How to keep your home cool in hot weather?

Close the windows and pull the curtains

In hot weather, the glass surface of the window acts as a heating device – as much as 76% of the sunlight falling on the window turns into heat. This is particularly noticeable in newer buildings featuring a lot of glass surfaces. If this is the case, a good lifehack is to pull thicker curtains in front of the windows during the daytime as well. Curtains retain a large part of the thermal energy amplified by the window, and the temperature of the room can even drop by several degrees.

At night, it is worth keeping the windows open so that cooler air can enter the room. On a hot day, however, the windows should be kept closed. The rule of thumb here is that the windows should be closed when the outside air temperature rises above 25 degrees Celsius to prevent hot air from entering. At night, when the temperature drops below 20 degrees, you should take advantage of it and open the windows to let cooler air into the room.

Replace incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs

Although lighting is used quite little in the home during the summer, it can still make a surprisingly large contribution to raising the temperature of the room. Namely, 80% of the energy used by a classic incandescent lamp turns into heat, and only 20% turns into light. LED lamps, on the other hand, use almost all the energy they consume for lighting. That is why the energy consumption of LED lamps is several times lower than that of an incandescent lamp. Thus, replacing old light bulbs with modern ones not only helps to control the temperature but also saves on electricity bills.

Get the heat release of household appliances under control

Although we cannot leave out all devices that actively produce heat at home, such as a stove or a refrigerator, there are often devices in our lives that produce a surprisingly large amount of heat. So it is always worth turning off the desktop computer. The processor, graphics card, and power supply unit of an unused desktop computer still work continuously and get quite hot at the same time. Thus, a more powerful desktop computer is like a tiny oven, component coolers of which actively radiate the removed heat into the room. Turning off your computer when you leave it helps keep the room cooler and also saves a decent amount of electricity.

Eating less heat-processed food or reducing the time it takes to heat food is also useful. So instead of baking or boiling, it is worth mixing up a refreshing salad. However, instead of a large oven that requires a long warm-up time and emits a lot of heat, you can use, for example, electric grills, hot air fryers or multi-cookers that are much faster and emit less heat into the room to prepare hot food.

It is also worth checking the power supplies of more powerful devices. Fast chargers for laptops and modern phones also emit a lot of heat during operation. Newer models do automatically switch off or go into economy mode when the battery is fully charged or nothing is connected to the charger, but older chargers can still be quite warm in standby mode and consume electricity unnoticed. Game consoles in active standby mode can also emit a surprisingly large amount of heat into the room.

A fan brings relief

A fan has been a popular solution for many years. Although the fan does not actually cool the air, but simply moves it around, the air moved by the fan at high speed creates a proper cooling effect. There are many different types of fans available. There are both table-top and floor models. Many fans can be made to move back and forth on the foot, and often the speed of the fan can be adjusted. When choosing a fan, it is worth giving preference to slightly higher-priced fans with higher-performance impellers, which rotate more slowly and are therefore quieter. Such are the models by Boneco and Stadler Form, for example.

Dyson and Djive, however, also make particularly innovative bladeless fans that are beautiful and quieter than classic design models. The operation of several fans can also be controlled from the remote control, and Djive models, for example, can be controlled from an app and are compatible with common smart home solutions. There are also models that filter the air and remove dust particles and allergens from it. There are also USB-powered fans that can be easily taken with you and powered by, for example, a battery bank.

The cooling effect of the fan can be increased by directing the air blown by the fan through a cold environment. It is convenient to do this with, for example, plastic bottles, which should be filled up to 2/3 with water and let freeze in the freezer. Placing such "ice bottles" in front of the fan cools the air properly.

A portable air conditioner cools efficiently

However, the most effective way to temporarily cool a room is a portable air conditioner. Such a device can be moved to different rooms if necessary. Or else, if you no longer need it, you can put it away in the storage. However, it must be remembered that for the air conditioner to work effectively, the hot air produced by the device's heat exchanger must be removed from the room. For this purpose, all portable air conditioners come with a flexible tube and, in most cases, a nozzle suitable for modern, narrowly opening windows.

Air conditioners are often controlled by a remote control, they have a timer, and the temperature can be adjusted as desired. Many models also have a special sleep mode. Since the cooling capacity of air conditioners varies, it is definitely worth investigating what size rooms a particular device fits.

Better air conditioners also have a dehumidification mode. This is a useful feature, because it is the high humidity of the room that prevents the body from regulating the temperature through the sweat glands, and thus we perceive the surrounding temperature to be even higher and feel much more uncomfortable.