving it inside will dump heat into the room defeating the purpose. Mod a bucket into the fridge and run 2 tubes out of it: an input and an output. Run this tubing into your living space somehow and into the radiator and the fan. You could alternatively put the fridge inside and find a way to attach a duct to the back of it to vent air outside which is may be more convenient depending on your living situation. Congratulations. You've built an a/c unit without technically actually building an a/c unit. Maybe in some countries this helps for tax purposes. I've never tried going this far with it before saying fuck it and getting an a/c unit so post pics if you do.
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Hi there, time to share ways to keep your home cool during hot times
So ok, usual ways I use:
- open everything during night
- close everything during day
- external sheets on windows without shutters
- some curtains to prevent heat from going upstairs
I was also wondering if plants could also help inside, any ideas ?
Share your advices !
I am fortunate to have moved to a climate where the heat is less severe and when it is hot it tends to be dry-ish. My house does not have AC so we put a big exhaust fan on the top floor and crack a window downstairs. Works so far, but we have some small portable AC units for the bedrooms just in case we need them.
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I mean, sure, if you want to look like you live in a meth lab. Or you could spend a little bit and have something 100x better and actually functional and not be miserable. This is like that whole boot problem: you can only afford $20 boots so you buy them and they wear out in 6 months. Over 5 years you spend $200 when a nice pair that would've lasted as long or longer would cost you $100.
You can get an ac for like $60 new, like $20 on Facebook. Walmart has Artic Kings on sale every year for that much. But yeah, spend hours of your time Macgyvering a makeshift solution that maybe drops you 10°. You know what "10° degrees cooler" is where I am? 100°. You'd still be plenty miserable.
yeah sure. the costs stop after you buy it. not like you have to pay to run it or anything.
I think you underestimate how poor some families are.
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Just keep in mind this only works if the humidity where you live is on the lower side. If you deal with high humidity where you live you won't experience nearly as much cooling from those wet curtains or the old wet towel over a box fan trick.
The towel on your head still works though because it's on a much smaller scale unless you're dealing with near 100% relative humidity. Double that with a fan of some type and you're in business.
Thanks for adding that info - something I'm less aware of, luckily I live in a dry climate where water helps.
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Thanks for adding that info - something I'm less aware of, luckily I live in a dry climate where water helps.
No problem! Excessive humidity just sucks in general for us since our main cooling system (sweating) relies on the sweat being able to evaporate. Higher humidity means the air is already full of moisture, so evaporation slows way down and is significantly less effective.
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Not disagreeing but none of my kids are at all fat and one is so hot-natured, it's not always just insulation. One of their cousins, too, she was just never cold and always hot.
I did always joke with my ex that I was built spare because I am from the hot part of the world, and he was padded because he was from Michigan.
Interesting anecdotes! There's actually a bit of truth in the last one, I believe. Bodily fat is more evenly distributed in Inuits and even Europeans than it is in, say, west Africans.
