This past summer mornings began almost the same each day. We woke up, each stumbling to the bathroom trying to beat the other. Afterwards we hastily got dressed to head out on our walk before the sun began its daily ritual of baking human beings. We returned home to feed and water the animals followed by a quick run through the gardens with both hose and watering can. One particular morning we were both pretty hungry already by just 8:45am. And if I learned anything this summer it is when a pregnant woman says she is hungry you have two options
- Find food.
- Run for your life!
I chose the former and came inside to reheat some biscuit and gravy frozen from my folks’ last visit. With the stove at 400° and one burner simmering the gravy I noticed that our bungalow was getting quite warm. Even with the AC thermostat at 72 and a small fan circulating warm air away from the kitchenette area, the overall room temp was getting thick. I got to thinking is this what we’re gonna have to deal with each meal in the tiny house? This is miserable. But then I started thinking of ways we might keep our temp rather cool even without installing another AC unit or even cranking down our thermostat.
- Keep the blinds, shades, or window treatments pulled down. The solar heat from direct sun can often raise room temperature by 7° or better.
- If you like to take a warm shower, make sure to install a vent that will pull out the warm, moist air and circulate in fresh.
- Use the oven and stove only when you have to. The longer you preheat the more heat escapes into your home. Burners left on high “just because” also add ambiant heat.
- Change your bed linens out to thin, soft, cotton ones. Pack away the down comforter and the flannel sheets.
- Go barefoot. There is no need for slippers most of the time. Try flip flops instead. Your feet will breathe better and you will still keep your feet protected.
- Take a cool shower in the morning. Yes, warm water feels good; even relaxing. But before you leave the tub or shower stall try running cool water for a few minutes. The coolness will lower your overall body temp.
- Use small, rotating, fans or even window fans to circulate the cool air and to keep the warm air moving.
- Insulate. Insulate. Insulate. Most folks think good insulation is for the cold months. It keeps the heat in. Well, in summer it does the same thing but with cool air. Don’t pay good money to keep the outdoors 70°.
- Clean your AC filter regularly.
- Start your day with a glass of cool water. Yes, coffee is my morning drink as well. But try a glass or two of water instead. You will feel better, you will be more healthy, and you will lower your body temp.
What tips do you have to keep the house cool and comfortable? Do you stop cooking altogether or do you find ways to maximize the air temp as it is?
I would add, cook outside in appropriate weather. Tastes better and reduces cooling costs.
Great thought. We grill a lot of our food outdoors and all year round even!
In addition to your list, I rarely use the stove or oven in the warm months. I eat most cool and cold foods. If I want warm food I use a slow cooker or cook on the grill. I’ve also learned to go other places in the heat of the day: down to the river, creek, lake, the woods, friend’s houses, or window shopping.
Come to think of it, we really do too. We love fresh garden salads and smoothies for breakfast.
Mornin’ Adam, Love this topic. All of your suggestions are excellent and pretty easy to incorporate into daily existence. For your readers in the Southwest I would throw in the following: My body acts like a furnace and I have difficulty falling asleep in a too-warm and/or poorly ventilated room, and I don’t particularly like the the expense of air conditioning vs evap cooling or, even better and WAY cheaper -“tuned” ventilation. Don’t know whether the “tuned ventilation” concept will work worth a damn in a high humidity climate, but my intuition says it will, maybe to a lesser extent.
Out here we have a fairly dependable 20 degree (Phoenix @ 1,700′ elev.) to 30 degree (Silver City@ 6,000′) day/night temperature variation. When I lived in Phx in a townhouse I used to throw a box fan facing outwards in a second story window a little before bedtime and selectively crack open windows at the ground floor on the north side. It worked magnificently at pulling hot air out and the cooler ( and more oxygenated) night air in and up. If you shut them up around 7AM and closed draperies, the house would stay cool for hours during the day, cutting A/C bills in half.
Works even better in Silver City, where I installed two “whole house” fans at the highest ceiling point in a spec house I designed with windows that open starting 16″ above ground level on the shady side. This house did not even have A/C and we used the evap. only a couple hours a day during the first two weeks in July. We usually had to turn off the whole house fans after an hour because they had exchanged 100% of the air in the house and we were starting to shiver.
In your Tiny Home, if you use an exterior vented (rather than recirculating) range hood, that will help with cooking heat. Look for the highest “CFM rating” you can get with multiple speed switching. A wall mounted exterior vent bath fan will help with humidity and if you use both at the same time in the late evening, I bet they would serve as your “whole house fans”. (For some reason, side draft fans seem to have more horsepower, higher CFM ratings and work better than any bath ceiling fan I’ve ever seen on the market, plus that’s one less hole in your roof.)
So, I am incorporating all these ideas in my mobile dwelling, which will have 3.5″ thick wall and ceiling insulation, 5.5″ at the floor. The house is wrapped with Tyvek on the exterior of the framing and I got the wild notion of using mylar space blankets to line the interior of the framing under ceiling and wall panels. I’ll let you know how that works out after I get moved in.
Also, I think my mobile dwelling will be the first one in existence to be heated by Pex hot water lines running in mylar-lined “channels” between the floor purlins. The system will be powered by a 12V pump and will run off a solar water heater sequenced through a little Ariston “tankless” electric heater, sequenced through a propane w/h that came with the original trailer, giving me a double redundancy, in case of sunless days AND a power outage. In a scenario where one runs out of propane also, I am designing a lightweight aluminum, glass door wood stove that looks like a classy little fireplace and incorporates water-heating features as well. Hopefully this will be on the market within the next year or so.
Thank you so much for adding your wealth of information Don. I really appreciate it and I am excited (as always) to hear about your plans for your mobile dwelling. While we are using PEX, I never thought of channeling them in the floor. Nice idea. (Maybe I can get to market first! HAHAHAHA)
thanx for great info! plz keep it coming,,,
use the frozen food for cooling. Plan ahead and take it out of the freezer in time to take advantage of the cold rather than go straight from freezer to stove.
Use shade cloth, awnings and/or trees and fast growing plants to provide shade.