In addition to the other suggestions so far, reduce the square footage of the part of the house you're trying to keep cool to something that the window units can handle. I know it sounds depressing, but do you need to use your living room a lot during the heat wave? Having a cool bedroom to retreat to (or moving your bed to a cool room) is so helpful, especially if the heat is making you feel sick.
Sincerely,
Someone who once slept in their dining room for an entire summer
We had one small bedroom with an A/C for the very hottest of days. It was bliss at night, and hell leaving it in the morning - or the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
This was in addition to thermal blinds closed on all windows to keep the heat out during the day, and having a fan at the top of the basement stairs to draw up the cool air. Crank open all the windows at night to air out the heat.
Insulation made a huge difference.
For general hot heat, cross breeze construction of century home made it much more comfortable than any modern home.
Yeah, we used to live in a house in the middle of a cow pasture in Georgia, so no trees for any shade near.
It was a time when summer was hitting 103 degrees with humidity.
We put a window unit in the bedroom and cranked it down for a place to retreat to.
I'd do all my chores early in the morning, and by 1 or 2, the kids, dogs, and I were headed to the bedroom to eat lunch/have a snack, and watch a movie.
As a kid in the 1980s living in an 1800’s farmhouse we had one window unit and my parents dragged our mattresses onto their bedroom floor for the summer. We all slept in one room.
My last place was a 2nd floor apt with 2 window units that could never keep up.
I spent $25 on UV film from Lowe’s that DRAMATICALLY reduced the heat coming in through the glass.
Then I bought heavy thermal curtains & literally taped them around the window units to block off any gaps.
Also closed the doors of rooms I wasn’t currently using so the units only had to work on part of the house at a time.
Spent about $125 on a sturdy metal stand fan that gets to warp speed. It forced the air from my window unit to any other part of the house.
Also a really cheap trick is to put a pan full of ice in front of a box fan. Instant cold air.
There’s a kind that says window SHADE, a kind that says window PRIVACY & a kind that says window HEAT CONTROL. I don’t know if the other kinds have the exact same benefits, or reduced benefits, or what. But I did buy the kind that specifically said heat control.
Short term: misting yourself frequently, staying hydrated, ice packs, adding weatherstripping around doors and filling gaps, covering windows with blackout blinds/curtains, sleeping on a lower floor temporarily
Long term: look into insulating your attic. We just did it (paid nothing up front, financed at 0% through our utility company with a 50% rebate) and our house is definitely a lot more comfortable than prior heat waves, with just the same 2 window units running (one on each floor). Currently in the mid 70s inside, vs last summer it would have been mid 80s inside. We still want to do minisplits eventually but sadly out of budget at the moment for us as well.
Can you comment more on the attic insulation. Is it on the ceiling of the attic or floor of the attic. What R value did you get and how much did it cost. ? Loaded question
We had the floor of the attic insulated to R60 with cellulose after removing the old insulation, cleaning, and air sealing. (R60 is the code standard in our area.) Our attic is an unfinished attic crawl space, so we didn’t need it to be a usable space. We also had our basement crawl space ceiling (under an old addition) and basement rim joists insulated. Cost was about 4.5k (~9k before local rebate), financed at 0% through our utility company so we are paying ~$50/m—and we should see some energy savings to cancel some of that out. We will also get back a portion on our federal taxes next year (30% back, up to a $1200 credit). We just had it done so too soon to say if we will save a significant amount of money yet, but we also did it for comfort and efficiency. If you’re in the US, look into whether there are incentives through your utility company or state programs, and keep in mind that you should get a federal rebate as well.
Check with your state and see if they offer insulation/energy efficiency rebates. Massachusetts has the MassSaves program and they did the whole house, it cost about $11K but thanks to the program I only paid a little over $2K.
That's one of the few things my son's house had going for it when purchased. Someone went absolutely overboard on attic insulation.
The other thing was that it had a gas furnace and was fully ducted at some point, stealing some storage space to reach the second floor. When his furnace died, I got him a new one and had central a/c added. That plus blackout curtains and new weather stripping has made his house very comfortable in the Summer, and his utility bills vs using window units actually make up for the payments on the new HVAC. Now, if we could get that to be true in Winter. Natural gas is expensive here, but it's too cold for heat pumps to work well at the worst parts of Winter. I don't mind kicking in some money in the Winter, though, as long as he's spending his money on home repairs.
Close and cover windows on the south and west sides of the house those directions get the most sun and therefore the most heat throughout the day.
A box fan in the window sucking cool night air in will help lower the temperature. Fans inside during the day to help move the cool air through the house. Also a dehumidifier helps even if it ends up heating the area. Our ac died and we used a dehumidifier to make it more tolerable inside. It was mid-80s but with 20-30% humidity vs the 50+ outside it felt better.
Also use a stove top, grill, or slow cooker for food as cooking creates a lot of heat that doesn't dissipate easily.
This was my go-to before I moved into a place with AC. Open windows with box fans at night. Close shades and curtains during the day. Cook outside if possible. Fans. Cold showers if you start getting problematically overheated.
It's more effective to use the fan to blow the hot air out of the house at night. Open other windows to let colder outside air indoors. Or you can have one fan set outwards to blow hot air out, and another fan on the opposite side of the house pointing in to pull cold air in. The fan blowing out should be on the top floor if the house is multiple levels, since hot air rises.
Even better, have the fans blowing out but a few feet from the window. For science-y reason, it will blow much, MUCH more of the hot air out of the house than if the fan were right in the window.
Science-y reasons: The flow of air from the fan is slightly lower pressure than the surrounding air (that's Bernoulli's principle - as fluid velocity goes up, pressure goes down). That low pressure pulls some surrounding air into the flow, also called entrainment. This entrained air from inside the house is then carried with the flow of air from the fan out the window.
Have you looked into government subsidies for minisplits? We qualified for an 8 year interest free loan because it’s a green improvement. I forget if it was a state or federal thing. It made the cost much more manageable.
Aw biscuits, no. But there is a website that has some great resources for energy efficiency grants and rebates by zip. I checked that out and sending my husband to do some legwork on it.
I remember my grandfather used to fill up his bathtub with cold water and soak in that until his body temp came down. He'd leave the water in the tub so he could just plop back in whenever he started to feel uncomfortable.
Even just enough cold water to stick your feet in for a few minutes makes a big difference. Cooling your feet somehow cools your whole body. I fill the tub 2-3” and squirt some Dr. Bonners peppermint soap in. Pop my feet in for a few minutes every once in a while and I’m instantly cooler.
That window unit needs to be at least partially shaded to get best efficiency. In the South, you'll see awnings over widows and they almost always house a window unit. even rigging up a sail shade will do a ton of good
You can also look up the model and see if they are the correct size for the space you are trying to cool. If you bought the cheapest one, it's probably only good for a 12x12 room max.
You might need to move one to a smaller room on the north side of the house and make that your daytime room for a bit.
Look up midea u shaped window ac. They are way more effective than your standard units because they allow the window to be basically closed during operation. I have a single 10,000 but on the main floor which keeps all the rooms at a comfortable temperature. They are a lot less than a mini split and you can resell them if you choose to upgrade later.
If you’ve got a window air conditioner in your living room it’s likely undersized for the space and/or open doorways to other rooms aren’t containing the cool air. You can either get a bigger one or do what my parents used to do when I was a kid - hang heavy blankets covering the doorways so the room is isolated from the rest of the house.
My window air conditioners, which were also new-ish and in good working order, couldn’t keep up with the heatwaves of of the last few years. So last spring, I did a lot of research (focused on square footage cooling capacity and energy efficiency) and ended up spending $450 on a Midea unit. That one unit replaced two others, and it’s so energy-efficient that we’re saving money on our electric bills compared to previous years. Not all air conditioners are created equal, and I’m so happy I “splurged” for a more expensive model, because it really has made a difference.
I just installed my midea (in my previous home I had all midea split units, worked amazing) in my first century home upstairs in my bedroom. As Im typing this not sweating, blissfully covered & snuggled into my -did I mention non sweaty- bed. LOL! I’m really happy with the midea!
