With the temperature rising worldwide due to global warming, sometimes the summer heat becomes unbearable. Most parts of the world have to face heat waves during the summer season, and many wonder what they could do to make their home more summer-proof.
During the summertime, it can get scorching hot in some areas, so much so that being inside the home does not suffice. The houses can get heated and feel too hot inside. However, some slight modifications in your house can help in cooling your home. So you can consider modifying your home before the summer heat reaches its peak.
15 Tips to Make Your Home Ready for Summer
The following passages discuss several tips or strategies to keep your home cooler during the summer season. Everything might not be applicable to your home, and not everything can be done by you. In such cases, you can hire professionals who have the experience, and the equipment such as a one man scaffold tower, to examine your home to make it summer-proof or if you need help with something.
To find professional help, you can search for a “list of businesses near me” in your search engine. You will find professionals at Partywall Surveyors London that will help you with further procedures.
You can build a home to be summer-proof. Starting from designing the house and building it, if you keep the harsh summer heat in mind, you can successfully build a home that protects you from the scorching heat.
1. Consider Design Strategies
If a house is in a hot and humid location, the area’s temperature needs to be considered while designing it. Passive design strategies can help in keeping a house cool.
The architect needs to understand the direction of the sun and wind and design accordingly. They have to consider using shade, leaving areas for trees, maybe including some water fixtures, etc. Moreover, they can use daylight to their advantage and save on electricity.
2. Consider Adding Insulation
Usually, insulation is used to trap the heat inside the home from leaking out. However, it can work the opposite way as well. It can prevent heat or sunlight from coming into the house.
In general, insulations are used in the attic, but if you want to prevent heat as much as you can, you can add insulation to the walls too. This works really well in keeping the inside cool.
3. Consider Having Central AC
If you are worried about the rising temperature and not sure whether other home improvements will minimize the heating problem as per your expectation, you can consider going for central AC. It surely will provide a cool breeze on a hot summer day. However, you should get a professional’s help to determine your home’s most appropriate AC specification.
4. Implement Attic Ventilator
An attic ventilator can be a nice addition to your house if you want the hot air inside your home to go out. You can use a ventilator in addition to insulations.
During summer, the attic can get extremely hot, eventually increasing the temperature of the home. Having a way to release the trapped hot air outside can help in decreasing the overall temperature of the house.
5. Paint the Roof White
One of the greatest ideas to keep a house cool in hot weather is to paint the roof white. This method has been used effectively for decades. The white color helps in reflecting sun rays and making it less prone to heating up.
As a result, the attic of the house does not warm up too much, and the house stays cool. You should also reapply paints if necessary.
6. Limewash the Terrace
Similar to painting the roof white, you can also limewash the terrace. However, painting and limewashing are not the same. Limewash includes slaked lime, which gives the surface a rustic appearance. You can limewash your roofs, too, if you are not interested in painting them fully white.
Limewashing the terrace can help cool down the scratching heat a bit. With the white surfaces bouncing sunlight, it tends to heat a little less.
7. Cover with Vines and Shrubs
Many vines and shrubs are available that grow very fast and create a barrier to the sun. They provide shade as well as keep the temperature low. You can get the cool breeze of summer while a little sunlight peeking through the vines.
Creeper vines are great for this purpose. They grow really fast and do not take much effort to maintain. Besides that, bougainvillea, Rangoon creeper, and curtain creeper are good options.
Keeping Your Home Cool in Summer
We have already discussed the ways to build your home in a certain way that minimizes the issues with increasing heat. However, home construction is not always feasible for various reasons.
With that being said, we have also shared some tips on keeping the inside of your home cool without modifying the architecture of the house.
8. Restrict Sunlight
Natural light surely brightens up the place, but additionally, it heats up the place too. During heat waves, it is best if you restrict the direct sunlight into your home. It will help keep your home cooler. You can use shades, blinds, blackout curtains, etc., to prevent direct sunlight from coming in.
9. Use Window Films
If you have windows facing the sun that allow sunlight to come directly to your rooms, you can try window films. Using reflective window films can prevent 99 percent harmful UV rays and 79 percent solar heat.
It is a cost-effective way of preventing heat. You can choose among numerous options for films and easily insert them yourself.
10. Keep Doors Closed
Keep the windows and doors closed to let outer hot air in. You should seal any gaps that pass the air from the outside and increase the temperature in the house. Keep most of the windows and doors closed, especially during noon when it tends to heat up the most.
Moreover, if you are using an air conditioner to cool down the temperature, you should close the doors of the rooms too. Do not keep doors open in the rooms that no one is using. The cool air will blow away from where you are and end up taking more time and energy to cool down your room.
11. Choose Lighter Home Textiles
It might seem like an insignificant thing to cool down the temperature of your home, but it is not. Using light-colored textiles, especially white color fabrics, can play an important role in decreasing the heat inside your home.
During the summer season, try using white or light-colored bed sheets, pillow covers, sofa covers, curtains, etc. Also, ensure the fabrics are breathable. This method not only cools down a place; it also adds a sophisticated touch.
12. Turn off Appliances
Appliances generate a fair amount of heat that we often overlook. Try switching off appliances that are not in use, especially if it is too hot outside. Try to go for an alternative natural route.
For example, rather than drying your clothes in the machine, try hanging them outside to dry. You can save some cost and energy as well as have dry clothes. Similarly, try turning off the dishwasher. Moreover, you can consider using heat-generating appliances after the sun goes down.
13. Switch off Stoves or Ovens
Cooking or baking brings a drastic change in room temperature. While cooking, the flame or heat from the stove or oven increases the heat in the room. Therefore, it is best to avoid using the stove or oven when it is too hot outside.
Alternatively, you can utilize the grill outside your home during the summertime. You can also try having no-cook meals like sandwiches, salads, or takeout.
14. Have Plants
There is no denying that plants help cool down the temperature of any place. Although indoor plants may not have a big impact, they still help. You can have small to medium-sized plants in your home. They help cool the environment by releasing water.
You need to choose plants that are capable of cooling the environment. You can also find air-purifying plants that are great to keep indoors. They can cool down the temperature as well as remove harmful pollution.
But cooling the temperature of your residence is not the only purpose that plants serve. They can form an affordable, easy but extremely beautiful element of your home renovation project!
15. Use Cooling Techniques
There are several techniques in practice that are effective. These are mostly hacks that had their glorious time but now are kind of obsolete. However, you can try them yourself in the summer, and it can be a fun DIY project.
Firstly, get a split curtain or piece of cloth and dip it in cold water. Then hang the cloth or curtain over your window or your existing curtain. When the wind blows from the outside, in contact with the wet cloth, it will let a cool breeze inside the house, resulting in a decrease in the temperature inside the house.
Then again, you can use ice in front of a non-oscillating fan. Place the ice strategically so that the wind blows on the ice. As a result, you can have cold wind inside your home.
Lastly…
There is little to do when the earth seems like a fiery ball during summer. You just have to endure the heat of summer. However, the home seems like a place of relief, but only if you can make it summer-proof. Hopefully, with the tips and hacks we have shared to make your home summer-proof, at least you can have a little escape from the blazing sun.
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