When temperatures soar, your home becomes a safe space to escape the heat. But keeping cool can result in costly bills, and that's if you have the option of AC.
Fortunately, experts have recommended a simple way of keeping your cool without sending your energy bills skyrocketing in a heatwave, and I'm going to try it immediately.
Jade Oliver, stylist at Express Bi-Folding Doors, suggests making a "DIY cool room" when a heatwave hits. The principle is simple: you don't have to cool down your entire home, just one room which can act as a safe space for you and your family when the heat gets a bit much.
Here's how it works.
What is the 'DIY cool room' technique?
"Focus on keeping just one room as your designated cool space," says Oliver, "ideally one that's naturally shaded."
My editor will be pleased to hear that in my home, this is my office. It sits underneath my upstairs neighbor's balcony, meaning it doesn't receive much direct sunlight.
Once you've chosen your cool room, you can focus all your energy and hacks into that one space, essentially leaving the rest of your home to absorb the warmth as opposed to cooling a space you're not even using.
"Focus on keeping just one room as your designated cool space"
Jade Oliver, stylist at Express Bi-Folding Doors
I don't have AC, so I need to get creative with how I keep my home cool. That means I turn to anything from the caveman method to the wind tunnel method to bring some cool to my home.
According to Oliver, you should "set up fans, keep blinds drawn, and move there during the hottest parts of the day to avoid overheating the entire house."
Once the hottest parts of the day are over, you can then turn your attention to bringing down the temperature in other parts of your home naturally, without sending energy bills soaring.
Natural cooling tips
My living room has huge glass doors that open to the garden, and it picks up a lot of heat in the summer, even with the blinds closed. So as part of following the "DIY cool room" technique, I'll make this space out of bounds until the worst of the heat is behind us.
But I still want to sit there in the evenings. So to bring temperature back down without cranking up the AC, you can turn to natural cooling techniques.
"Ventilate during the coolest parts of the day, typically early morning and late evening" says Oliver.
"Avoid leaving windows open in the middle of the day when the air outside is hotter than inside. Otherwis,e you risk letting in warm air and making your home even hotter."
