Summer is in full power here in Kerala, India. Concrete radiating heat and rooms are hot even at night.
Have seen people mention things like blackout curtains, reflective or white paint on the roof etc.
Have upped hydration and am now sleeping with windows open, with a mat on the floor.
What all things do the people in your locality do? Or if you have any specific insight into cost-effective techniques or so, could you kindly share them?
Thanks in advance
Things me or my parents would do those 40⁰C+ days:
Pull down the blinds to block the sun during the day. If the air is considerably hotter outside, don’t open the windows/doors. Wait until there is no difference in temp to do so.
If access to water isn’t an issue, once the sun goes down you can hose the exterior of the house, walls and any surrounding concrete/stone surfaces. It will cool it down considerably.
If it is really hot I would sometimes put a wet towel on wherever I was feeling the heat the most (usually heads and shoulders/arms). You will need to soak it every hour or so, because it will start to dry and warm up as you wear it. You can sleep like this, too, but you may wake up from the heat under a hot towel that’s nearly dry.
Whrere I live, temps go in the 40-50°C range in the summer (and 60+ in some inland areas). Here is what we do to stay cool.
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Cool(er) air ventilation Windows open at night, closed past morning, with blinds down when sunlight starts hitting the windows. Ensure that air can circulate through (otherwise, you might actually get heatstroke from how hot the house gets). In cass the heat makes you feel like you cannot breathe, blinds down and windows open (better than suffocating) Also, no joke, get greenhouse green screens, and set them up inverse outside your windows. Instead of trapping heat in, they throw heat out instead. Surprisingly cooling.
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WATER AND COOLING FOOD! Water is a must, and there are foods that cool you down instead of warming you up. (avoid the later wherever possible!) Examples of cool foods: frozen desserts, lassi (yoghurt water drink, makes you sleepy) etc
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Fans. Fans everywhere. Doesn’t matter if hot enough that it feels like a hair dryer instead. Evaporation + air is your friend (bonus tip: if you live in a dry zone, get an air cooler. It’s an enclosed fan behind a self contained waterfall. Humid air is particularly cooling. Beware metal cabinets in the same room though. They rust, bad).
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Baths. Baths are especially cooling. Take at least 2 a day. My cousins, who live inland at 60+ temps, bathes at least 4-5 times a day. Also, their bathrooms all have massive fans :)
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Clothes. In summer, we wear our thinnest, oldest cotton clothes possible (aka, almost seethrough). We never go out in them, but they sure make the house bearable.
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Naps and talcum powder. Human body temps naturally decrease when napping. Talcum powder, spread on the hottest parts of the body, absorbs heat and cools you too. The powder gets soaked in sweat and is useless pretty quickly, but combine bath + fan + powder + nap (and probably no undergarments/naked) makes noon bearable to go through. Talcum powder in particular stops rashes from too much sweating, if you have trouble bathing more than twice a day like I do.
Thats about it from me. Hope it helps!
bonus tip: if you live in a dry zone, get an air cooler. It’s an enclosed fan behind a self contained waterfall. Humid air is particularly cooling.
A swamp cooler is another term for a similar thing (a damp surface with airflow). Humid air is not cooling though. It’s actually the opposite, because it makes water harder to evaporate, which is how our body tries to stay cool. That’s why a humidity feels so hot. Evaporation cools, which means we can use this to cool air, which is how these evaporative coolers work. They don’t feel cool because they’re humid. That’s a side effect. Water evaporating pulls heat out of the air, so it’s cooler. The higher the humidity the worse these function.
Fair ppint. Never that humid here though, except during cool rains, so I didn’t even realise.
Fun fact: the air conditioner was invented because the southern US is frequently so humid that evaporative cooling doesn’t work, and it’s hot. AC pulls water out of the air in the process of cooling, so it has a double effect of making the air cooler and allowing your sweat to evoporate to cool you.
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Using IR blocking films (like the ones that they use to tint car windows, preferably the type that use static cling instead of adhesive because they’re far easier to apply) on any windows helps to keep the incoming heat down during the day,
Having airflow through the house at night with open windows or some form of vent, just make sure to add in bug nets to block any intrusive animals.
The addition of louvres (solid panels that have angled plates in them to block sunlightbut allow airflow) to the outside of windows can help keep temperatures down as well.
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can’t wait for the day that the american gov’t puts this in an advisory warning for americans after we let climate change do its thing to us. lol
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i bet air conditioned still won’t be legally mandated in american housing law in such a scenario. lol
or worse yet, everyone’s compelled to buy air conditioning rent or “insurance”… aka the true american way. lol
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it’s also common among the top 50% of income earners in the united states and the other 50% of poor people only have them if they live in jurisdictions where air conditioning is mandated by law.
In tropical countries I carry an umbrella everywhere. It’s much better than a hat because it has more airflow and provides more shade.
