It’s hot.
I love practically everything about Colorado Springs, with one exception: the lack of air conditioning in homes. Only around 1/3 of homes in Colorado Springs have AC, and I’m left wondering why. I grew up in Kansas, where the humidity and heat made AC a must from May through September.
While I wouldn’t find it necessary to run the AC quite so much here in the Springs, I have to admit that when inside temperatures creep to 80º almost every afternoon in the Springs, we all get pretty grouchy and unproductive. I want my air conditioning!
But, since a $3,000 air conditioning installation isn’t in the budget this summer, here’s my Top 5 Ways To Keep Cool Without An Air Conditioner:
Cool the house at night, keep it closed during the day.
Extensive testing in our home has proved that in order to keep it at 80º or below, this is a must. Our routine goes like this: around 5 PM, start checking the outside temperature. As soon as outside is cooler than inside, open all the windows and use box fans to pull the cool air in and push the hot air out.
If you go to bed before the house cools to 70º or less, you’ll need to either leave the windows open all night, or set an alarm to get up and 5 AM and run the same routine.
Yes, we are a little fanatical about this but it’s better than basking in a 90º house all day. If you’d like to contribute to our air conditioner fund, please let me know. :)
Bum off someone else’s AC.
You don’t have to bug your friends every afternoon. Why not go grocery shopping and make absolutely, 100% sure that the gallon of milk you’re buying is the farthest date possible?
Of course, the grocery store isn’t the only place with an AC (just the only place with a walk-in refrigerator). Hang out at the mall, the library, a coffee shop…
Clean out your freezer.
Oh yes, I did. It’s got to be done anyhow, why not make sure to clean out your freezer and frig on the hottest day of the year?
Head to the basement.
Finished or not, the basement is likely the coolest part of your house. For those of us that have laundry rooms in the basement, it’s a great time to get some laundry done. Or, why not move the ironing board or computer downstairs for the summer?
I’m out of ideas.
It’s so hot today I can’t even think of any more ideas. What are your top ways to keep cool without an air conditioner?
I can appreciate cleaning out the freezer on a hot day. I was in El Paso last summer with no AC. Organizing the walk-in freezer was a drastic temperature difference. We actually had to search for coats, mittens, etc because it was near 0 in there, as opposed to 100 outside!
I prop open our front door when I come downstairs in the morning since our front yard is in the shade. I can’t fathom our house getting to 70 or below! That is amazing. We live in a pre-20th century house, so I think being so close to other houses helps keep ours cool since the Sun can’t come in the side windows.
Oh, and ceiling fans are great!
DONT USE THE OVEN! grill.
attic fans work great in the Springs-there’s very little humitity-so I’m suprised there aren’t more of them…
play in the sprinkler while you’re watering the lawn
You know, we’ve looked at attic fans… but it seems like it was going to cost around $1500-2000 to install, and we decided we’d rather wait and install an AC – which, will actually add value to your property. Probably won’t see as good of a return on investment with an attic fan.
When you go for the A/C, buy it at the end of the season or off season for a much better deal.
You can also buy a window a/c unit cheaply (used) and at least cool your upstairs or something. We had a $15 one until we did the whole house. It does help on the unbearable nights.
The thing with the attic fan is does it cost money to run it? Versus the cost to run the A/C. I know in Florida our electric bill in the summer was anywhere from 300-400 and maybe a month of 500. I don’t want to go back to that bill. Just another thought.
THat’s a good question. I’d be interested in knowing more about that, too. for us with a/c our bill on the hottest days when we really use it equals the coldest days when we have the heat on so it’s never really a surprise on our bills.
AC would definitely cost more to run, though I’d be interested in hearing some number crunching along with a performance comparison. I know we would run it a fair amount during the summer, but nowhere near as much as you’d run it in somewhere like Florida or Kansas.
We didn’t think we would run our a/c very much once we got it. Now that we have it, we run it all the time! We keep it set at 73 on the weekends and from 4-10pm during the week. The rest of the time (when we aren’t home or are sleeping) we let it go up to 75.
