How to Cool Your Home without Central Air

Few things are quite as nice as walking into a crisp, cool, air-conditioned indoor environment on a hot summer’s day. But you don’t need central air to stay cool in your home, and you can keep your abode cool and comfortable all summer long using these tips.

Add Some Shade Outdoors

The reason your house gets so hot in the summer has a lot to do with how much heat is coming in through your windows. That’s why old southern houses have so many wrap-around porches – the structure shades the windows of the first floor and keeps the inside of the house cool, as well as protecting curtains and furniture from UV damage. Add shrubs or trees outside your windows, or hang some awnings for shade.

Cover Your Windows

The right window treatments can also keep sunlight from pouring in through your windows and heating the inside of your house. Hang heat-blocking curtains or blinds over your windows and draw them during the hottest hours of the day to keep your interior nice and cool.

Want to retain the ability to see outside while insulating your windows against heat? You can install insulated window film to block out most UV rays and heat while still letting through plenty of light. You can even get window film that prevents people outside from seeing in through your windows, for privacy.

Do a “Night Flush”

At night, temperatures outdoors tend to drop, sometimes precipitously. Open up the upper sashes of your windows to circulate cool night air through your home at night. In the morning, before or not long after the sun comes up, close your windows and draw the shades to keep cool air trapped inside.

Avoid Chores that Heat the House

Certain chores will generate heat that can stay trapped inside your house. For example, using the oven creates a lot of heat, as does use the clothes dryer or even the dishwasher. Avoid these sorts of chores during the hottest part of the day. Instead, do them at night while you’re flushing the house with cool air.

Use Fans and Window Units Strategically

Fans don’t make the environment cooler; they circulate air. You feel more comfortable with a fan running because the moving air causes your perspiration to evaporate, cooling you down.

If you have ceiling fans in your home, run them in a counter-clockwise direction on hot days so that air is circulated straight down from the ceiling. Place freestanding fans as close to the floor as possible – all the coolest, densest air is at the floor level, where temperatures can be several degrees cooler than in the middle of the room or at the ceiling. Place floor fans in the corner to circulate cool air from the floor. 

You can place box fans in your windows to make your home more comfortable, but you don’t want to pull hot air from outside into your cool home in the middle of the day. Turn your box fans around, so they blow air out of your house, not in, during the hottest part of the day. At night, you can turn your box fans around, so they blow cool air into the house. 

You may also want to strategically use window air conditioners or portable air conditioners to cool upper floors or rooms that tend to stay hot. Buy the appropriate size window air conditioner for the space you plan to cool. Window air conditioners are much cheaper to run than they used to be, especially if you get an Energy Star model. When you buy a smart window air conditioner, you can control the temperature in your room and even turn the air conditioner on and off using a smartphone app. 

Change Your Lightbulbs

You probably don’t realize it, but old-style incandescent light bulbs generate a lot of heat. If you want to cool things down in your house without A/C, every degree helps. Remove your old incandescent bulbs and replace them with no-heat or low-heat LED or CFL bulbs to keep your home cooler. Switching to low-heat and no-heat bulbs can also lower your energy costs, and the bulbs will last a lot longer than traditional incandescents. 

Cooling your home without central air can be done. You need to be diligent about keeping warm air and sunlight out of the house – but fans and window air conditioners can help cool things off when the mercury climbs too high for curtains to help.