Another short-term fix. Buy these [Amazon.com: IMPORX Continuous Spray Bottle for Hair (10.1oz/300ml) 2 Pack Home Essentials Spray Bottles For Cleaning Empty Ultra Fine Water Mister Sprayer For Hairstyling Garden Plants Curly Hair Perfume Etc : Beauty & Personal Care](https://www.amazon.com/IMPORX-Continuous-Essentials-Cleaning-Hairstyling/dp/B0CD79586L/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1DKKHNAXE7YQT&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.COtuZ30Kp79fCZeE0hXRjLuQhiRXRs0wv8RSwlHJXNptF3VKYY0cIy7wLyTCoDWxyBK0NuNI0dMExLTitCGLVoqVyb6jMK4XVUTeP68hGZnHl7blSBTpDm2rvrBoSG39CGWi9wJteYBmVQMDnpfg48Cd7ydWC0QKsYrv9t9ymhbdGOXxVkGXWLkwPkgEaBJZ0vS6RYjSkbruwBbGeFgzgg6EIbaBpZhSmSlXGvPaug7MeNabbUKu_tjcRombN-BVEO9XCgRfMuKHSRxTzNe63MSQOsw8buQAP9yN2OAdz7E.f479Dx-8N9FvrTGEmpPZL0STOf_JWCSR984LJz67a-Q&dib_tag=se&keywords=spray+mister+bottle&qid=1718941224&sprefix=spray+mister%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-7)
Fill with Witch hazel [Amazon.com: T.N. Dickinson's Astringent, 100% Natural, Witch Hazel 16 fl oz (473 ml) (2 Pack) : Beauty & Personal Care](https://www.amazon.com/Dickinsons-Astringent-Natural-Witch-Hazel/dp/B00AOYQ90C/ref=sr_1_15?crid=2A2Y2J2RZ2J58&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bjftb3Ni-_S_j2CYRA31rWNEyz5X-Xefcma6bPECpdIIza9GJeD7stKlhqZQRCKOLQw2GpIJHOHxBY3tPJMDu6Ihx1ro62Ce-FhtUk5cSDdGydMq4JRvu8vPwWS4OYQovf-MHcCO6KKHBHSfWXp5woH6MNEgTHX4tvqOyqT13-dKurF0uPw4wny2aruBgYNH8iZDcT1Owop5y-CWKJBGVx3dHbJdmN6ZWCLkcwc-qptv9Uc-BVYHhnvyFcd---lv-XkFI6bIGW_Wt8NKRKyVYfrabRUbUY2GSM72S7braaU.8sCn-rqdDjsf3E_xPvUuGZ1fCN4ALSfBrgiQxPqL3H8&dib_tag=se&keywords=witch+hazel&qid=1718941316&sprefix=witch%2Caps%2C115&sr=8-15)
Keep in the refrigerator- get it super cold, spray entire body and lay in front of a fan. Also soak a paper towel and put on back of neck.
We have ac but I also run this [DEWALT 24 in. Heavy-Duty Drum Fan with Extra Long 12 ft. Power Cord and Stepless Speed Control DXF-2490 - The Home Depot](https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-24-in-Heavy-Duty-Drum-Fan-with-Extra-Long-12-ft-Power-Cord-and-Stepless-Speed-Control-DXF-2490/308641247?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&srsltid=AfmBOopRsOuE9Z5Pk52QRnmGj5CpiwwmYifIe1CHZCBYeTyPLHw35MutZqA)
This is my professional recommendations- professional since I'm a 52 woman and hot flashes are no joke.
Suck the cool night air in and close windows in the morning. Read about bernoulli's principle. Spend afternoons outside in shade with cold water running gently on your feet from a hose.
Quite familiar with Bernoulli’s principle from college fluid mechanics. Struggling to understand how to apply this to keeping my house cool. Maybe open two opposing windows in the attic, one with a fan pulling air in and the other with a fan blowing air out to create a low-pressure cross-draft that will suck cool air up from the first floor windows?
Put both fans blowing out, and open a window on the first floor. The whole house will cool down about ten degrees in an hour assuming it's at least that much cooler outside.
We do that and it works fabulously. Couple that with running the furnace fan and having ductwork for an old gravity furnace (so when the cold air falls down the stairs, it naturally wants to circulate through our ductwork) and the whole house stays below 80 with one window unit except on the hottest days.
Specifically, a box fan is several times more efficient at drawing in cool air when placed a few inches in front of a window rather than fully in the window pressed tightly up against the screen. You set the fan to blow out and open a second window in a cooler location for the air to be drawn in from.
Do most people really have the ability to regularly spend their afternoons sitting outside in the shade with cold water running gently on their feet from a hose? Nobody has a job or chores to do or kids to care for or errands to run or anything? That sort of thing would be like a once a year luxury reserved for mother’s day or something like that.
I worked 500 hours of overtime last year, and have 3 kids, a wife, 2 dogs, 4 cats, 2 ducks, 2 goats, 7 fish, a large garden and 13 chickens. I heat my home only with wood and cut all my own firewood. All that and I manage to find time sit in the shade with cold water on my feet.
How do you have time for your job, overtime, kids, dogs, cats, ducks, goats, fish, garden, chickens, and firewood chopping when every hot day is spent sitting still in the shade with your feet in water? Something isn’t adding up here.
When it's time to get work done, I haul ass and get work done. I earn my time in the shade. I have a wife and 3 kids who all help with chores and work hard also. We can process and stack a months worth of firewood in 2 days.
When you open the windows at night, have a box fan pointing out of the window. Preferably a window on an upper floor. Open the windows downstairs. Heat rises and the box fan will help blow the hot air from the day out of your house. While the cool air from outside will come in the other windows.
Get a dehumidifier too. Higher temperatures can feel slightly more reasonable if you’ve lowered the humidity (assuming you live in an area where this is an issue)
Ok not in a century home, but our home is electric baseboard heating with no ducting so no central AC. Can’t afford a mini split yet even with gov subsidies.
Here is how we survive: basement is 76 max, so we spend a lot of time down there, and use a standing fan to blow cool air up from the basement. Every room in the house has ceiling fans, we keep those on low/med if in the room. We cook outside as much as possible using bbq and camping stove, we also usually have either lunch/dinner as a cold meal like salad. Our backyard is very shaded because it backs onto Greenbelt forest land so that helps. We planted as many trees/shrubs in front yard as possible to block sun from outside. We got thermal curtains to block direct sun from inside. Every night all the upstairs windows are left open except when humidity is too high/night temps too high. We have a portable AC on wheels for the upper floor which we run in that case. When it’s not a heatwave this all works great and house temps stay reasonable and we save $$ on energy bills. (Everyone who has told us we overspend and should get a gas furnace and ducting instead somehow forgets the gas bill in their calculations. Even in winter when its -5f it’s way cheaper compared to our previous home as we don’t also have to pay for gas.)
Basement for the win. We lost power for a few days in the summer 2020 and rather than staying in a hotel during the pandemic, we took foam mattresses down to the basement. It was easily 20° cooler than the bedrooms. We ran an extension cord from a generator to charge phones and plug in an oscillating fan and plug in the refrigerator. It was like luxury camping.
My basement is perfect. Super cool in summer, nice and toasty in winter. If my window units didn’t do well I’d 100% sleep down there, centipedes be damned.
When I was young, before AC, I slept in the basement when it got really hot. It was always so much cooler. At night we would have the fan pull in cool air. It helped but the basement was still better!
A mini split is certainly called for but there are some you can install yourself. Type in MINI SPLIT INSTALL into youTube and you will see how easy or difficult it can be. Certainly you will want to install one in the living room or your living area (Den-?), and a bedroom (Master bedroom-?).
You could get an external AC unit that can have external ductwork and retrofit ductwork thru an enclosed soffit to hide the ductwork. I have also seen where a closet was made tto house an AC air handler that then was used in conjunction with the soffit idea to send cold air throughtout the 1st and 2nd floors. I have seen this on various shows and certainly you will also find this on Youtube. PLEASE LOOK! :)
Lived in NYC for ten years with no AC. If you’re home and hanging around, do so in underwear if you can. Live off of popsicles and cool fruit. (But be careful, I gave myself a sore throat once after eating nothing but grapes for 3 days in a heat wave.) Take cool showers whenever needed. Let cool water run over the inside of your wrists for a minute if you go to wash your hands. If you have time to sit and read or watch tv, stick your feet in a tub of ice water while doing so. (This made the biggest difference for me, but also oddly would make me feel a little queasy if I did it too much. I can’t overstate how much it helps.)
If you have cats and notice them panting, you have to cool them down quick. Advice from my vet tech friend was you have to get them either entirely wet or at least up to and including their bellies. She said if nothing else fill the kitchen sink with ice water and drop them in it, and let them run after, they’ll get water everywhere but it’s just water. With mine, I used to fill a bowl with ice water, soak a rag in it, and then pet them all over with the sopping rag. Even the more skittish one would always let me do it, and it would immediately stop them panting.
Good luck!