Our utility bill runs around $217 a month, winter or summer…so the heat in the winter costs the same as running the a/c all the time, and running the sprinklers daily.
We have an attic fan and a swamp cooler that work together to cool the house and we can still keep the windows open. I love fresh air and don’t like being closed up and we really don’t need AC here…it’s 10 degree’s cooler here than Denver and almost always has a breeze here.
I have been closing the blinds/curtains on the sunny side of the house, and closing the doors to the 2nd floor bathrooms that have skylights to keep the house from getting quite so hot.
It helps to have the living room face North. We live 2 streets down from friends and while our house is at 76 degrees there’s is well over 80 (they face East). I will keep that in mind if we ever buy another home…it really makes a pleasant difference!
I also have a friend that has an attic fan and it works fairly well for them, so if you can’t reposition your house ;) this may be a good alternative!
Ha, YES! Our next home will be purchased with a high priority of north-facing windows, especially so we can get the cool evening breezes to circulate much better!
Our deck is on the west-side of our house…and gets extremely hot baking in the sun, so as soon as the sun begins to hit it, I wind out the awning (not a cheap item either though). The fresh air is so wonderful blowing through the house. I’m not a fan of air conditioner air :( However, out east of town the winds get so strong in the late afternoon/evenings, that we often have to wind the awning back in. Note: I do the close windows routine (east side first, then west as the sun moves across) once the temps get consistently in the upper 90′s and the wind itself is HOT-ughh. Then we retreat to the basement. This last usually all of two weeks max for us. Out east here there are no tall trees–yet!
We use window fans to take hot air out during the day and bring cool air in at night….that combined with ceiling fans and good thermal window treatments on the sunny windows, our house stays fairly cool. Also make sure you use the fan above your stove when you are cooking or baking to remove some of that heat.
The other day I was so hot that after I got the kids napping I filled a little tub (one of those pink ones you always get from the hospital!) with cold water and soaked my feet in it for awhile. It felt so nice and cooled me down. Plus it was nice on my poor tired pregnant feet too :-)
And since I set it in the office I was able to get my office/computer work done at the same time.
Sounds like the other comments hit the nail on the head! When we were growing up, we didn’t have AC, and Mom and Dad would have box fans in all the windows upstairs, along with the attic fan, running as soon as the sun went down. Our house faced East/West, so we closed up the front in the morning, the entire house during the hot part of the day and then opened the East in the late evening…
Now, we do the windows open trick all night long (my husband made some security bars that fit in the track so we can open them and still be safe while he’s travelling). We have ceiling fans in the family room and all the bedrooms, and I keep them running on low when we’re sleeping, and high when we’re awake just to keep the air moving.
I get up at the crack of dawn to open the doors and windows to get fresh cool air inside.
Other than that: GRILL! Don’t bake unless you have to, don’t use your stove-top either if you can help it!
I make a gallon pitcher of iced tea, and one of lemonade for the kids for treats to drink instead of water all the time.
One thing my Mom did with us kids was to let us play outside all morning long, bikes, ball, park, whatever (we grew up across from the elementary school and City park with tennis and basketball courts), and then, after lunch we had to have “quiet time” and we would hang out, reading our library books, or, as we got older, watching movies on HBO (back before we had a million channels to choose from ).
Mom hung our laundry on the line, which somehow helped to keep us cool – nothing like running between those cool, wet sheets, towels and shirts…
I like freezing fruit and in the really hot afternoons, we take some out and drop it in our lemonade, or enjoy nibbling on it as it thaws out.
I HATE being stuck inside with “canned air” all summer long, so I brave the heat as much as possible…but I was never largely pregnant during the summer…
2 things:
close up the whole house by 9am – draw blinds, close windows, pull curtains
blow cool air up from the basement with a big fan – people are shocked that we do not have a/c when they walk in and it is 72 inside and 90 outside
We do the windows routine closing them in sections. I bought wooden blinds for this house a few months ago and those work great to keep the sun out. I have my fans going circulating air. I have one window in the main part of the house that stays in the shade most days so I can keep it open with a fan until it gets really hot. I also close up doors, and I have a pocket door I close in my kitchen so if I have to cook I can try to keep the hot air out of the livingroom.
