6. Avoid using heat-emitting appliances and electronics
Appliances like your dishwasher, oven, stove, washer, and dryer can emit a lot of heat when they're in use.
Avoid using them if you can — especially during the hottest part of the day.
If you need to use one of these appliances, try shutting off the room to contain the heat and prevent it from spreading to the rest of your home.
If you have a computer that emits heat, shut it off. Also check your light bulbs. Incandescent bulbs can put off heat, so try to keep them turned off.
7. Use exhaust fans
You may not be able to use your gas range, but you should certainly use the exhaust hood above it. Turn it on to suck heat up and out.
You can also turn on your bathroom fans to help suck humid, warm air out.
8. Focus efforts on your home's lowest level
Since hot air rises and cool air settles, you'll have an easier time keeping the lowest level of your home cool.
If you have a cooler lower level, you can use it to ventilate your entire home. If there's a cool breeze outside, you can open windows on the lower levels to encourage the air to flow in.
Then, open windows on the upper level to create a vacuum and encourage the rising hot air to flow out. This is what the DOE refers to as the "chimney effect." If you have fans, you can use them to speed up the process.
If your lower level is a basement with no windows, try setting up a fan in the doorway toward the rest of your home and opening upper windows to let rising hot air out.
The DOE notes that this method works best in dry climates and at cooler times of day.
9. Dehumidify your room
While humid heat is not necessarily more deadly than dry heat, it does affect how your body cools itself. When moisture levels in the air are high, it makes it more difficult for your sweat to evaporate. The evaporation of sweat is imperative for body temperature regulation.
You can dehumidify a room by purchasing a dehumidifier. If you don't have a dehumidifier, these methods can help reduce moisture in the air:
- Open windows, but only if it's cool enough outside.
- Turn on fans to help evaporate moisture.
- When showering, run your bathroom fan, open a window, or simply take cooler showers that don't put off as much steam.
- If you see condensation on windows or other surfaces, this is a sign of high humidity. Wipe it away with a towel and try to find the source of the moisture.
10. Invest in bigger projects to cool your home
The world is warming, so battling the heat and finding ways to keep it outside of our homes is only going to become a more common issue.
Luckily, there are some larger home projects and renovations you can do to keep your home cooler and more efficient in the future. They include:
- Try a cool roof. Look into getting a "cool roof," which might entail painting your roof white or installing a roof with reflective materials to drive away heat.
- Go green. Plant trees outside your home to provide shade and induce natural cooling via evapotranspiration, which is when moisture from a tree evaporates and cools the surrounding air.
- Paint your home's exterior a light color. While dark exteriors draw in heat, light-colored exteriors can help reflect it away.
- Start a rooftop garden. Also called a green roof, a rooftop garden can be around 30°F to 40°F cooler than a regular roof.
Insider's takeaway
Cooling down a room in the peak of summer or during a heat wave might seem like a difficult task, but it doesn't have to be.
Fans can be an energy-efficient and cost-effective way to beat the heat during the summertime. You can use window, ceiling, or tower fans to cool down a room — with a few special tricks to make your fans even more effective.
From the moment the sun comes out, window coverings can make a drastic difference in how much your home heats up. You can keep even more heat out of your home by locating and blocking air leaks and turning off any appliances or electronics that emit heat.
If there's a breeze outside, you can open windows and create a chimney effect, where windows on the lower levels pull cool air in, and heat rises out of your home's windows on the upper level.
For the long-term, smart upgrades like a "cool roof" or shady landscaping can help keep your home cool summer after summer.
