Today’s high was 112 degrees Fahrenheit! When weather alerts are put out for excessive heat, you know shiz is gettin’ real. Needless to say I’m finding it nearly impossible to live completely without air conditioning haha. If you live in an area with mild summers, then you can obviously get away without having any air conditioning at all. However, living in the American southwest, our summers are scorching.
• Today about 87% of US homes have air conditioning, compared to only 10% in 1965!
• 13% of homes in Mexico have AC.
• The US uses more AC than the entire world combined, and there are far more warmer countries than ours!
AC units consume large amounts of electricity, which isn’t good financially or for the environment. Plus I believe in being in tune with Mother Earth as much as possible, and artificially cooled houses aren’t exactly conducive to that. BUT, being able to keep moderately cool in extreme temperatures can be a huge blessing. Air conditioning has saved lives. Heat stroke is no bueno. At the end of the post I share our two scenarios for cooling down our house.
• Air conditioners pull hot air out of homes and push it outside, which has caused many cities nightly temperatures to actually rise! So people then use their AC even more. It’s a vicious cycle.
• Refrigerants are toxic and deplete the ozone layer.
• In the US our AC emits about 100 million tons of CO2 into the environment.
If you are accustomed to keeping your household temp super low, it may take some time to get used to not living in an ice box haha. Trust me though, you will acclimate. Gradually raise the temperature on your thermostat if you need to instead of going cold turkey. A bonus is the outside summer heat isn’t as big of a deal if your house is already 85°, but going from 68° to 105° is quite a shock!
(PS I will be posting an update soon on my 5 extreme household challenges. )
Okay, one more thing before we jump into the 25 tips. Here is something from Mr. Electricity, which I can attest is true! Science is cool.
“It’s a myth that it takes less energy to run the AC all day, rather than leaving it off and turning it on when you get home. Running the AC all day when you’re away definitely uses more energy, no question.
The reason is that with the AC constantly running, it’s constantly cooling your home, making it a heat magnet. Heat goes to where it’s not, so when your house is cooler, more heat will try to enter. So more heat gets into your house, and the AC has to remove that heat, over and over again.
But if you leave the AC off, then the house will heat up during the day and then stop heating up. It’s already hot so it’s no longer a heat magnet. When you get home and turn on the AC, the AC has less total heat to remove than if it had been running all day.
Yes, I’ve tested this, of course. In my test, running the AC all day used 317% as much electricity as waiting until after work to turn it on.”
With all that being said, here are 25 tips to help you live without or with minimal use of air conditioning.
1. Wear cool, breathable clothes. (or no clothes haha)
2. Splash cold water on your pulse points – wrists, face, neck, etc. Misters, squirt bottles, or a damp bandana are super nice to have.
3. Take cold showers.
4. Go swimming in a pool, lake, river, pond, or ocean.
5. Use a fan. It won’t cool down your house, but it will help you feel cooler. Bonus points if you splash water on yourself first, then sit in front of a fan!
6. Block out heat and light with curtains, blinds, window tint, insulators or anything else you have.
7. Shade your house with trees, bushes, plants, or an awning.
8. Avoid using things during the day that produce heat (dryer, oven, hair dryer, lights, electronics etc).
9. Hang out elsewhere during the hottest part of the day. Do your grocery shopping, go to the library, museum, or a friends house. Fun Fact: Movie theaters in the 1920’s were some of the first places to use air conditioning. Hence, huge amounts of people started going to the movies! Summer blockbusters were born.
10. Eat cool foods and drink cold drinks. Make sure to stay well hydrated!
11. When/if the outside temperature gets lower than inside your house, open up all the windows to cool your house naturally! You can use fans to help suck in cool air and create a wind tunnel.
12. If you are going to run your AC a little bit, make sure to open all vents and interior doors for good air circulation. Contrary to popular belief, closing off rooms and vents is actually very hard on your air conditioner!
13. Shade your AC unit, or only run it at night. An air conditioner in direct sunlight will have to work even harder.
14. Sleep on the ground, low to the ground, or in your basement (hot air rises). A more chill option would be to sleep on a hammock for better air circulation.
15. Sleep outside, set up a tent in your backyard, or sleep on your porch like Southerners used to do. One of the highlights of my childhood was sleeping out on the trampoline. Nothing beats falling asleep while gazing at the stars!
16. Make sure your house is insulated and weatherproofed properly. (caulk around windows, weatherstrip doors etc.)
17. Use frozen water bottles or ice bags. Put them in bed with you, or to ice yourself during the day.
18. Spritz your screens with water when you open your windows. In ancient Egypt they hung reeds or wet cloths in their windows and door ways. Early version of the swamp cooler.
19. Wear your hair up off your neck, or cut your hair short. Long hair is synonymous with wearing a heavy scarf!
20. Make sure air ducts are sealed so cool air isn’t leaking into your attic.
21. Rest in the heat of the day. We don’t want to raise our body temps unnecessarily. Save your strenuous activities for when it’s a cooler part of the day.
22. Avoid snuggling too much, save that for the winter.
23. If you are getting a new roof, install a white one.
24. Paint the interior and exterior of your house white or a light color. It won’t hold the heat like darker colors do.
25. The easiest option is to avoid the heat all together. Escape the heat and go camping in the mountains. (Take your pets with you though! Don’t leave them behind to suffer.)
Here’s our two summer scenarios for how we cool off our house.
#1 If the high is 112° F, it’s 95° at midnight, and the low is 76° around 6 a.m. we do the following:
• Keep the AC turned off all day long until about 10 p.m.
• At 10 p.m. or later we turn the AC on to about 78 or 80 degrees, just so it’s comfortable enough to sleep.
(note: if it’s extremely hot and it’s higher than 87° in our house, we will turn the AC on to 82° even if it’s 6 p.m. instead of our usual 10 p.m., then turn it off. That’s been a rare occurrence though, even on the hottest days, our house usually only heats up to about 85 or 86 degrees.)
• We turn the air conditioning off when we go to bed.
• In the early morning when the outside temp is at its low, we open all the windows to cool the house naturally from about 78°, down to whatever the low happens to be.
• IF we weren’t able to cool our house down enough, we will turn the AC on to 72°-ish, then turn it off for the entire day and then proceed with our routine that night.
So in total with this scenario we only have our AC on for about 4-6 hours compared to our neighbors whose units are running 24/7.
#2 If the high is 100°, and the low is 65° AKA my favorite of the two:
• As soon as the outside temp is cooler than our house, we open up all of the windows.
• We close windows at bedtime though because I find it difficult to sleep with them open all night.
• We open the windows again in the early morning to cool the house down even more.
• Then we close everything up and are able to completely avoid using the air conditioner!
I do want to point out that everyone’s body is a unique constitution. You will want to be mindful of your health. In Ayurveda my dosha is Vata. My constitutional elements are predominantly ether and air. Basically my body is naturally cold so the sun energizes me and the warmth balances me out etc. However, Donovan’s dosha is Pitta, which is the fire and water element. His body already has a lot of heat, so too much heat is not good for him and can cause rashes. For him it’s extremely important to find balance to the fire by implementing cooling things using these 25 tips. I work from home and Donovan works at an office so it works out just fine since I’m fine living mostly without AC. I just wanted to mention that so you don’t make yourself completely miserable if your dosha is Pitta.
I hope that you’ve found this information to be helpful! Thanks for taking the time to read this 🙂 .
– Kayla Oliver