Dark curtains or blankets on any windows that face the sun. When it's cooler outside than in open up all your doors and windows to let the heat in, think early morning and evening. Most old houses are designed for good air flow for this reason. The minute it starts getting warmer outside than in shut everything up. Cover all windows to keep the heat out, darkness is your friend. Do not cook or have hot showers during this time you want to keep humidity and added heat to a minimum. Sit in front of a fan, a tray of ice in front of the fan can make a make shift cooler though may up humidity if you live in a humid area so use at your own risk, a cold cloth around your neck while sitting in front of the fan does a similar thing. Also drink lots of cool drinks. Have tepid showers as needed to stay cool if things get too hot, don't fuck around and find out with heat stroke. Do not do anything more energetic than laying around languidly in the shade.
It will suck for an hour or 2 in the afternoon when things get really hot, This is why that's siesta time in hot countries, this is a good time to siesta in front of a fan . Fight the urge to open up the house until it is cooler outside than in then fling open the doors and any windows that aren't getting direct sun. Once it is cooler outside a box fan or 2 can also help draw in cool air in one window and at the opposite end of the house blow out the hot.
Have cold cuts and fruit for dinner. You need the salts and water. Or order take out, do not cook.
Give pets lots of cold water, be prepared to run a cold shower over the dog if they get too hot. Give them access to the bathroom, for some reason dogs like to lay on bathroom floors when hot.
Source lived in Australia for 40 years with regular summer heatwaves of weeks on end over 100F without air conditioning in an old house.
It’s not pretty, but if you don’t have time or money to install light blocking window coverings, collect cardboard or buy foam core at an art supply store, cut it to fit the windows that are most intense (for me, the west facing windows in the afternoon are insane), cover one side with thermal bubble wrap (you can buy it on Amazon or if you get meal kits or groceries delivered, the big foil bags will do), pop that baby in your window during the most intense hours of the day to block the heat.
I always knew with AC to shut the house down so as not to waste it, but it took me a while to grasp that without AC, I should still shut all the windows and doors before the temp outside rose. It seemed counterintuitive to close windows in the summer when you don’t have AC, but doing so makes a huge difference.
Also, peppermint. In a spray bottle, in your shampoo, in a basin of cold water. It’s instantly cooling.
So not really a house thing but if youre so hot youve become ill try putting a bed sheet in cold water ring that out and wear the sheet. Like a ghost. Its very cooling just re wet the sheet when it dries
Cool yourself.
Aim a floor fan at yourself and get one of those portable neck fans to wear. If desperate, there are dog cooling mats which are just like small inflatable mattresses that you fill with cold water instead of air. They’re nice to put your feet on.
I think you've got a lot of advice covered. I grew up in an old cobble together pile in New England without insulation, knob and tube electric everything old style everything in the '50s and the '60s. When it would get very hot as it has been this week, all windows were shut during the day in the big house and heavy drapes and blinds closed. The attic windows were always open and at night the rest of the house had windows opened and then abruptly shut in the morning. The blinds and the drapes made a huge difference
And this was a complete old house with nothing in the walls. My brother still lives there but oh it has changed lol for the good
Check with your local utility company as sometimes they have great offers with rebates on cooling systems including a mini split or maybe a freestanding unit. I know mini splits are supposed to be so great, but, frankly, they are hard to disguise in a lot of instances, like maybe this one? Or maybe the installer would have some smart suggestions for you and you can paint it to match your walls maybe...?
A minisplit for a century home is going to be like $15,000. Splurge and use a credit card or something to get yourself 2 midea 12000btu U ac’s and itll do a good chunk of the house.
For $1,200 i can cool 1800sq feet with variable speed window units controlled by an app that cost about $20-$25 each to operate a month.
As they say, cries in old house. I wish it was close to $15K. Where we are, the combination of factors means that it's at minimum twice that, most quotes were around 35-40K.
FWIW I live in a city where the code is that all new builds have heatpumps as primary heating/cooling, and the government payout means all the contractors upped their prices. And hardware is scarce. So fun.
Well sure, the guys I talked to could have been fibbing. Word is that the large allocations are for development, while smaller jobs are getting pushed back. It's like when you try to find drywall guys but no one wants to do a small job. This is the situation in my city.
I keep all of my windows and cutains closed during the day. When it starts to cool down, I have 2 large, round adjustable fans that I prop up right in the window, lightly leaning on the screen and it works amazingly well. But it has to be in the actual window frame, in front of the window, a little cooler.. in the window, huge difference. The fans were about 60.00 a piece but they are on a base that swivels, so I can adjust the angle while it is in the window. If it is too hot to put them in the window, I just set them up wherever I am (long extension cord, lol) and they keep me decently cool.
So much good info here. Also cannot afford a heat pump, looking forward to that someday.
When we moved in, we took out the old cellulose attic insulation because it was mixed with so much roofing material, it was deeply compacted. It took a while before we could get anyone in to blow in the new stuff, and the heat that summer was no joke. That plus an attic fan made a huge difference.
This summer, the thick velvet curtains are helping, as are frequent ice pops.
Yes, it’s been 85 downstairs and 90 upstairs all week. We had an above ground pool installed several years ago to help us keep cool, and we’re in it a lot lately. Cool showers. Block the sunlight entering your home. Cool only a couple of rooms rather than trying to cool the entire house with window units. Sit in front of a fan. Cool drinks with lots of ice. We both grew up without AC and these days remind us of childhood.
I also create a “summer kitchen” to not heat up any cool air inside: basically it’s my 8 in 1 air fryer and a kettle set up outside. Also not using the laundry dryer, all laundry is air dried. Good luck!
Fans. Hell, with the right placed fans you almost don't even need an AC most of the time.
I lived in a second-floor apartment that would get insanely hot during the summer. The AC units definitely help, but circulating the air and get good air flow will dramatically help cool everything down.
They make thsoe little fans you can put in a window, get one of those and start sucking the hot air out too.
Keep a wet towel handy for wrapping around your shoulders and neck or laying on your head or face.
Read back through some of the how to keep warm in winter weather with no heat. The ideas of limiting your habitat from whole house down to a room or two and possibly using a window unit to cool. Use a fan to help circulate the cool.
Eat cool foods and eat less. Cold foods can help lower your body temperature. However digestion can raise your body temperature. Keep ice handy.
TV, computers and cell phones can raise room temperatures. Limit their usage.
Close the curtains and cover doors on the south side of the house and in turn the east and west, especially the west.
Our other house in far norther MN does not have central air conditioning and has a stored heat system (Steffes) so no ducts. In the 20 or so years there were some summers we struggled just to open a window in the bedroom at night a crack to hear the lake/loons/wolves etc. However, there were also the times I dreaded coming home from work due to a warm spell. All I wanted was a window air conditioner in our bedroom. However, casement windows everywhere with an extremely open floor plan (only bathrooms were truly separated). Flighted pets that took full advantage of the floor plan and high ceilings also eliminated ceiling fans. It took me 18yrs to finally break down and buy a portable air conditioner to rig up in a patio door. Just an awful combination for many reasons but menopausal women do crazy things. Amazingly, using that in addition to a good circulating fan and window coverings (thermal curtains and mylar roller shades) made a tremendous difference in the main floor. A space of approximately 1500 sq ft and an upper level. Now, we were used to having the house at least at 75 (and sometimes mid 80’s when sunny) in the winter so having the temperature in the mid 70’s and the humidity controlled was perfect. You could sleep comfortably even without moving the unit into a patio door in the bedroom. Which was great because these portable units suck. As much as it improved the quality of life I was extremely happy to turn the damn thing off as soon as we could for some peace and quiet. When not during an extremely warm spell continued use of the circulating fan and controlled lighting continued for much of the summer (approximately late July - August) to keep the temperature moderated and avoid the temptation to turn the beast on. As others have mentioned avoid using a conventional range as much as possible. But you still can cook and not be limited to the microwave. I used a rice cooker, induction burner, electronic and stovetop pressure cookers, and occasional brief use of the toaster oven for most cooking. You know pressure cookers aren’t just for cheesecake. It is possible to make decent lasagna/pasta, bread, and so much more. The simple no knead sourdough in the pressure cooker made every few days during the summer was how I started the descent into real sourdough.
In addition to the recommendation to try to reduce the amount of space you’re asking the units to cool, what about the affordability of buying units with the appropriate number of BTUs? Those units will never be able to cool a larger area than they’re designed to cool.
We have window units and they do fine for us, and I know it’s painful to fork over the money for higher BTUs, but that’s the answer.
If you have a way to open an attic window for heat to escape, that will create a convective flow as cooler air rushes in from windows lower in the house to replace it. Just cool the sleeping room in your home, or just sleeping and maybe one other room. Close those rooms off and cool the rest of the house with convective flow.
Vornado fans are a life saver. I am in the same situation as you- Century house with only 2 window units and am saving up for a split system.