On really hot days since we dont have a pool anymore, I hop in the shower and enjoy the cold water. It helps especially with me being pregnant and hot anyways. Ceiling fans are the greatest thing for the main rooms, and I try to open the bedroom windows at night to give us cooler air.
I am hoping to get my basement cleaned and fixed up at some point this summer so I can actually start hiding down there when it starts getting really hot. But I havent made it there yet…lol
- The box fans with the little container at the bottom for water help to cool it down even more than a regular box fan. I have two in the basement not being used anymore since we installed A/C in our house 3 years ago. If anybody wants to buy them from me, let me know!
- Run the fan on your heater, without the heat. It will help to circulate the air even more throughout the house. You can feel the air coming up thru the vents just like a/c!
- Whole house swamp coolers are pretty affordable compared to a/c, and work really well. I think we were quoted $500 or so for one.
Try to plan pregnancy so that you are not in your third trimester in the summer :)!!! My daughter was born in August, and my feet were huge, couldn’t wear wedding ring, etc. Then my son was just born a few weeks ago, and it made such a huge difference to get him out before the heat really turned up! Bless your heart Carrie, you’ve got an August babe on the way don’t you?
Nice to hear my husband is not the only one who is particular about bringing the cold air in at night then closing up during the day. It drives me crazy with the opening and closing of windows, but our house is cool. Love the tip about playing outside in the morning, then indoor time after lunch. That’s what we do too!
Oh, I forgot my more practical advice ;) I love to eat ice, but my fridge doesn’t do the crushed ice thing and the cubes are too big. For a treat I buy a bag of ice from Sonic ($1.50) because it’s the really small kind and then I fill up a whole glass to the top with ice before I put my drink in. Mmmm it’s delicious and really cools you down!
I have a AC but I hate to turn it on unless I ablosutly have to, when it gets over 80 in the house I do cause who wants to sweat while they are napping. So, for my kids sake I turn it on but as soon as it cools down outside I turn up the air and open all the window.
I also blow a fan up the stairs from the basement. Beacuse of the cool temp in the basement it really helps up on the main level if cool air is blowing up from the basement.
I grew up in Georgia where AC is a necessity! We used AC year round! So I was shocked when we got stationed here and there was NO air! I use fans in my windows until I go to bed and while we are sleeping I just leave a fan in only my window. I also use a fan in the hallway to help pull the air throughout the house. It actually cools the whole house off!
We have light blocking/rubber backed curtains all over the house. They’re like what hotels use and they help maintain the inside temp. They’re also great in the winter for keeping the cold out. They’re not very expensive and you can find them at JCPenny and Bed Bath & Beyond (and probably other places, too). The down side is that they don’t come in a great variety of colors (usually creme, black, brown, navy, green, and burgundy) and you have to keep them closed most of the day, so you feel kind of like a cave bat. They do make a huge difference, though.
We use a strong window fan placed in an upstairs window at night, set on Out. It pulls the cool night air through the house from open windows on the other end. Generally it cools things to around 66 or lower in the house, depending on the outside temp. In the morning i cover the fan opening(bubble wrap right now) and close all windows to keep out the influx of warm air during the day. I have a reflective layer of tin foil (I know, so 1950′s, but hey it works) on my hottest windows, (which are double pane, but still let in heat). I am going to try bubble wrap as an insulator on those windows – it would be nice to let in light while still insulating. Going barefoot or wearing flip-flops helps. Spritzing with cool water from the fridge is refreshing.
We do the whole windows open at night & closed during the day. Our house faces south east, which means we get a lot of morning sun. However, by 4pm, the front is shaded by the garage & we open the windows. On really hot days, try spraying any cement close to windows – the wind will blow through your house cooler because of it. We also have thermal curtains – they run approx. $15/ panel at Walmart (the same brand goes fo closer to $30/ panel at JC Penney & Sears). They have helped too. We keep a window a/c unit in the kids room primarily for naps, but do set it on the energy saver function. We’re looking at investing in a portable swamp cooler for those really hot days – our house is small (1100sq. feet) so the portable swamp cooler could do most of the house. They are also cheaper to run than a/c units.