If you have space outside, plant native trees/vines/bushes that will help shade the building from the sun if you’re getting direct sunlight. You can just do clippings from wild growing plants for free.
timing of the windows opening and closing is key. Also tracking temperature helps, just a crappy thermometer (one indoors and one outside not in sunlight) will let you know when it’s time to open or close up.
Concrete/bricks work both ways as a thermal mass, if you can get them cool and covered from the sun it will help cool your area (think of cold concrete floors, I have an inner brick wall that an extension was built out on and it stays coolish). Same with water, most have experienced a cold water pool/pond on a hot day, big blocks of frozen ice can do the trick if you stick to freezing at night.
Free stuff:
- No/less electronics during the day (tvs/chargers/computer), it all adds to the heat
- no cooking during day, cold cuts/food only till night
- Take a nap during the hottest part if possible, or just sleep in daytime and move about at night on off days (something about waking up after a nap makes it seem less overbearing)
- do maintenance on your fans, take them apart and clean/grease anything that needs it (will need to clean more often if you lubricate due to dust build up causing gunk)
Black-out curtains are great to stop light, but if it’s entering the window already it’s just heating up that one spot so you’re still technically getting the thermal radiation. For that fix you would want reflective window covers, even foil would technically help slapped to the window (it’s the only time those reflective insulation boards actually do anything with infrared). Foil with something behind it to insulate, like literally anything (cardboard wrapped in plastic to air seal can even do it), then you can take down your contraption at night to let air through to cool.
Insulating and air sealing. Alternatively, air flow in any spots building more heat than the outside temp (like an attic or upstairs area). If it’s a family owned place it’s easier, renting you might have to address concerns with landlord.
Currently temps in my area are getting about 95f(35c) daytime and 65f(18c) to 60f(15c) at night. I can usually get my house down to 68ish(20c) before the sun comes up. Windows in a bottom floor with fans pointing in, any windows upstairs with fans blowing out (hot air rises, it’s the same technique for american colonial/victorian houses with dormers emulating ancient style architecture for passive cooling). If it’s single story just be aware of wind direction if you’re using the fan method and point some in where the wind is blowing and pointing out at the opposite side. My house will at max hit about 80f(26c) but by then it’s time to open the windows because the sun has set.
At some point, once true-true summer hits, the nights will be about 80f(26c) and over 100f(38cish) during the day. At that point regulating your body and getting used to the temps is key and an A/C or sometype of ground thermal air flow is the only way you’re going to make anything cool. If you’re using A/C just seal the crap out of your windows with plastic and/or insulation (remember condensation like an ice cup though will cause moisture and mold/mildew growth on the exterior if not done properly). Pick a room that keeps the coldest and put whatever you can on the walls and windows (even a quilt on the walls will help insulate some). Seal up as much as possible and hide from the heat.
Fans. Keep a paper/manual one on you are all times, as backup if you have a battery powered one. On those do your research to find one with a good battery.
If you’re running your A/C you can set it at a higher temperature if you run a ceiling fan or upright fan at the same time.
Don’t wear black or dark colors.
Cooling packs in the freezer, wrap a towel around it, put it on your head, hold it on your hands.
Just a wet cloth around your neck is great when you’re out and about.
Fans is so good in high humid places because the movement of the air actually let your sweat evaporate and perform its cooling effect as intended.
A lot of A/C also works as a dehumidifier that helps on that front and keep you feeling cool indoors.
Try bamboo sheets. They are a bit expensive but they feel cooling in the summer, they are very breathable but are also have a weight to them to help you sleep.
I second this, linen sheets are also fantastic.
Look into green roofs.
Might be a larger project to get started, than simply buying a fan, but will probably last longer and improve air quality as well as reduce heat. Even better if you can get your neighbours involved and give multiple homes green roofs together, to improve outdoors heat and air for the whole neighbourhood as well as for you individual home.
If your home isn’t well adapted to reject heat, you can use tinfoil to reflect the sun. It’s cheap and incredibly efficient at keeping heat out. It doesn’t look very nice but it works a treat. Just remember if you are covering windows (with anything) that the cover has to be on the outside otherwise some heat will still make it in.
stay inside naked
I grew up somewhere where it didn’t cool down a lot at night and the only solution was to sleep in front of a fan. Sometimes I could get the fan to blow directly into the sheets and sort of balloon them out which was pleasant.
Where I live now it cools at night so I can open the windows at night and close them up during the day. Sometimes I close the curtains too if it will be extreme. I open the windows and create a cross draft when it cools down.
Those ice/fan pseudo a/c setups don’t work well.
Spray your back and socks with water occasionally. Not the shoulders, that gives you rheumatism. Only works under max humidity of course.
That can’t be true. The rheumatism thing i mean
It was for me last summer. Spray shoulders -> aching shoulders a few hours later. Spray back -> nothing aches, and you can do thing as if it was 20°C instead of 35.
Obligatory not a fix for everyone but:
I’ve read that drinking cold milk helps keep you cooler than drinking cold water. Something about the electrolytes in the milk making it digest more slowly?
This is only a short-term fix obviously, and only if you enjoy drinking milk, but it’s an option.
