Unless you live in an area where the warmest it gets in the summertime is 75 degrees, chances are you’ve been trying to keep yourself cool by running at least one air conditioner in your home. However, you probably don’t know that your AC doesn’t need to be running constantly in order to keep your home comfortably cool. Consider acting within a few helpful guidelines through your next heat-wave, and you’ll be able to cut back on your AC-running costs while maintaining a reasonable level of comfort in your home. Remember that hot air rises while alternating between AC usage and a few of these other tips in order to efficiently optimize your cost of cooling in the summertime.
Hot space” and “cold space.
In unbearably hot weather, you would benefit from assigning “hot space” and “cold space” in your home, hot being where you spend the least amount of time and cold where you spend the most. Of course, for this tip to helpful and effective, you should keep your AC(s) in an area that you will often find yourself occupying. Keep the doors that separate these areas closed, or, if no doors are present, simply hang a sheet in the doorway to keep the cold air contained in a desirable location. If you don’t keep these areas separate, then this practice will lose its effectiveness when you have to turn off your AC to give it a rest. Then, you will ultimately end up spending more to try and compensate for cooling a larger area within your home.
Circulate Cold Air
Not everyone can afford to keep an air conditioner running constantly in a peak season of its usage. However, the cost of running a fan isn’t nearly as much as running an AC. So, when your “cold space” isn’t being chilled by your AC, take advantage of the cold air that you’ve already been presented with. In the rooms that you want to keep cool, you should keep the air flowing by means of carefully positioned fans which will create up drafts that circulate the cold air upward and out towards the ceiling. This constant flow won’t give warm air much of chance to take precedence in your “cold space.” Also, remember to keep this flow going in your secure and closed-off “cold-space,” or you will end up spending too much once again in order to compensate for cooling a larger area.
Utilize Shades, Avoid Bright Light
If you keep your “cold space” closed off and alternate running the AC with circulating the cold air, you’ll be doing well with your cost-efficiency optimization. However, it’s possible for you to take it one step further on the saving-front. People think that shades on windows are just meant to physically prevent light from coming into a room, but many don’t realize that they do more than this. They have another function as a barrier; climate control. Shades can effectively create temperature borders in windows just as well as a sheet can separate hot and cold spaces.
Slow down and avoid strenuous activity
As temperatures soar and thousands head off on holiday to make the most of the long, hot summer days, we discover 20 ways to keep your cool in the heat wave:
Eat small meals and eat more often. The larger the meal, the more metabolic heat your body creates breaking down the food. Avoid foods that are high in protein, which increase metabolic heat.
Run your wrists under a cold tap for five seconds each every couple of hours. Because a main vein passes through this area, it helps cool the blood.
Eat spicy food. Although this may be the last thing you fancy in hot weather, curries and chillies can stimulate heat receptors in the mouth, enhance circulation and cause sweating, which cools the body down.
Take a tepid bath or shower just below body temperature, especially before bedtime. Although a cold shower might sound more tempting, your body generates heat afterwards to compensate for the heat loss.
If you have a basement, use it during the hottest hours of the day when the sun is highest. Basements are usually 10-15 degrees cooler than the upstairs part of the house.
Wear lightweight, light-coloured cotton clothes. Heat is trapped by synthetic fibres, but cotton absorbs perspiration and its evaporation causes you to feel cooler. The light colours reflect the sun’s radiation.
While you’re out, keep the house curtains drawn to stop it heating up like a greenhouse.
You may be longing for a cold beer or a chilled white wine spritzer. But you should avoid alcohol because it dehydrates the body. You are better off with mineral water or low-sugar fizzy drinks. Also, avoid drinks with caffeine such as coffee and colas. These increase the metabolic heat in the body.
Women should replace their usual body moisturiser with a cooling aloe Vera after sun product to use morning and night. This will help lower your skin temperature.
Slow down and avoid strenuous activity which will stimulate your body and raise its core temperature. If you must go jogging, do it during the coolest part of the day, which is usually before 7am.
Get Liquid Ice. This re-usable ice wrap is perfect for cooling hot skin. The cloth, pre-soaked in the Liquid Ice solution, cools instantly when removed from the packet without need for refrigeration.
Get some Mentholatum Migraine Ice patches. These soft gel patches – designed to soothe headaches – come into their own during heat waves as they instantly reduce skin temperature when applied. They can be found in chemists.
Drink chrysanthemum tea. Practitioners say chrysanthemum is a cooling herb which clears the head.
Sleep on a feather or down pillow with a cotton pillowcase. Synthetic pillows will retain heat.
The night before you go out for the day in the sun, roll some damp flannels up and pop them in the freezer. Take them with you in a plastic bag. Then, when you start to feel hot, unwrap them and place them over your face.
Buy a Chillow. It’s a thin, soft, thermo-regulating leather device that pops into your pillow to cool it down. In studies, Chillow users got to sleep an average of 68 per cent faster.
Try a Native American herbal remedy called Black Cohosh which has been clinically proven to relieve hot flushes and night sweats in menopausal women. Recent research suggests it works on the hypothalamus, where it may help regulate body temperature.
Ditch your duvet and sleep under a sheet instead. Even better, put your sheets in a plastic bag and stick them in the fridge a couple of hours before going to bed. As we fall asleep our body temperature lowers, which is why it’s difficult to sleep in hot weather. Cold sheets straight from the fridge should help you sleep better.
Sit back, close your eyes and picture snow. Research has shown that the body reacts to these daydreams, reducing its overall temperature.