And, yes, being 3rd trimester pregnant in the summer is miserable!
We do the whole window thing and light blocking curtain thing too. We also have a series of standing playdates to cool off! Every week we have a MOPS playdate, a ChickFilA playdate, and an America the beautiful playdate. You can’t beat the Penrose fountain for cooling off and the playground there is great too. At night we grill a LOT. I use all of my Yoplait to make yogurt popsicles. Sometimes I puree fruit like watermelon and make that into fruit pops too.
Oh and don’t forget running around half naked lol. I pretty much live in a nursing tank and gym shorts when I am at home!
We have our sprinklers set to turn on in the evenings. Combine that with opening the windows and the cool air blows right through.
We also keep our curtains drawn against the strong morning sun until it reaches the other side of the house where the trees shade us.
I have a friend who uses a fan blowing from the window across a bowl of ice to keep cool. She swears by it for the hot nights when you need sleep.
Oh, and don’t forget to reverse the fan direction on the ceiling fans back from the winter. Ceiling fans help a ton to keep the air circulating in both the summer and winter. If you don’t have any, check out craigslist and garage sales for them. Remember most of them accept a light kit so you an always add lights to ones that don’t come with them.
Living over here near Manitou, our little house has been cooling down to lower btwn 59-63 degrees at night. Temps are still getting down in the 40′s, and a few nights ago, went down to 38!
The best thing for cooling off besides keeping windows and shades drawn, is to hop into a quick luke-warm shower. It works like a breeze. Plus having wet hair automatically cools the warmest part of your body!
My husband and I have hidden out in our unfinished basement. Nothing like cold concrete under your feet with a good fan blowing to cool you down.
swamp coolers are nice with ceiling fans they are great. Thermal curtain help as well.
Here is what we do I open up the house early and leave it open as safe as possible all night. The garage door open the sliding glass door open upstairs for a cross breeze and ceiling fans. We did break down last year and wandered around to stay cool and a local Hock Shop! (On Academy by Montebello) Yeah of all places had new air conditioners $35 for one and $45 for another we bought 1 of each. My father is a heating and air guy and buying an air conditioner in the winter does not save you much at all unless you know someone or can get a free install then you will save.
Ours was a lot cheaper off season, but then again it was a few years ago and we had them throw in the humidifier (pretty common for them to do) and pitted a couple companies against each other to get our price.
I forgot we do have a atic fan a huge one in the ceiling and we close all the upstairs windows and it sucks the basement cool up but at night we open all the window and in about 3 to 4 minutes the whole house is cool! We love it our electric bill does not go up since it does not take long to cool off the house for us 3 – 6/7 is bad the sun is directly on the front of the house.
I cook dinner at 6-7 am with the house open and cook enough for a few days and put it in the fridge. Then it is grilling out or microwaving it.
I am very lucky because we had a neighbor put in our AC at cost but before we did when I was 8 months pregnant I put a big bowl of ice in front of a fan and just sat there :)
There’s a difference between an attic fan and a whole house fan. A whole house fan is in the attic, but vents the entire house. An attic fan just vents the attic–so it doesn’t work quite as well, but it’s a lot cheaper and easier to install. My husband bought a larger attic fan at Lowe’s for under $100 and installed it himself, and it has made a huge difference. He did this on one of the first days that it was hot, and it has made a huge difference this summer. If I had known it would make a 10-degree difference for upstairs, we would have done this years ago!
Not sure if this should go under AC, or free things to do …
I have heard there a few parks with water features here in town. I only know of Uncle Wilbur’s at Acacia park. Does anyone know of the others?
I found one under free things to do on the main web page it is off of Airport.