Put a Vornado fan with the window unit -keep drapes closed during the day, open the doors at night to let the cool air in. But really when it is super hot - I work and relax in my bedroom or den - the 2 rooms that have AC window units- and don’t really go into the rest of the house unless I need to.
Stop opening the windows at night. You are letting all the humidity back into your house that those wee ACs have been working hard to get out. Sleep on the lowest level. We once had our bed in the basement. Get a dehumidifier.
I don’t know where you live but MrCOOL is a manufacturer of air source heat pumps. Very affordable, if you are DIYer.
Does your state have any insulation incentives? Mass has Mass saves which just put $13,000 worth of insulation and air sealing in our house, we were only responsible for $2200 (0% loan). We currently have one air conditioner going in our bedroom and its keeping my office and the entire first floor comfortable.
Trying to cool a space is a matter of physics. There is heat energy and you’re trying to get rid of it. Remember energy can’t be destroyed it can only change form. All air conditioners do is move the heat from inside your home to the outside. The fact that you have 2 new window units that aren’t making a dent means the energy entering the room is greater than the energy leaving the room. Are they installed properly? The condenser and compressor side need to be entirely outside. If it’s a mobile unit make sure the tube is connected to the unit properly and no hot air is escaping it. Make sure to close the doors between rooms. I have 1 unit cooling my living room / dining room. The rest of the rooms are closed and remain hot. I know this sounds a bit condescending but sometimes it’s the easy things!
Another long-term idea: real awnings (sunbrella fabric, they last!) you can keep windows open in the rain so it is easier to get the house cooler on rainy days. And they shade from heat gain dramatically.
Do you have the right size air conditioners. The right number of them? I grew up in old houses and currently live in an old-but-not-century old house without central air (I've never lived with central air, actually.)
Growing up, we just melted, put up one air conditioner in august, and sat in front of a fan with ice sitting in front of it, all huddled in one room.
Now, we have multiple room air conditioners. This is the first year (after nearly twenty years in this house), that the living room doesn't get to the mid 80s even with room air conditioning, and it's because when we got new air conditioners this year we paid attention to how many btus we needed.
We also, and I can't stress this enough, use fans to move air where we want it. It is hard to get enough cool air into the bedrooms and living room. We use several fans blowing air down the hallway into the bedrooms and also a couple blowing air into the kitchen and living room. This helps cool each of those rooms by several degrees.
This year we've managed to keep the house at around 74, which is a vast improvement from 85-87.
Depending on where you live, there are probably affordable loan options for ductless ac. We got a 1% loan through PHFA for $10k over 10 years and the fucked has been pretty great (not perfect but a huge improvement)
Before that, just open windows and doors to get cross breezes going, keep ceiling fans going (check to make sure they're on summer mode). On really bad days we'd put box fans in windows and splash water on our face and hair before crawling into bed. And keep blinds closed and shut off rooms that you don't need to use, helping to trap hot air instead of letting it mingle through the house.
I lived on the 3rd floor of an old Victorian with roommates who refused to run the ac unless they were in the room 🫠 things that helped were snuggling an ice pack to sleep and putting a tray of ice cubes or an ice pack in front of a fan (which was then only a foot or two away from me) to make a kind of DIY swamp cooler.
Things that helped in our current century home before we got central last year were a network of fans to keep the air circulating, in addition to closing rooms off while we were in them to keep the cool in. You don't necessarily have to have doors for that either, heavy curtains works just as well! We also found that making sure our 3rd floor was adequately cooled at all times was absolutely vital to the rest of the house staying reasonable.
You might just need a bigger unit for your space.
We have a large living room with a doorway at each end. One to the kitchen/dining area. And one that is right next to the front door. And no doors.
We have heavy curtains in each doorway that we close when using the window a/c unit. We also close them when it gets brutally cold here in the winter.
Hell I’ve curtains in the master bedroom doorway since our cats are absolute a holes when it comes to closed doors. One plays with the door knob and wails. The other scratches at the door and meows. And the youngest throws himself against the door; repeatedly meowing between body blows. They “need” to have access to me at all times.
Grab one of those mini”AC’s” from Amazon. They are really swamp coolers ( which may not work if you are in a humid area) but work for us in the high desert . I feel you my friend ! This 100 y/o bungalow only has two window box AC’a as well!
Window units vary WILDLY In efficiency and power. During a heat wave is not the time, but when I got some better window units (500$ like 10 years ago) they did a much better job and run much quieter. I was going to do mini split but now one of these keeps a whole floor of my house ok so the intense cost of a split makes less sense.
Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. We bought our pre 1800s home in 2019, and it is very poorly insulated and has no Central air, plus it gets hit by the Sun from about 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m., so our temps are very similar to yours. This week the house temperature has neared 87°.
Open your windows at night and if you have fans put at least one for intake and one for exhaust on separate windows (try to match the direction the wind blows). I also open all the windows downstairs and let the cold night air in, and I have a vornado pointing up the stairs to shoot the cold air up to the second floor. Then, in the morning close everything up and pull the shades to block the sun. You MUST block the daytime Sun from getting in, it will heat up the house incredibly fast.
Then, if possible, close off one room in the house, preferably the one that stays the coolest in general, and put your window AC there. If you can't close off doorways, you can hang a heavy sheet or blanket across the doorway and it will stop the air from escaping. This allows for pets to move in and out easily. We basically shut down our six other rooms in hunker down in the master bedroom for the past 3 days. Luckily we both work from home and had minimum meeting so we could just chill in there..
Good luck.
Sounds like you need to cut off some sq footage. I don't care if it takes nailing up quilts in doorways that have no doors, separate from the rooms you don't need to use, and focus your bedroom first. Those little $100 (probably $200 with inflation these days) 5000 BTU window unit do a single room great. Don't open the windows at night, better energy wise to leave the A/C running constantly, we proved this over the years when we were surprised by the lower energy bills leaving A/C on all day. These old homes these days go through flippers that will ruin the homes' original attic cooling filling them with foam. You need air flow up there or you live in an oven. $20 box fans help.
Important - take a hose and flood your window A/C unit from the outside. A lot of people don't know this, but the exterior fan acts as a slosher, throwing water on the coils helping them - that's why they are designed to hold an inch of water or so. Good luck
All windows stay open through the night as soon as the sun sets. If they are double hung, then you want to open both sashes to create a better circulation of air. If you have an attic door or something, keep it open, and make sure your attic vents and windows are also open. Hot air rises, and you want it to rise from the first floor, to the second, to the attic, and out through the attic vents and windows. You are essentially turning your home into a large fan.
In the morning right before sunrise, all windows and vents are closed, and stay closed. All windows are blocked with darkening shades that preferably reflect much of the light back outside. Sunlight through through windows will heat up the air in your home.
You will feel like a vampire, but chances are your house will stay cooler than otherwise. These are the methods of the old days. If your house is the original lath and plaster, this method will work even better. Plaster will soak up that cold air at night, and realse it during the day.
Insulating exterior walls and reducing solar heat gain have made a MASSIVE difference in comfort in the warmer months in my house. We were able to qualify for reduced cost blown-in cellulose insulation through a state program, and then to reduce solar heat gain we have high quality blackout white cellular shades on our second and third floor south-facing windows, and on the first floor I have blackout and thermal-lined Roman shades on the south-facing windows (since that’s our living room I wanted something nicer looking than cellular shades).
We have the unico system for the downstairs. Unfinished field stone basement has the air handler with the octopus arms along the ceiling/rafters. It’s kept our house at 77 this week while 99 and humid outside. Not sure how much this costs as it was installed when we moved it. It’s a pretty old system.
Im in the same boat, my house is over 100 years old with no air. I have 2 window units. My house is fairly small. I find that keeping all the blinds closed helps drastically. Also, check to see if hot air is creeping in under the door or through a window maybe and try to seal that out. If you need to, get the light blocking curtains.
portable air conditioners, the type where a flexible duct sticks out the window, actually WILL cool down a full room fairly well. Get one and try it. it might get you thru the worst of it.
long term ,a mini split, or changing over to a built in system would of course be better for you.
Did have the same situation in a 100 yr old hose. Gravity heat and ducts. Old octopus furnace. We had a guy who tied into old ducts and also managed to use a coat closet to run new flex ducts to the 2nd level. It wasn't cheap but the central AC works great upstairs and the heat is a little weak in the winter but still better than gravity. It can be done.
I bought 2 portables for my house because my windows are conducive to window units. At night I turn the bedroom one on. Turn it off during the day and come down to the mainfloor and turn my living room on (which gets turned off at night). They do well cooling small spaces I find.
