What's the most efficient way to cool down my house?

Question

What really is bad (in addition to the 95 degree weather) is that my house is made of metal/aluminum. The sun shines fiercly on my house everyday!I try to use window ACs but they just keep running all day long. What's even stranger... at night, when the outside temp is 80, my indoor temperature is like 90 at 12:00, even with the windows open!!! Is there a better way to cool down my house without running high energy bills?

Answer 1

close all the shades
turn off lights
turn on air conditioner
set a fan in that room to blow cool air out to other rooms

Answer 2

Keep your AC on at night and dont open the windows if it is that hot. Make sure AC has enough freon so it doesnt have to run more than it should in a cycle during the day, sometimes AC units can have a leak that would make it run all the time. Keep shades closed in day. Fans or ceiling fans help. If you can plant some shade trees to cover home or get outdoor type canopy shades that may help. Metal/alum tends to retain heat and keep it in the metals for a long time even if the nights seems cooler and your place is still hot that is why. With these high temps I think we are all feeling the pinch in our bills and there really is no way around it unless we dont turn on the AC. Stay cool!

Answer 3

First of all-don't turn off your a/c at night. What happens when you do this is your temp starts climbing up-then when you turn on your a/c-it has to first remove all the heat that is inside your home and also run to keep the tstat set to what you have it at-basically causing it to run all the time. So, keep your windows shut-your a/c set to a comfortable temp. and don't mess with it. There's no way to keep your house cool-and your costs down if you keep turning the air on and off-In especially hot weather-your a/c will run more often-but it won't be as bad if you keep it on at night-you can adjust it a couple of degrees here or there-but don't turn it off and on-you are just asking for higher energy costs.

Answer 4

Spend your energy money once, to insulate your house, vent the attic with a fan to remove the heat, paint the metal a light color or cover it with a second layer of material to insulate it, (like vinyl siding). You need to keep the heat out in the first place, rather than trying to remove it once it's there. In some areas you may get tax breaks for doing this sort of energy efficiency improvements but don't bet on these.

Answer 5

Well you might try using your water hose at night and wet your house down to cool it off. This will not work in the daytime because the sun will just evaporate it.Also you can put a tub of ice in front of a fan . this has worked for me when I did not have a ac.

Answer 6

Ventilation is key. But I like the soaker hose idea. If you install a gutter, downspout and holding tank then you can recirculate the runoff and conserve water with the use of a submersible pump (Little Giant sells for about $90).

And if you can afford it then install a drop ceiling with just enough space to add insulation. Ceiling insulation works.

Answer 7

only open the window early in the morning when it's
cool out & late @ night, shut them from 11-4:00 when it tends to be the hotest time of the day
keep the blinds or curtains shut to block the sun from coming in during the day too

Answer 8

All cooling is done by either evaporation cooling, transferring heat or transporting the heat elsewhere. An air conditioner takes the air and cools it by running it over coils of freon or the modern equivalent. The freon carries the heat outside and then returns. When it returns it puts it into a tank with a lower pressure than that outside of the tank. This expansion cools it off and creates condensation, which is drained from the drip pan. To get ultra-fridge temperatures, like that needed for Liquid Oxygen, the Oxygen gas is expanded in a tank and then cooled. When the gas expands under a lower pressure some of the molecular energy in the gas (which creates heat) is lost.

The AC tries to do this with the freon by letting it absorb heat and then expanding the gas under low pressure so it loses that heat. This is also how your freezer works. If it is hot outside then the AC has to work harder to keep it cool inside, because it can’t get rid of the heat outside and can only get rid of it in the low-pressure tank. This process can be rendered less efficient if the gas pressure is too low, or the pump is inefficient, so you should get a service check for your AC units. It would be cheaper to find a dealer willing to service them in his shop and for you to bring them in one at a time. The air in an AC unit is blown through a filter and dirty filters slow down the air and interfere with the cooling, so change your air filters frequently; they are the cheapest part of your AC system. (That is if your unit has a filter. The instructions will be pretty clear about this, if a filter is included. If there is no filter then clean the unit.)