Deerfield Spray Ground
http://www.springsgov.com/Page.aspx?NavID=2072
We go to America the Beautiful park downtown. They have a GREAT fountain/splash area complete with a lifeguard. The water comes on at 11:00, and they have a great playground and farmers’ market too. I recommend bringing a large umbrella if you have one because there isn’t much shade around the fountain. Oh and the bathrooms are AWFUL, so be aware of that.
Deerfield Sprayground is nice. Check to see when the water turns on because I think it is later than you might think (11:00??)
There is also a nice pool and splash area at Wilson Ranch but it costs to get in. Pretty pricey at $6 or so a head. Nice for some variety!
We go to America the Beautiful every week and still have a great time!
Also the movie theater on Powers has fountains that come on. There are always kids in swimsuits playing in it. And on Friday nights they do free concerts in the park right across the street. So music and water fun. :-)
I had a baby in August too after a very hot summer! My favorites were going out for ice cream ;) waiting till afternoon to take my shower – let my hair air-dry, taking my crockpot and turkey roaster out to the patio to cook anything that that won’t grill or microwave well. Visiting the library or doing shopping in the afternoons, cool foot-baths. I’m going to try the fan in the basement blowing cooler air upstairs – that sounds like a good idea!
Another great way to stay cool is making rice bags and putting them in the freezer. On unbearable nights, everyone in the family pulls out their “personalized” rice bag (fabric they picked out) and sleeps with it. In the winter, we use it to stay warm by microwaving it for two minutes. The cheap way is using rice but you can also use buckwheat groats and deer corn too. My family LOVES these and they are incredibly easy to make. Since Wal-Mart has their fabric clearance, buy your favorite fabric (1/4 yard) and cheap muslin for the insides, cut out a square of both, sew up three sides and when you get to the fourth, leave an opening so you can fill it. Cut the corners, use a point turner, turn it inside out and fill. After you are done, tuck in the opening flaps and sew. Place in freezer. You can use any essential oils you like to make them scented too.
I love this idea. We may need to make a few. These would work great for when my daughter get’s growing pains behind her knees. She could warm it up and lay it under her leg. Thank you!!
A couple of years ago we bought a Convair Climate Wizard because of my allergies that start in August. I love it! It has a place to put water in it. The fan blows the water around and cools down the room that you are in. We’ve had it on alot this summer already just to keep the kitchen cool since that is where we are most of the time.
I use to live in Maryland until about 5 years ago and if you didn’t have AC you were absolutely miserable with the humidity averaging about 100% most days. When we moved into our townhouse we weren’t looking for AC but glad it is there. We have two skylights one in the bathroom and another in the hallway up stairs. It is horrible how hot it gets from the skylights. Two summers ago we installed a programable thermostat and have it set at 74 when we are home 80 when we are at work and 78 at night for bed, that alone dropped our monthly bill for ac almost $20 so if you do get ac get a programable thermostat. I would like to do no ac but with the skylights and few windows and facing east to west getting a nice breeze is hard.
The open-windows-at-night and close-them-during-the-day routine works great for us, too. The other big thing that helps us on super hot days or when the nights don’t cool down much is to turn the fan switch on our heating thermostat to “on” and put the heat/off/cool switch to “off.” I don’t even know why there is a “cool” button, because we have no AC, but putting it to “cool” makes me feel good! Anyway, it circulates the cool night air all through the house and pulls the cool air from downstairs into the warmer upstairs throughout the day. When you walk into our house from the outside, it feels like there is AC, but there isn’t.
Looks like a lot of you gals are pregnant – I’m definitely taking some of these to heart and using them starting tomorrow! Though I’ve joined the ranks and am early along, we just found out I’m having twins and when I get so hot, I get even more nauseated! We’ve been trying to keep it cool, but blowing our budget on two portable A/C’s, one in the bedroom, one in the living room. Not the most economic.
WOW! Congrats on twins, Mary!
Thank you Carrie!! Time to stock up on diapers!
Mary, I have one-year-old twin girls … and survived! (And I stayed in our budget!) If you need any tips, feel free to contact me. thevanhorns at hotmail dot com