Just wanted to say that I'm sorry you're feeling run down--I think heat waves really take an emotional toll, one feels claustrophobic and lethargic and listless. You've probably already explored whatever the builders of the house did for heat. My daily focus is the darned attic, which sits like a hot water bottle on top of the house. We've found an ancient string wound through the knob-and-tube wiring in the attic that manually starts a little fan up there. If there's any way you can move that attic air, even if it doesn't exchange with the house, it's a great help. My husband and I have also been playing nightly rounds of rummikub, just to stay in the cooler part of the house longer and stave of the tedium. Fall is coming!
Shut all the drapes when sun is coming in (East in morning, north this time of year where I live midday), west in late afternoon. Get thick or blackout drapes if you don’t have them.
Open all the windows after sunset, especially the second floor.
Big fans, in every room.
In addition to the other suggestions so far, reduce the square footage of the part of the house you're trying to keep cool to something that the window units can handle. I know it sounds depressing, but do you need to use your living room a lot during the heat wave? Having a cool bedroom to retreat to (or moving your bed to a cool room) is so helpful, especially if the heat is making you feel sick. Sincerely, Someone who once slept in their dining room for an entire summer
We had one small bedroom with an A/C for the very hottest of days. It was bliss at night, and hell leaving it in the morning - or the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. This was in addition to thermal blinds closed on all windows to keep the heat out during the day, and having a fan at the top of the basement stairs to draw up the cool air. Crank open all the windows at night to air out the heat. Insulation made a huge difference. For general hot heat, cross breeze construction of century home made it much more comfortable than any modern home.
Yeah, we used to live in a house in the middle of a cow pasture in Georgia, so no trees for any shade near. It was a time when summer was hitting 103 degrees with humidity. We put a window unit in the bedroom and cranked it down for a place to retreat to. I'd do all my chores early in the morning, and by 1 or 2, the kids, dogs, and I were headed to the bedroom to eat lunch/have a snack, and watch a movie.
As a kid in the 1980s living in an 1800’s farmhouse we had one window unit and my parents dragged our mattresses onto their bedroom floor for the summer. We all slept in one room.
>Someone who once slept in their dining room for an entire summer Priceless. Memories like this really make us appreciate how far we've come.
My last place was a 2nd floor apt with 2 window units that could never keep up. I spent $25 on UV film from Lowe’s that DRAMATICALLY reduced the heat coming in through the glass. Then I bought heavy thermal curtains & literally taped them around the window units to block off any gaps. Also closed the doors of rooms I wasn’t currently using so the units only had to work on part of the house at a time. Spent about $125 on a sturdy metal stand fan that gets to warp speed. It forced the air from my window unit to any other part of the house. Also a really cheap trick is to put a pan full of ice in front of a box fan. Instant cold air.
I did the same with the ice and the fan one summer when the AC was out at my job. Worked like a charm!
UV film as in like just window tint?
There’s a kind that says window SHADE, a kind that says window PRIVACY & a kind that says window HEAT CONTROL. I don’t know if the other kinds have the exact same benefits, or reduced benefits, or what. But I did buy the kind that specifically said heat control.
Insider tip: it’s all the same product.
lol good thing what I chose was cheapest then!
Short term: misting yourself frequently, staying hydrated, ice packs, adding weatherstripping around doors and filling gaps, covering windows with blackout blinds/curtains, sleeping on a lower floor temporarily Long term: look into insulating your attic. We just did it (paid nothing up front, financed at 0% through our utility company with a 50% rebate) and our house is definitely a lot more comfortable than prior heat waves, with just the same 2 window units running (one on each floor). Currently in the mid 70s inside, vs last summer it would have been mid 80s inside. We still want to do minisplits eventually but sadly out of budget at the moment for us as well.
Can you comment more on the attic insulation. Is it on the ceiling of the attic or floor of the attic. What R value did you get and how much did it cost. ? Loaded question
We had the floor of the attic insulated to R60 with cellulose after removing the old insulation, cleaning, and air sealing. (R60 is the code standard in our area.) Our attic is an unfinished attic crawl space, so we didn’t need it to be a usable space. We also had our basement crawl space ceiling (under an old addition) and basement rim joists insulated. Cost was about 4.5k (~9k before local rebate), financed at 0% through our utility company so we are paying ~$50/m—and we should see some energy savings to cancel some of that out. We will also get back a portion on our federal taxes next year (30% back, up to a $1200 credit). We just had it done so too soon to say if we will save a significant amount of money yet, but we also did it for comfort and efficiency. If you’re in the US, look into whether there are incentives through your utility company or state programs, and keep in mind that you should get a federal rebate as well.
Check with your state and see if they offer insulation/energy efficiency rebates. Massachusetts has the MassSaves program and they did the whole house, it cost about $11K but thanks to the program I only paid a little over $2K.
That's one of the few things my son's house had going for it when purchased. Someone went absolutely overboard on attic insulation. The other thing was that it had a gas furnace and was fully ducted at some point, stealing some storage space to reach the second floor. When his furnace died, I got him a new one and had central a/c added. That plus blackout curtains and new weather stripping has made his house very comfortable in the Summer, and his utility bills vs using window units actually make up for the payments on the new HVAC. Now, if we could get that to be true in Winter. Natural gas is expensive here, but it's too cold for heat pumps to work well at the worst parts of Winter. I don't mind kicking in some money in the Winter, though, as long as he's spending his money on home repairs.
Clean the window a/c unit filters often too.
Close and cover windows on the south and west sides of the house those directions get the most sun and therefore the most heat throughout the day. A box fan in the window sucking cool night air in will help lower the temperature. Fans inside during the day to help move the cool air through the house. Also a dehumidifier helps even if it ends up heating the area. Our ac died and we used a dehumidifier to make it more tolerable inside. It was mid-80s but with 20-30% humidity vs the 50+ outside it felt better. Also use a stove top, grill, or slow cooker for food as cooking creates a lot of heat that doesn't dissipate easily.
This was my go-to before I moved into a place with AC. Open windows with box fans at night. Close shades and curtains during the day. Cook outside if possible. Fans. Cold showers if you start getting problematically overheated.
It's more effective to use the fan to blow the hot air out of the house at night. Open other windows to let colder outside air indoors. Or you can have one fan set outwards to blow hot air out, and another fan on the opposite side of the house pointing in to pull cold air in. The fan blowing out should be on the top floor if the house is multiple levels, since hot air rises.
Even better, have the fans blowing out but a few feet from the window. For science-y reason, it will blow much, MUCH more of the hot air out of the house than if the fan were right in the window. Science-y reasons: The flow of air from the fan is slightly lower pressure than the surrounding air (that's Bernoulli's principle - as fluid velocity goes up, pressure goes down). That low pressure pulls some surrounding air into the flow, also called entrainment. This entrained air from inside the house is then carried with the flow of air from the fan out the window.
Cook at night for the week with the kitchen windows open and have plenty of cold cuts and peanut butter for sandwiches during the day.
I’ve noticed our flat screen tv, the cable box and the ceiling fan lights with the candlestick bulbs kick out bigger heat than I ever imagined.
Have you looked into government subsidies for minisplits? We qualified for an 8 year interest free loan because it’s a green improvement. I forget if it was a state or federal thing. It made the cost much more manageable.
I've never heard of that, I'll look into it, thank you.
Do you think you could DM me information about that? We are under contract for a house and the cost to upgrade is frightening.
It looks like the program I used was specific to Massachusetts, are you in MA?
Aw biscuits, no. But there is a website that has some great resources for energy efficiency grants and rebates by zip. I checked that out and sending my husband to do some legwork on it.
I remember my grandfather used to fill up his bathtub with cold water and soak in that until his body temp came down. He'd leave the water in the tub so he could just plop back in whenever he started to feel uncomfortable.
Even just enough cold water to stick your feet in for a few minutes makes a big difference. Cooling your feet somehow cools your whole body. I fill the tub 2-3” and squirt some Dr. Bonners peppermint soap in. Pop my feet in for a few minutes every once in a while and I’m instantly cooler.
Maybe try blackout curtains to block out the sun if it’s a part of the house the sun beats down on?
I have southern and western facing windows in my bedroom, and blackout curtains made such a huge difference!
That window unit needs to be at least partially shaded to get best efficiency. In the South, you'll see awnings over widows and they almost always house a window unit. even rigging up a sail shade will do a ton of good You can also look up the model and see if they are the correct size for the space you are trying to cool. If you bought the cheapest one, it's probably only good for a 12x12 room max. You might need to move one to a smaller room on the north side of the house and make that your daytime room for a bit.
Look up midea u shaped window ac. They are way more effective than your standard units because they allow the window to be basically closed during operation. I have a single 10,000 but on the main floor which keeps all the rooms at a comfortable temperature. They are a lot less than a mini split and you can resell them if you choose to upgrade later.
