Knowing how to keep your house cool in the summertime without using electricity is a good skill to have. A few weeks back, the temperature topped out at 120 degrees in our area and stayed hot for three days straight. In a house without air conditioning, we had to pull out all the stops to stay cool! Keep reading for all our tips!
When it's as hot as it has been this summer, the main thing on everyone's mind is how to stay cool! I've shared my tips on how to stay cool in the summer and how to keep your animals cool in the summer, but this post is on how to keep your house cool without using electricity and some that require electricity but no air conditioning.
The simple thought of having to preserve our homegrown food during the heat of summer (or for that matter, standing outside in the heat to preserve on a cookstove) is an unbearable thought. But we don't want that produce to go to waste, either.
So how do we keep our house cool when we still have to cook and take care of a busy household? We don't have to suffer or forgo preserving all the bounty to stock our larders. Instead, let's take a look at some old-fashioned ways to keep our homes cool in summer naturally, as well as yourself, because ya can't keep a good homesteader down, right?!
The podcast episode in this post is an oldie but a goodie. It's episode #148 of the Pioneering Today Podcast where we teach families how to grow, preserve and cook their own food using old-fashioned skill sets and wisdom to create a natural self-sufficient home, with, or without, the homestead.
8 Tips on How to Keep House Cool in Summer Naturally
Block the Windows
It's always cooler in the shade and the same thing goes for your house, especially on southern exposure windows.
Close blinds and curtains in the morning to keep the sunlight out. You may also want to look into black-out curtains (we use these in our bedroom) which will eliminate even more heat. If you don't have curtains you can hang sheets or blankets to block out even more sun.
Minimize Opening and Closing the Doors and Windows
It's pretty amazing how much heat comes in by even fast opening and closing of doors throughout the day. This can be difficult with kids (I've been known to lock the southern exposure door so they have to use the other doors) but can make a difference of at least 2 or 3 degrees over the course of the day.
Try to use doors that are northern exposure or in the shade and open them as little as possible.
When the kids and I had come back from grocery shopping one day, we made it a game to see if we could load up all our groceries in one trip and only have to open and close the door once to get everything inside!
Open Doors and Windows at Night
Let nature cool off your home for you. As soon as the sun begins to fall behind the horizon, monitor the outside temperature with inside and when it's the same or cooler, open all those windows.
In the height of summer, we generally open our windows and sliding glass doors at 7:30 pm and leave them open overnight until about 7:30 am the next morning. (We do have a guard dog and other home security measures in place, use your own discretion!)
The goal is to create as much airflow as possible. If there is no airflow, the hot air will just stay inside your house and won't cool off properly. To create airflow, you can always place a fan in front of a window or door and pull the cool air in with the fan.
How to cool a room with fans
Though this method does use electricity, it's less electricity than running an air conditioner and can really help cool things off quickly.
- Place a fan in front of an open window to draw and push the cooler outside into the room.
- If you have a second fan, place it at another window facing the outside to draw the hot air out of the room and house faster.
- Some people like to freeze milk jugs filled with water, then place those frozen milk jugs in front of the fan to blow cold air. This works best if you're sitting directly in front of the fan.
Be sure screen doors are in place so you're not bringing in the bugs with the cool air!
Frozen Damp Cloth
Take a few dishcloths or small towels and get them wet, squeeze out excess water and place it in the freezer. I like to freeze mine in the shape of my neck (see video for demonstration). Place these on your neck as needed and continue to swap them out with frozen towels as needed.
Though this is technically using electricity from the freezer, I'm assuming you already have a freezer and would be using it whether or not it's hot!
I've also heard of people taking a spray bottle and spraying down sheets before getting into bed at night. I haven't tried this as the frozen washcloth works great. But it's definitely another option.
Minimize Oven and Stovetop Use
We're a from-scratch cooking house and that doesn't stop in the middle of summer. I adore my Instant Pot which allows me to cook my favorite meals without heating up the house or being plugged in for hours on end like a slow cooker (but a slow cooker helps keep the house cool too if you don't have a beloved Instant Pot).
If I do have to use the stove, especially when we have hot temperatures for days on end, then I try to only cook in the late evening when the house has already gotten as hot as it's going to get, and will soon be able to get cooled off with the evening temperatures.
Cook Outdoors
In the past, I've used our Sun Oven (solar oven) a lot in the summer to put that heat and sunlight to use. We also have created an outdoor kitchen area, utilizing a grill or cook over an open fire.
