During the summertime everybody wants to feel and revel in the heat that the sun provides… but not all the time. Everybody wants to get their fix of Vitamin D and give their tan a little bit of a top up… but not the whole summer long. As much as we may love it when the sun appears for the year, we do need a break from it from time to time. But where’s the best place to get this break? Where’s the best place to seek shelter from the sun? The answer is, our homes. And because our homes offer us the best protection from the heat of the sun outside, we don’t want to feel stifled and too hot within them. If your home is your shelter from the sun make sure to read on to find out how you can keep it cool the whole summer long… without having to rack up your electricity bill by using air conditioning.
The first thing you should do in this venture is target your windows. Specifically, you should target the 30 percent of unwanted heat in your home that they let in. Yes, your windows are one of the biggest contributors of heat in your home; so, you need to target them. And the first thing you should do when targeting them in this fashion is to invest in a good pair of blinds, and keep them closed. By utilising shades, curtains and blinds in this way you can find that the indoor temperature you have to contend with is lowered by up to 20 degrees. So, if you don’t want your home to feel like a greenhouse, keep those windows covered!
But if keeping your blinds down and your curtains shut the whole summer just isn’t something you want to do, then you can also get your windows tinted. When you do you allow for less heat to be omitted through them. This is because they repel the sun’s rays more than windows that haven’t been modified in such a way— much like how sunglasses work compared to reading glasses. Also, because the sun’s rays are repelled it means that none can sneak in and afflict your electrical items and possibly make them overheat. Tinted windows are definitely a viable option if you truly want to keep your home cool this summer. And fear not because, even when your windows are tinted, you won’t see any difference in them to when they weren’t. There are pros and cons to both keeping your blinds closed and getting your windows tinted. A pro for the former is that it costs nothing to do; a con is that people may start calling you a vampire. A con for the latter is that it will cost money to have your windows tinted and modified in this way; a pro is that you don’t look like a vampire and still get to cut down on heat admissions through your windows.
You shouldn’t just target your windows in this venture, however. You need to target the other everyday aspects of your home too. Another such everyday aspect that you should target is your bed and bed linen. By changing your bedding seasonally and choosing a lighter one as the summer rolls round you can keep yourself cool at night. And keeping cool at night — as you can probably attest — is imperative. You should change your sheets to ones that are made from cotton as it breathes easy and therefore remains cool. You should invest in a new pillow too; a buckwheat pillow would be your best bet. They are designed to offer a natural air space between their hulls, thus meaning they won’t ever keep a hold of your body heat, even when packed inside a pillowcase, like other pillows do.
You should also start giving more precedence to the fans in your home when your AC isn’t being switched on. And one way to do so is to get a bit creative. By positioning a mixing bowl full of ice in front of your fan, for instance, you will be able to feel an ice-cold breeze upon you for those extra-stifling summer days. The air that the fan omits will hit the ice in order to create a very chilly airspace in your home. You should also set any ceiling fans that hang in your home to rotate counter-clockwise.
It’s not just the inside of your home that you can keep cool either; you can take this venture into your garden too. And the best way to create cool spaces in your garden is to create as much shade and cover for yourself as possible. There are a few possibilities when it comes to doing this: you could create a fabric canopy area, you could have an alfresco roof built above your hardscaped area or you could have a dome patio fitted. Taking up any one of these options, especially the latter, will see you provided with an area in your garden that can be devoid of sunlight. But having a roof cover you that has tinted windows or plains of glass in it will see that you still retain the essence of summer, just without the stifling heat you normally have to contend with. This also means that these shaded areas are the perfect places from which to host garden parties. So, if you want to improve your social stature with the neighbours this summer, make sure you get a roof built pronto so that you can throw parties underneath it!
The advice above proves that AC is not the be all and end all when it comes to keeping you cool in the stifling heat of summer. You don’t need to rack up your electricity bills by having your AC blasting all summer long: you can get your dosage of coolness other ways. You can by making changes to the everyday objects in your home. You can by switching your attentions from your AC to your fans. And you can by making changes to the outside living space of your garden. So, go out, or stay in, and have the best summer ever without overheating.
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