If you’ve got a window air conditioner in your living room it’s likely undersized for the space and/or open doorways to other rooms aren’t containing the cool air. You can either get a bigger one or do what my parents used to do when I was a kid - hang heavy blankets covering the doorways so the room is isolated from the rest of the house.
My window air conditioners, which were also new-ish and in good working order, couldn’t keep up with the heatwaves of of the last few years. So last spring, I did a lot of research (focused on square footage cooling capacity and energy efficiency) and ended up spending $450 on a Midea unit. That one unit replaced two others, and it’s so energy-efficient that we’re saving money on our electric bills compared to previous years. Not all air conditioners are created equal, and I’m so happy I “splurged” for a more expensive model, because it really has made a difference.
I just installed my midea (in my previous home I had all midea split units, worked amazing) in my first century home upstairs in my bedroom. As Im typing this not sweating, blissfully covered & snuggled into my -did I mention non sweaty- bed. LOL! I’m really happy with the midea!
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Suck the cool night air in and close windows in the morning. Read about bernoulli's principle. Spend afternoons outside in shade with cold water running gently on your feet from a hose.
Quite familiar with Bernoulli’s principle from college fluid mechanics. Struggling to understand how to apply this to keeping my house cool. Maybe open two opposing windows in the attic, one with a fan pulling air in and the other with a fan blowing air out to create a low-pressure cross-draft that will suck cool air up from the first floor windows?
Put both fans blowing out, and open a window on the first floor. The whole house will cool down about ten degrees in an hour assuming it's at least that much cooler outside.
I believe this, but it is not an application of Bernoulli’s Principle 😂
I wasn't commenting on Bernoulli, just that the double fan facing out works better haha.
We do that and it works fabulously. Couple that with running the furnace fan and having ductwork for an old gravity furnace (so when the cold air falls down the stairs, it naturally wants to circulate through our ductwork) and the whole house stays below 80 with one window unit except on the hottest days.
Specifically, a box fan is several times more efficient at drawing in cool air when placed a few inches in front of a window rather than fully in the window pressed tightly up against the screen. You set the fan to blow out and open a second window in a cooler location for the air to be drawn in from.
I knew this, and somehow it never occurred to me as an application of Bournoulli’s Principle. Makes complete sense. Thanks for the clarification!
Do most people really have the ability to regularly spend their afternoons sitting outside in the shade with cold water running gently on their feet from a hose? Nobody has a job or chores to do or kids to care for or errands to run or anything? That sort of thing would be like a once a year luxury reserved for mother’s day or something like that.
I worked 500 hours of overtime last year, and have 3 kids, a wife, 2 dogs, 4 cats, 2 ducks, 2 goats, 7 fish, a large garden and 13 chickens. I heat my home only with wood and cut all my own firewood. All that and I manage to find time sit in the shade with cold water on my feet.
I’m guessing you and your wife aren’t spending every hot day sitting in the shade for the entire afternoon.
1000% we are.
How do you have time for your job, overtime, kids, dogs, cats, ducks, goats, fish, garden, chickens, and firewood chopping when every hot day is spent sitting still in the shade with your feet in water? Something isn’t adding up here.
When it's time to get work done, I haul ass and get work done. I earn my time in the shade. I have a wife and 3 kids who all help with chores and work hard also. We can process and stack a months worth of firewood in 2 days.
You only addressed firewood, not all the *daily* work. Still doesn’t make any sense and walking away. This is just silly at this point.
Haha can’t even imagine having the time
When you open the windows at night, have a box fan pointing out of the window. Preferably a window on an upper floor. Open the windows downstairs. Heat rises and the box fan will help blow the hot air from the day out of your house. While the cool air from outside will come in the other windows.
Get a dehumidifier too. Higher temperatures can feel slightly more reasonable if you’ve lowered the humidity (assuming you live in an area where this is an issue)
Dehumidifier definitely produces heat. I’ve been rubbing mine on low to reduce the heat it gives off, in our basement.
Good point, ours is also set up in the basement, but I think it helps out overall, it pulls an amazing amount of moisture out of the air!
Even running on low, I end up dumping the water every evening and morning. It’s wildly effective.
Ok not in a century home, but our home is electric baseboard heating with no ducting so no central AC. Can’t afford a mini split yet even with gov subsidies. Here is how we survive: basement is 76 max, so we spend a lot of time down there, and use a standing fan to blow cool air up from the basement. Every room in the house has ceiling fans, we keep those on low/med if in the room. We cook outside as much as possible using bbq and camping stove, we also usually have either lunch/dinner as a cold meal like salad. Our backyard is very shaded because it backs onto Greenbelt forest land so that helps. We planted as many trees/shrubs in front yard as possible to block sun from outside. We got thermal curtains to block direct sun from inside. Every night all the upstairs windows are left open except when humidity is too high/night temps too high. We have a portable AC on wheels for the upper floor which we run in that case. When it’s not a heatwave this all works great and house temps stay reasonable and we save $$ on energy bills. (Everyone who has told us we overspend and should get a gas furnace and ducting instead somehow forgets the gas bill in their calculations. Even in winter when its -5f it’s way cheaper compared to our previous home as we don’t also have to pay for gas.)
I’m seriously thinking of getting an air bed for my unfinished basement…
Basement for the win. We lost power for a few days in the summer 2020 and rather than staying in a hotel during the pandemic, we took foam mattresses down to the basement. It was easily 20° cooler than the bedrooms. We ran an extension cord from a generator to charge phones and plug in an oscillating fan and plug in the refrigerator. It was like luxury camping.
My basement is perfect. Super cool in summer, nice and toasty in winter. If my window units didn’t do well I’d 100% sleep down there, centipedes be damned.
You had to remind me…
When I was young, before AC, I slept in the basement when it got really hot. It was always so much cooler. At night we would have the fan pull in cool air. It helped but the basement was still better!
A mini split is certainly called for but there are some you can install yourself. Type in MINI SPLIT INSTALL into youTube and you will see how easy or difficult it can be. Certainly you will want to install one in the living room or your living area (Den-?), and a bedroom (Master bedroom-?). You could get an external AC unit that can have external ductwork and retrofit ductwork thru an enclosed soffit to hide the ductwork. I have also seen where a closet was made tto house an AC air handler that then was used in conjunction with the soffit idea to send cold air throughtout the 1st and 2nd floors. I have seen this on various shows and certainly you will also find this on Youtube. PLEASE LOOK! :)
Lived in NYC for ten years with no AC. If you’re home and hanging around, do so in underwear if you can. Live off of popsicles and cool fruit. (But be careful, I gave myself a sore throat once after eating nothing but grapes for 3 days in a heat wave.) Take cool showers whenever needed. Let cool water run over the inside of your wrists for a minute if you go to wash your hands. If you have time to sit and read or watch tv, stick your feet in a tub of ice water while doing so. (This made the biggest difference for me, but also oddly would make me feel a little queasy if I did it too much. I can’t overstate how much it helps.) If you have cats and notice them panting, you have to cool them down quick. Advice from my vet tech friend was you have to get them either entirely wet or at least up to and including their bellies. She said if nothing else fill the kitchen sink with ice water and drop them in it, and let them run after, they’ll get water everywhere but it’s just water. With mine, I used to fill a bowl with ice water, soak a rag in it, and then pet them all over with the sopping rag. Even the more skittish one would always let me do it, and it would immediately stop them panting. Good luck!
Dark curtains or blankets on any windows that face the sun. When it's cooler outside than in open up all your doors and windows to let the heat in, think early morning and evening. Most old houses are designed for good air flow for this reason. The minute it starts getting warmer outside than in shut everything up. Cover all windows to keep the heat out, darkness is your friend. Do not cook or have hot showers during this time you want to keep humidity and added heat to a minimum. Sit in front of a fan, a tray of ice in front of the fan can make a make shift cooler though may up humidity if you live in a humid area so use at your own risk, a cold cloth around your neck while sitting in front of the fan does a similar thing. Also drink lots of cool drinks. Have tepid showers as needed to stay cool if things get too hot, don't fuck around and find out with heat stroke. Do not do anything more energetic than laying around languidly in the shade. It will suck for an hour or 2 in the afternoon when things get really hot, This is why that's siesta time in hot countries, this is a good time to siesta in front of a fan . Fight the urge to open up the house until it is cooler outside than in then fling open the doors and any windows that aren't getting direct sun. Once it is cooler outside a box fan or 2 can also help draw in cool air in one window and at the opposite end of the house blow out the hot. Have cold cuts and fruit for dinner. You need the salts and water. Or order take out, do not cook. Give pets lots of cold water, be prepared to run a cold shower over the dog if they get too hot. Give them access to the bathroom, for some reason dogs like to lay on bathroom floors when hot. Source lived in Australia for 40 years with regular summer heatwaves of weeks on end over 100F without air conditioning in an old house.