A fan cools a person by using the body’s natural evaporative cooling system. When a person sweats the sweat is evaporated. This physical action draws out the heat. The energy required to convert the liquid water into a gas requires more heat, and the sweating surface (in this case your skin) gives up that energy. That's why when you come out of the swimming pool you feel so much cooler. So with good air circulation, even if the air is hot you will cool you off naturally. However, if the air is too humid then it is harder for the air to absorb your sweat so you won’t cool off as well. If high humidity isn’t a problem then create a good airflow, especially one that runs across you and your family. Try running a fan from one window to a fan at another window, this way you won’t need one of those airline hanger fans. If you have an attic then vent it. Heat rises so most of the heat will be in your attic. If you vent it and push the hot air out then that makes more room for the hot air, inside your house, to rise into the attic.

Sunlight is very important. You want to shutter or put heavy (or just dark) drapes over any window with a southern exposure; they get the most heat. At dawn the sun shines on the east window, and it shines on the west windows at dusk, so the northern exposure gets the less heat. Therefore use these windows to bring in your light.

Metal can absorb heat, but if it is shinny or light colored then it reflects more heat than it absorbs. To stop it from absorbing too much heat then use foliage like bushes and trees to shade it. Let the plants absorb the heat and light, not your house. Deciduous trees are the best, because they lose their leaves in the fall and let more heat in.

Modern house construction creates a pretty tight environment. Insulation is pretty good as well. So it takes time for the heat transfer to travel into and out of the house. This means that at night, as the day’s heat gets in, your house can actually be hotter. It also means that during the day the night’s temperature gets in and cools the house. With active people, lots of lights on, and 80-degree nights though you won’t notice this and the house will always seem hot.

Incandescent light bulbs are very inefficient, only 40% of the power put into them (watts) creates the light; the rest creates heat, so change the bulbs. Fluorescent lights are more efficient. More of the energy put into them is converted to light. So they create more light, use less power and create less heat. I got rid of my 200-watt torch lamp for that very reason. I have switched all my lights to fluorescent ones. Check out Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, they have a lot of different fluorescent bulbs that can replace the standard incandescent bulb. Every electrical appliance creates heat when it runs. Many of them use electricity even in the standby mode. So try unplugging some of these devices. You only have to put your hand near the fan on a computer that has been running awhile to see what I mean. So don’t leave your computer on at night. Try power saving measures where ever you can. I don’t do much in my bedroom during the day so I keep it very dark. Because of that it is 5 degrees or so cooler at night.

Since you are using window AC units and don’t’ have a central A/C system I suspect that you live in the north, normally a colder climate. Global warming has made your place hotter. It is worse in Europe where they are used to the cold Labrador Current making their summers milder. If global warming continues then parts of Northern Europe will become uninhabitable simply because of the summer heat. If you live in the North then your house is designed to hold in the heat. Twenty-five years ago that was a good idea, but now it might not be such a good thing. In this case there is little you can do to cool the house. Adding insulation will only make it worse, and taking it out will make you run your heater all winter long. The best that you can do is to vent the house.

Try looking for another energy provider. Companies that use “green energy” like windmills may be a better deal. The cost for windmill-generated power was higher than oil, but not anymore, and no matter how tight the oil market is the wind blows for free.

I feel your pain. I live in Texas where it is very hot, and my electric bill has doubled in the last two months. The price of oil and the heat wave have hit me hard. I have had to increase the thermostat to 80-degrees, and just live with the heat; still my electric bills are too high. Thanks to global warming and the oil crunch the prices are only going to rise. In fact your electric bill will probably be worse next month since British Petroleum has shut down so much of its Alaska oil pipelines, and Hezbollah has created so much unrest in the Middle East (Hezbollah started the current war by kidnapping Israeli soldiers.)

Answer 9

get a box fan and put it in an upstairs window or a kitchen window. (have it blow out.) open only one other window in the house at the other end. after 4 pm turn it on, it will draw IN that cooler air and drag it thru the house.

Answer 10

What works really well is a soaker hose on your roof. You may get some water stains on the siding but that can be removed with cleaners like CLR.