10 ways to cool a house without air conditioning
Sleeping on the front porch after a hot summer day was an absolute must. The upstairs floor of the 1940s farmhouse had been converted into a sauna and it was not possible to sleep in the upstairs rooms. Even after the sun went down, the upstairs seemed to get hotter. Let’s look at some ways to cool a house without air conditioning.
As I spend time trying to figure out how a home can be more energy efficient, I think back to those hot summer days and ask myself two things:
1. Where was the air conditioning?
I have seen several articles floating around that talk about air conditioning as an unnecessary appliance. That people have gone soft, and if people handled heat like a caveman, they wouldn’t need those energy-wasting air conditioners.
Growing up in that Northwest farmhouse, air conditioning was not expected. Sleeping on the front porch a few times a year was. Air conditioning was only for city people who weren’t lucky enough to live on a farm.
Where was the air conditioning? It was still in the variety store catalog.
2. Why was it so hot upstairs at night?
When you sleep on the front porch and you’re 10, you don’t really care why it’s so hot upstairs. It’s not something you try to figure out before you go back to sleep on the porch. You like to sleep on the porch.
If it’s too hot upstairs to sleep in and you’d rather not risk sleeping on the porch or anywhere else outdoors, then considering why the upstairs and the whole house are so hot at night becomes a important problem to solve.
Air conditioners are devices that save a lot of energy, but their operation is not free. With the constant screeching of the air conditioner and the electric bill increasing by the hour, a person tends to think about why it’s so hot upstairs and ways to cool down a house.
Years later:
The old farmhouse was being moved to a new location and I had a chance to look into the attic as part of the roof was removed. Instead of the attic being the dark creepy cave of my childhood, it was an inviting place to explore with plenty of natural light.
I was surprised to see that the attic had nothing in it. No old magazines, no old socks or toys, no old carcasses of rats or cats. Of course, there was no insulation either, and he could look down the chimney flue from the attic to the basement. This is a good place to start in answering the question of how to cool a house.
The roof had no attic vent at the top of the roof or eves. The only ventilation was provided by two gabled vents, one at each end of the attic. The roof tiles were always a dark color.
Now I understand very well why the upstairs of this old house was so hot after a hot summer day. The attic collected heat all day and then shared it with the floor below all night.
How to prevent the attic from overheating and ruining a good night’s sleep.
Here are 10 ways to cool down a house before adding air conditioning. These will help you in your attempt to keep the house available at night. Try these modifications and improvements.
1. Solar Powered Attic Fan
A solar powered attic fan works very well and is a one-time investment of $450 to $800. When installed on the roof, the self-contained solar unit draws hot air from the attic whenever the sun hits the solar panel with enough direct sunlight to run the fan.
Best operation occurs when attic ventilation is added along the eaves and maximum roof ventilation is limited.
2. Ceiling sprinkler system
Well it works on flat commercial buildings, it could work on houses too. Anything that cools the roof surface will help prevent heat from radiating into the attic space. Unfortunately, this can substantially increase your water bill. Sprinkler and hose, $20. Water bill around $300.
3. Really big trees
Shade the roof and you have a cooler attic and a cooler house. If you have a two-story home and are just starting to plant shade trees, this solution may take a while to materialize. One redwood 12 inches tall, $4.95. Expect shade in 40 years.
4. Attic Floor Air Sealing
Especially before adding insulation, do not add insulation to the attic floor without first air-sealing vents and penetrations. Best process, good light fall, knee pads, and a can of Great Stuff spray foam insulation. Materials fee, $30.
5. Addition of additional roof ventilation
Ways to cool a house start with attic ventilation. Most older homes simply don’t have enough attic ventilation. Ventilation must allow airflow from eve to peak. Take out the solid bird blocking and add vents in the eves. Add vents made of metal or plastic near the spout. During the installation of new roofs is the best time to add attic ventilation. Eve ceiling vents, $8.50. Roof vents around $12
6. Add insulation
After air sealing, install insulation. The insulation will help slow the transfer of heat from the attic to the living space below. The more insulation, the better. Building codes keep adding insulation, in some of the coldest parts of the country, R-49 insulation is code. That’s about 16 inches of insulation.
Don’t worry, this could be a DIY project. Big box construction supply stores have the material and equipment you need to get the job done.
Add insulation in colder weather to keep warm, add insulation in hotter weather to stay cool. Add 12 inches of blown fiberglass insulation for about $1.25 to $1.75 per square foot of attic floor space.
7. Knee wall floor connection sealing.
Many older two story homes have knee wall attic space. This is the space along the walls of an upstairs room that has reduced clearance along the sides of the room. You know, you’re standing on top and you have to be careful to stand in the middle of the room to avoid hitting your head.
The problem is that the knee wall attic is often open to the space between the floor of the room above and the ceiling of the room below. This means that the hot air in the knee wall attic can travel just below the floor above and help heat the entire house.
Stuff some insulation in a plastic bag and place a bag between each floor joist opening in the knee wall attic. This will prevent hot air from traveling between the floor and the ceiling. It is important to seal these floor joist openings during the cooling season and heating season. Plastic bags $.50, insulation, $1.00 per bag.
8. Chimney sealing
In older balloon-framed homes, the chimney flue is often open, allowing heat and cold to transfer between all floors, from the attic to the basement. For effective cooling and heating, these chase runners must be sealed. Spray foam insulation, $7.00 per can.
9. Put fans in the windows above
Place one or more large box fans in upstairs windows. Install them so that they go out the window. Close all other windows and exterior doors, but leave interior doors open to the foundation. Draw cooler air from the basement through the house and out through the windows above.
Basements are always cooler and can help cool the rest of the house. Hopefully you don’t have a smelly tank of stove oil in the base! A good box fan around $30.
10. Install solar panels
Typically, when you install solar panels on a roof, the panels are placed on a racking system that keeps them about 3 inches from the roof. The panels prevent the sun’s rays from hitting the roof surface and reduce heat transfer to the attic space.
One of the advantages of solar panels on a hot day is the shade they provide to the roof. Maybe not as good for shade as a big sequoia, but it’s still shade.
Most power companies will help you install solar panels. They know that when it’s hot and all those air conditioners are kicking on, they need all the help they can get to cool down a house.
I wish I still had that old farmhouse with the big front porch and big yard. She’d have a few tricks ready for those hot summer evenings when it got so hot upstairs. After sealing the air and insulating the attic, I would install a solar fan in the attic, mount some solar panels on the roof, put a couple of box fans in the upstairs windows, and roll out my sleeping bag on the front porch.
These are ways to cool down a house, but you can still get a good night’s sleep on the front porch. Of course, these days you’d need a better air mattress than ever before.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you sleep a little cooler tonight, don’t forget to turn off the light…