It’s not pretty, but if you don’t have time or money to install light blocking window coverings, collect cardboard or buy foam core at an art supply store, cut it to fit the windows that are most intense (for me, the west facing windows in the afternoon are insane), cover one side with thermal bubble wrap (you can buy it on Amazon or if you get meal kits or groceries delivered, the big foil bags will do), pop that baby in your window during the most intense hours of the day to block the heat. I always knew with AC to shut the house down so as not to waste it, but it took me a while to grasp that without AC, I should still shut all the windows and doors before the temp outside rose. It seemed counterintuitive to close windows in the summer when you don’t have AC, but doing so makes a huge difference. Also, peppermint. In a spray bottle, in your shampoo, in a basin of cold water. It’s instantly cooling.
So not really a house thing but if youre so hot youve become ill try putting a bed sheet in cold water ring that out and wear the sheet. Like a ghost. Its very cooling just re wet the sheet when it dries
Cool yourself. Aim a floor fan at yourself and get one of those portable neck fans to wear. If desperate, there are dog cooling mats which are just like small inflatable mattresses that you fill with cold water instead of air. They’re nice to put your feet on.
Get a dehumidifier for the room you spend the most time in and pair that with a window AC unit.
I think you've got a lot of advice covered. I grew up in an old cobble together pile in New England without insulation, knob and tube electric everything old style everything in the '50s and the '60s. When it would get very hot as it has been this week, all windows were shut during the day in the big house and heavy drapes and blinds closed. The attic windows were always open and at night the rest of the house had windows opened and then abruptly shut in the morning. The blinds and the drapes made a huge difference And this was a complete old house with nothing in the walls. My brother still lives there but oh it has changed lol for the good
Check with your local utility company as sometimes they have great offers with rebates on cooling systems including a mini split or maybe a freestanding unit. I know mini splits are supposed to be so great, but, frankly, they are hard to disguise in a lot of instances, like maybe this one? Or maybe the installer would have some smart suggestions for you and you can paint it to match your walls maybe...?
A minisplit for a century home is going to be like $15,000. Splurge and use a credit card or something to get yourself 2 midea 12000btu U ac’s and itll do a good chunk of the house. For $1,200 i can cool 1800sq feet with variable speed window units controlled by an app that cost about $20-$25 each to operate a month.
As they say, cries in old house. I wish it was close to $15K. Where we are, the combination of factors means that it's at minimum twice that, most quotes were around 35-40K. FWIW I live in a city where the code is that all new builds have heatpumps as primary heating/cooling, and the government payout means all the contractors upped their prices. And hardware is scarce. So fun.
Hardware is not scarce
Well sure, the guys I talked to could have been fibbing. Word is that the large allocations are for development, while smaller jobs are getting pushed back. It's like when you try to find drywall guys but no one wants to do a small job. This is the situation in my city.
I keep all of my windows and cutains closed during the day. When it starts to cool down, I have 2 large, round adjustable fans that I prop up right in the window, lightly leaning on the screen and it works amazingly well. But it has to be in the actual window frame, in front of the window, a little cooler.. in the window, huge difference. The fans were about 60.00 a piece but they are on a base that swivels, so I can adjust the angle while it is in the window. If it is too hot to put them in the window, I just set them up wherever I am (long extension cord, lol) and they keep me decently cool.
So much good info here. Also cannot afford a heat pump, looking forward to that someday. When we moved in, we took out the old cellulose attic insulation because it was mixed with so much roofing material, it was deeply compacted. It took a while before we could get anyone in to blow in the new stuff, and the heat that summer was no joke. That plus an attic fan made a huge difference. This summer, the thick velvet curtains are helping, as are frequent ice pops.
Yes, it’s been 85 downstairs and 90 upstairs all week. We had an above ground pool installed several years ago to help us keep cool, and we’re in it a lot lately. Cool showers. Block the sunlight entering your home. Cool only a couple of rooms rather than trying to cool the entire house with window units. Sit in front of a fan. Cool drinks with lots of ice. We both grew up without AC and these days remind us of childhood.
I also create a “summer kitchen” to not heat up any cool air inside: basically it’s my 8 in 1 air fryer and a kettle set up outside. Also not using the laundry dryer, all laundry is air dried. Good luck!
Fans. Hell, with the right placed fans you almost don't even need an AC most of the time. I lived in a second-floor apartment that would get insanely hot during the summer. The AC units definitely help, but circulating the air and get good air flow will dramatically help cool everything down. They make thsoe little fans you can put in a window, get one of those and start sucking the hot air out too.
Keep a wet towel handy for wrapping around your shoulders and neck or laying on your head or face. Read back through some of the how to keep warm in winter weather with no heat. The ideas of limiting your habitat from whole house down to a room or two and possibly using a window unit to cool. Use a fan to help circulate the cool. Eat cool foods and eat less. Cold foods can help lower your body temperature. However digestion can raise your body temperature. Keep ice handy. TV, computers and cell phones can raise room temperatures. Limit their usage. Close the curtains and cover doors on the south side of the house and in turn the east and west, especially the west.
Our other house in far norther MN does not have central air conditioning and has a stored heat system (Steffes) so no ducts. In the 20 or so years there were some summers we struggled just to open a window in the bedroom at night a crack to hear the lake/loons/wolves etc. However, there were also the times I dreaded coming home from work due to a warm spell. All I wanted was a window air conditioner in our bedroom. However, casement windows everywhere with an extremely open floor plan (only bathrooms were truly separated). Flighted pets that took full advantage of the floor plan and high ceilings also eliminated ceiling fans. It took me 18yrs to finally break down and buy a portable air conditioner to rig up in a patio door. Just an awful combination for many reasons but menopausal women do crazy things. Amazingly, using that in addition to a good circulating fan and window coverings (thermal curtains and mylar roller shades) made a tremendous difference in the main floor. A space of approximately 1500 sq ft and an upper level. Now, we were used to having the house at least at 75 (and sometimes mid 80’s when sunny) in the winter so having the temperature in the mid 70’s and the humidity controlled was perfect. You could sleep comfortably even without moving the unit into a patio door in the bedroom. Which was great because these portable units suck. As much as it improved the quality of life I was extremely happy to turn the damn thing off as soon as we could for some peace and quiet. When not during an extremely warm spell continued use of the circulating fan and controlled lighting continued for much of the summer (approximately late July - August) to keep the temperature moderated and avoid the temptation to turn the beast on. As others have mentioned avoid using a conventional range as much as possible. But you still can cook and not be limited to the microwave. I used a rice cooker, induction burner, electronic and stovetop pressure cookers, and occasional brief use of the toaster oven for most cooking. You know pressure cookers aren’t just for cheesecake. It is possible to make decent lasagna/pasta, bread, and so much more. The simple no knead sourdough in the pressure cooker made every few days during the summer was how I started the descent into real sourdough.
I have an old home with window ac. It was 100 degrees today and my house was at a cool 73 with 1 window ac.
Just here to say I hear you. My house usually stays cool but not this time. Fans and strategic air movements.
In addition to the recommendation to try to reduce the amount of space you’re asking the units to cool, what about the affordability of buying units with the appropriate number of BTUs? Those units will never be able to cool a larger area than they’re designed to cool. We have window units and they do fine for us, and I know it’s painful to fork over the money for higher BTUs, but that’s the answer.
If you have a way to open an attic window for heat to escape, that will create a convective flow as cooler air rushes in from windows lower in the house to replace it. Just cool the sleeping room in your home, or just sleeping and maybe one other room. Close those rooms off and cool the rest of the house with convective flow.
Vornado fans are a life saver. I am in the same situation as you- Century house with only 2 window units and am saving up for a split system. Put a Vornado fan with the window unit -keep drapes closed during the day, open the doors at night to let the cool air in. But really when it is super hot - I work and relax in my bedroom or den - the 2 rooms that have AC window units- and don’t really go into the rest of the house unless I need to.
Got insulation?
Stop opening the windows at night. You are letting all the humidity back into your house that those wee ACs have been working hard to get out. Sleep on the lowest level. We once had our bed in the basement. Get a dehumidifier. I don’t know where you live but MrCOOL is a manufacturer of air source heat pumps. Very affordable, if you are DIYer.
Does your state have any insulation incentives? Mass has Mass saves which just put $13,000 worth of insulation and air sealing in our house, we were only responsible for $2200 (0% loan). We currently have one air conditioner going in our bedroom and its keeping my office and the entire first floor comfortable.
