Surprising ways to keep your house cool this summer

Summertime means HEAT! During the first part of summer, you think that the heat feels nice. It is nice and warm and just wraps itself around you. After winter and shoveling snow, the warmth of the sun feels refreshing. But once we get into July and August it starts to feel a little too hot. During the day the house heats up and at night it feels like it doesn’t cool down enough. The heat feels inescapable at times, so here are a few ways to help keep your house cool in the summer!

Cross breeze

One of the simplest ways to beat the heat and cool down the house at the end of the day is to create a cross breeze. Opening up the main doors of the house and letting the breeze run through will cool down the house before bedtime. This helps get the old hot air out of the house and replaces it with fresh cooler air so that you can sleep a little more comfortably at night. Just like how we are always trying to find the quickest and easiest way to get from point A to point B, so does wind.

Wind likes to take the shortest possible path, which means that having windows and doors open for it to travel through the shortest path it can take to get around the house. Furthermore, you can dampen the curtains with a spray bottle full of water when you open up the house. While the wind is circulating through the house, the water on the curtains will evaporate and cool the house off!

Blackout

During the daytime when it’s the hottest, keep the house closed up and dark. Having windows open when the sun is out can make the house VERY hot! By having curtains that block out the sun, you keep the house a little cooler. Blackout curtains have the ability to block out 99 per cent of sunlight from entering into the house by reflecting it off.  Moreover, approximately 10-25 per cent of thermal energy is lost through the windows, so having blackout curtains keeps the sun out and lowers your energy bills. Additionally, blackout curtains help keep heat in the house during the winter! It’s a win-win situation!

Bring the heat!

We all love Mexican food, and hot weather is the perfect time to enjoy some Mexican cuisine. Some fresh street tacos with a little salsa verde and salsa Roja are the perfect way to beat the heat. Ever wonder why Mexican food is spicy? Eating hot spicy foods like serrano peppers and jalapenos actually helps cool the body off. These hot foods act as an irritant in us, which we interpret as being hot and makes us sweat more. Sweating is our body’s natural way of cooling us off. The cool thing is that by eating spicy food we are tricking our body into producing more sweat and cooling us off without actually raising our body temperature! So, next time you’re at the grocery store don’t forget to pick up some more hot sauce! Our recommendation is Cholula hot sauce!

Whether you’re dampening your curtains or using spicy food as an excuse to devour some tacos, these unique tips should help you lower your energy bills and keep your house cool this summer. Stop by our office to hear some more unique tips to beat the heat and discuss refreshing your mortgage! You can get in touch with us here.