Cheap ways to cool your house in a heat wave.

[moneysense]

Right now, the eastern United States is in a heat wave with daytime temperatures reaching into the triple digits.

This is the time of deaths due to insufficient cooling and a time of black and brown outs due to everyone using big electricity using appliances.

Your dishwasher is a big electricity user, as is the washer and dryer, and air conditioner.

Contact your local electric company to find out when the peak hours of electricity usage are and plan to run the dishwasher, washer, and dryer at a time when there is no peak usage.

To cool your home, close window blinds and shades on the sunny side of your home during the day.

We use our air conditioner during the hottest part of the day and then use the ceiling fans to help circulate the air in our home.

In the late evening when the outside temperatures start to drop, we shut off the airconditioner and open the windows using box fans to bring the cool air inside and again using the ceiling fans to help circulate the cools air.

In the morning, before it starts getting hot again, we close the windows and shades, and once the house starts to warm up, we use the air conditioner.

This way, we arent constantly using the air conditioner and are saving on electricity consumption and also are still able to save a few dollars.

[pennypinch]

OMG I am so hot right now I am like a puddle of sweat! I just want to go and stand in the cold shower for about three hours lol.

There is no doubt that the a/c takes a ton of electricity to run.

Something we do to help keep the heat out is to leave up the plastic on our windows. We don't have all of the windows covered but the ones we do we leave up all year round. It helps keep the cold out in the winter and the heat out in the summer.

[Rae74]

thats exactly what i do too. it works really well and also like you said it saves you a little extra money which is always a great thing now days! lol where im from it gets so hot during the day my daughter will walk down the street to go swimming and she said the pool felt like a hot tub the water was so hot!

also another little trick the darker the curtains the cooler the house will stay. one thing that sucks about this is me personally i love during the day opening the blinds and curtains to use the sun as light instead of using the actual lights because the sunlight is so pretty one and for two its free but it makes the house hot!

[Cachinga]

With my house we have to use 2 air conditioners. We tried to use one and then fans but my apartment is like and oven. I dont mind using them though because my utilities are included in the rent. Seeing how my landlord hasnt fixed either of the leaks in my apartment in over a year and a half i dont mind. The two air conditioners only keep the livingroom and the diningroom halfway cool. They manage to keep the main two rooms at about 75 or so just enough to keep you from sweating your butt off.