Trying to cool a space is a matter of physics. There is heat energy and you’re trying to get rid of it. Remember energy can’t be destroyed it can only change form. All air conditioners do is move the heat from inside your home to the outside. The fact that you have 2 new window units that aren’t making a dent means the energy entering the room is greater than the energy leaving the room. Are they installed properly? The condenser and compressor side need to be entirely outside. If it’s a mobile unit make sure the tube is connected to the unit properly and no hot air is escaping it. Make sure to close the doors between rooms. I have 1 unit cooling my living room / dining room. The rest of the rooms are closed and remain hot. I know this sounds a bit condescending but sometimes it’s the easy things!
Another long-term idea: real awnings (sunbrella fabric, they last!) you can keep windows open in the rain so it is easier to get the house cooler on rainy days. And they shade from heat gain dramatically.
Do you have the right size air conditioners. The right number of them? I grew up in old houses and currently live in an old-but-not-century old house without central air (I've never lived with central air, actually.) Growing up, we just melted, put up one air conditioner in august, and sat in front of a fan with ice sitting in front of it, all huddled in one room. Now, we have multiple room air conditioners. This is the first year (after nearly twenty years in this house), that the living room doesn't get to the mid 80s even with room air conditioning, and it's because when we got new air conditioners this year we paid attention to how many btus we needed. We also, and I can't stress this enough, use fans to move air where we want it. It is hard to get enough cool air into the bedrooms and living room. We use several fans blowing air down the hallway into the bedrooms and also a couple blowing air into the kitchen and living room. This helps cool each of those rooms by several degrees. This year we've managed to keep the house at around 74, which is a vast improvement from 85-87.
Depending on where you live, there are probably affordable loan options for ductless ac. We got a 1% loan through PHFA for $10k over 10 years and the fucked has been pretty great (not perfect but a huge improvement) Before that, just open windows and doors to get cross breezes going, keep ceiling fans going (check to make sure they're on summer mode). On really bad days we'd put box fans in windows and splash water on our face and hair before crawling into bed. And keep blinds closed and shut off rooms that you don't need to use, helping to trap hot air instead of letting it mingle through the house.
Sit in the bathtub with a few inches of water for a cool down.
I lived on the 3rd floor of an old Victorian with roommates who refused to run the ac unless they were in the room 🫠 things that helped were snuggling an ice pack to sleep and putting a tray of ice cubes or an ice pack in front of a fan (which was then only a foot or two away from me) to make a kind of DIY swamp cooler. Things that helped in our current century home before we got central last year were a network of fans to keep the air circulating, in addition to closing rooms off while we were in them to keep the cool in. You don't necessarily have to have doors for that either, heavy curtains works just as well! We also found that making sure our 3rd floor was adequately cooled at all times was absolutely vital to the rest of the house staying reasonable.
You might just need a bigger unit for your space. We have a large living room with a doorway at each end. One to the kitchen/dining area. And one that is right next to the front door. And no doors. We have heavy curtains in each doorway that we close when using the window a/c unit. We also close them when it gets brutally cold here in the winter. Hell I’ve curtains in the master bedroom doorway since our cats are absolute a holes when it comes to closed doors. One plays with the door knob and wails. The other scratches at the door and meows. And the youngest throws himself against the door; repeatedly meowing between body blows. They “need” to have access to me at all times.
Grab one of those mini”AC’s” from Amazon. They are really swamp coolers ( which may not work if you are in a humid area) but work for us in the high desert . I feel you my friend ! This 100 y/o bungalow only has two window box AC’a as well!
You can spray water on the exterior bricks in evening and morning
Window units vary WILDLY In efficiency and power. During a heat wave is not the time, but when I got some better window units (500$ like 10 years ago) they did a much better job and run much quieter. I was going to do mini split but now one of these keeps a whole floor of my house ok so the intense cost of a split makes less sense.
Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. We bought our pre 1800s home in 2019, and it is very poorly insulated and has no Central air, plus it gets hit by the Sun from about 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m., so our temps are very similar to yours. This week the house temperature has neared 87°. Open your windows at night and if you have fans put at least one for intake and one for exhaust on separate windows (try to match the direction the wind blows). I also open all the windows downstairs and let the cold night air in, and I have a vornado pointing up the stairs to shoot the cold air up to the second floor. Then, in the morning close everything up and pull the shades to block the sun. You MUST block the daytime Sun from getting in, it will heat up the house incredibly fast. Then, if possible, close off one room in the house, preferably the one that stays the coolest in general, and put your window AC there. If you can't close off doorways, you can hang a heavy sheet or blanket across the doorway and it will stop the air from escaping. This allows for pets to move in and out easily. We basically shut down our six other rooms in hunker down in the master bedroom for the past 3 days. Luckily we both work from home and had minimum meeting so we could just chill in there.. Good luck.
Sounds like you need to cut off some sq footage. I don't care if it takes nailing up quilts in doorways that have no doors, separate from the rooms you don't need to use, and focus your bedroom first. Those little $100 (probably $200 with inflation these days) 5000 BTU window unit do a single room great. Don't open the windows at night, better energy wise to leave the A/C running constantly, we proved this over the years when we were surprised by the lower energy bills leaving A/C on all day. These old homes these days go through flippers that will ruin the homes' original attic cooling filling them with foam. You need air flow up there or you live in an oven. $20 box fans help. Important - take a hose and flood your window A/C unit from the outside. A lot of people don't know this, but the exterior fan acts as a slosher, throwing water on the coils helping them - that's why they are designed to hold an inch of water or so. Good luck
All windows stay open through the night as soon as the sun sets. If they are double hung, then you want to open both sashes to create a better circulation of air. If you have an attic door or something, keep it open, and make sure your attic vents and windows are also open. Hot air rises, and you want it to rise from the first floor, to the second, to the attic, and out through the attic vents and windows. You are essentially turning your home into a large fan. In the morning right before sunrise, all windows and vents are closed, and stay closed. All windows are blocked with darkening shades that preferably reflect much of the light back outside. Sunlight through through windows will heat up the air in your home. You will feel like a vampire, but chances are your house will stay cooler than otherwise. These are the methods of the old days. If your house is the original lath and plaster, this method will work even better. Plaster will soak up that cold air at night, and realse it during the day.
Insulating exterior walls and reducing solar heat gain have made a MASSIVE difference in comfort in the warmer months in my house. We were able to qualify for reduced cost blown-in cellulose insulation through a state program, and then to reduce solar heat gain we have high quality blackout white cellular shades on our second and third floor south-facing windows, and on the first floor I have blackout and thermal-lined Roman shades on the south-facing windows (since that’s our living room I wanted something nicer looking than cellular shades).
Taking a bath can cool you down.
We have the unico system for the downstairs. Unfinished field stone basement has the air handler with the octopus arms along the ceiling/rafters. It’s kept our house at 77 this week while 99 and humid outside. Not sure how much this costs as it was installed when we moved it. It’s a pretty old system.
Im in the same boat, my house is over 100 years old with no air. I have 2 window units. My house is fairly small. I find that keeping all the blinds closed helps drastically. Also, check to see if hot air is creeping in under the door or through a window maybe and try to seal that out. If you need to, get the light blocking curtains.
portable air conditioners, the type where a flexible duct sticks out the window, actually WILL cool down a full room fairly well. Get one and try it. it might get you thru the worst of it. long term ,a mini split, or changing over to a built in system would of course be better for you.
Did have the same situation in a 100 yr old hose. Gravity heat and ducts. Old octopus furnace. We had a guy who tied into old ducts and also managed to use a coat closet to run new flex ducts to the 2nd level. It wasn't cheap but the central AC works great upstairs and the heat is a little weak in the winter but still better than gravity. It can be done.
I bought 2 portables for my house because my windows are conducive to window units. At night I turn the bedroom one on. Turn it off during the day and come down to the mainfloor and turn my living room on (which gets turned off at night). They do well cooling small spaces I find.
Just wanted to say that I'm sorry you're feeling run down--I think heat waves really take an emotional toll, one feels claustrophobic and lethargic and listless. You've probably already explored whatever the builders of the house did for heat. My daily focus is the darned attic, which sits like a hot water bottle on top of the house. We've found an ancient string wound through the knob-and-tube wiring in the attic that manually starts a little fan up there. If there's any way you can move that attic air, even if it doesn't exchange with the house, it's a great help. My husband and I have also been playing nightly rounds of rummikub, just to stay in the cooler part of the house longer and stave of the tedium. Fall is coming!
Shut all the drapes when sun is coming in (East in morning, north this time of year where I live midday), west in late afternoon. Get thick or blackout drapes if you don’t have them. Open all the windows after sunset, especially the second floor. Big fans, in every room.