We do a lot of grilling and Dutch oven cooking and baking during the summer months. Not only do we enjoy it, but it keeps the house cool while still allowing me to bake all of our favorite goodies and dishes.
This is especially helpful during power outages and a skill set we use all year long. We have a series on cast iron and outdoor cooking for Pioneering Today Academy members, you can click here to sign up for notification when we open for enrollment again!
Want more Dutch Oven tutorials, resources, and recipes right now? Get my step-by-step tutorial, temperature charts, and of course recipes, in Hand Made: the Modern Guide to Made-from-Scratch Living and over $53 in bonuses, click here to snag them!
Create a Summer Kitchen
This is an old practice when a separate building was used to cook and preserve foods during the heat of summer. Another variation of this is a dogtrot house, where an open breezeway connected two separate one-story structures, one side was used for sleeping and main quarters, while usually the other was for cooking and the kitchen.
We take the same idea here on our homestead and create an outdoor summer kitchen. We have a permanent fire pit for an open fire and to set our Dutch ovens in, with another pit that's waist high with a grate over it for frying or roasting, with an accompanying long counter next to it.
I also use this same area to install an outdoor canning kitchen with a two-burner propane stove. (You'll find a full lesson on this covered in our Home Canning with Confidence course and part of the Pioneering Today Academy)
Plant Deciduous Trees Strategically
This one is going to take some time to pay off and needs to be done with thought. I say deciduous because you don't want an evergreen tree blocking the sunlight in the dead of winter when we actually want the heat of the sun to warm our house (especially true if you have solar panels or plans of going solar in the future).
Take care you're not planting the trees too close to the house where you'll have the potential for limbs, roots invading the foundation or septic system, and leaves clogging the gutters.
You'll also want to make sure you don't plant in a spot that would block sunlight to your garden. Most fruits and vegetables require at least 8 hours of full sunlight a day for optimal production.
But when planted correctly, these trees can help provide shade from the sun a couple of hours before sunset which can drop the temperature even earlier in the evening.
Bonus Tip – Get a Pool
Having a pool, or another body of water that you can get into can really help cool your body temperature and make even the hottest days tolerable.
This obviously isn't an option for everyone, but even being able to jump in a cold creek or lake can be helpful.
There you have it, our best tips on how to keep your house cool in summer without electricity. Do you have any tips to add?
Related Articles You May Like:
- 7 Tips for Keeping Yourself Cool Without Air-Conditioning
- 17 Self-Sufficiency Tips from the Great Depression
- Time & Budget Saving Tips from the Great Depression & this Homesteader’s Kitchen
- 5 Life Lessons from the Great-Depression
- 7 Depression Era Tips to Stretch Your Food Budget
- 8 Depression Era Tips to Save Money Now
- Building a Great Depression Era Pantry
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Careful about a fan in the window.
I was an Firefighter/Paramedic and I have seen box fans catch fire when put in a window. The screen blocks the air flow and overheats the motor. Then the motor catches fire. It is better to install a whole house exhaust fan.
Thanks for the safety tip and for your service. My husband is a volunteer fire fighter and EMT, too.
Under 40 dollars each so each of us invested in our own tiny portable water cooler which can be plugged into regular electrical socket or can buy an adapter so can plug one into computer usb port. When it is really hot we drop 2 or 3 ice cubes into the reservoir before adding the distilled water (and we like to also add a bit of vinegar). On lowest setting usually can run it for 8 to 10 hours before it needs to be refilled. Not much larger than tissue box and has been our life saver. We purchased replacement filters but it has been two years now and haven’t needed to change them yet. We just keep soaking the original filters in a container of pickling vinegar to clean them so good as new again. I’m sure they’ll give out at some point and we have the backups for when they do but just haven’t had to so far! However, we also don’t leave any left over water inside to grow stagnant … either running the unit until the water is all gone or will just pour it out.
??? Appreciate the warning. I’ve never had a box fan catch fire but have not run them hours on end. In non AC home while growing up, almost every night the window fan (not box fan) would be set for in or out depending on which direction a slight breeze was blowing. But then things were built better 50 and 60 years ago.
It must be a defective fan to begin with
Many years ago before we had AC, my dad installed an attic/exhaust fan. It worked wonders and did an incredible job of cooling the entire house.
Try using it at night & turn the fan around so that it exhausts the warmer internal air. By exhausting the internal hot air and opening a screened window in another room you remove the screen where the fan is. This is also a more efficient method of cooling the house and exchanging the stale air.
Probably works better in the Pacific Northwest than our neck of the woods. In the southeast US where we live summers such as this one don’t even have a lot of relief even in the evening. But good advice for other parts of the year when it isn’t quite so brutal. Thanks Melissa!
Similar argument was made regarding a NextDoor post how to save electricity. “Open windows? You have to be nuts.” – Yes, if you don’t use any common sense and open them when outdoor temps are same as or higher than indoor. In Houston there are very few nights from June into September that I can open up, but I do when conditions are right.
Exactly. I’m sure this is fine for the northern parts of the US– even in the Texas panhandle where I grew up– but anywhere else in Texas we need some other way to cool down the inside of a house than opening windows to 90-95 degree outdoor nighttime temperatures.
Yes Richard! I so wish her tips from this article applied to our neck of the woods. We can hold 90 degrees and 90+ humidity levels into the night and throughout the night. It is miserable here in the summers. We get about 2 weeks of fall and spring where it’s bearable, if lucky. And, in my area mold and mildew and rot damage in the home is a real issue, I don’t know how people kept their homes from falling apart from it before electricity. Don’t know what I’ll do if the grid goes down.
Just a comment on trees for cooling, there is a great tree that a lot of people don’t know about. It’s a Tamarack or American Larch. In the warmer months it bears needles like a fir or pine, but it drops it’s needles in winter. We have them growing on our south side to keep us cool in the summer, but in the winter, we can open the curtains of our large living room window and the furnace doesn’t turn on until sundown, when we close the curtains. We also recently purchased a solar oven to use outside, Just starting out with it so far so good.
I totally echo your statement about the solar oven. I know a lot of people will balk at the initial price (around $300, depending on sales), but it’s SO WORTH IT especially as a one-time investment, and helps keep the electric bill every summer.
Mine is going right now with two sets of chicken leg quarters to be used in whatever during the week. You can even dehydrate in it!
For a old person I’m so enjoying your teaching. I just wish you did youtube videos. So you could show us some of the things you are talking about. Great job, keep up the good work.
Umm, she does do youtube videos. I didn’t know she did articles lol.
I love the work you do may God continue to bless your efforts. Audra
A depression tip that seems to work, was to place a wet towel in front of a fan and re-wet it when it dried out. The air blowing through the towel feels much cooler.
Melissa these are great tips. In addition to some of these tips we also use neck wraps that can be cooled in cool water, fridge or freezer. Keeping your hair tied up in a bandana and wearing loose cool clothing helps as well.
Thanks Heidi, those tips I’m going to be sharing on keeping your body cool in a few weeks, great minds!
We do many of these things. I also combine 5 & 6 by putting my crockpot outside! Yesterday I reheated a brisket by placing it in a covered glass dish with some water in the bottom (to prevent drying out) and put it in the grill (like an oven!). We’re spending lots of time in the basement right now 😉
I’ve done the crockpot trick, too, Ashley! 🙂
We have a problem in the summer with neighbors having bon fires at night. We can’t open our windows because of the smoke. We are also in the Pacific NW.
I was very interested in these unique and effective ways to keep your house cool. Where I live, it is common to be nearly 100 degrees all summer. The AC bill was getting to be a bit too much so we are moving. I am going to search for a house that I can apply all of these different techniques. I am particularly interested in one: Blocking the windows. I am hoping to get a house with enormous windows. If I do find a house like that, I will definitely keep them blocked to keep my house nice and cool during these hot summer months.
my husband is also a firefighter for 33 yrs.
I think I’ve heard you speak about a coffee alternative. Or a coffee that is lower in acidity. What’s it called, I’m interested in looking into it.
Yes, there’s two options, one is this Toddy maker system that is a cold brew process that has 67% less acid https://amzn.to/2P1mHT6 *affiliate link and I also started using this coffee almost a year ago, it’s shade grown and organic, which shade grown coffee has less acid as well. You can get whole beans or ground. I do a bit of both. On really early mornings, we use the ground coffee… aka when I forget to grind it the night before so the grinder doesn’t wake up the kids.
You can get 1/2 off your first box here (scroll down to see the 1/2 off box sizes and special) –> 1/2 off organic and shade grown coffee
How long are whole coffee beans go to http://j.mp/2oSejt0
Just curious about using an instant pot. Do you have one that doesn’t use electricity? Thanks
A pressure cooker (stovetop) is very similar to the electric models.
One thing I have learned to keep the temps down is to minimize the number of lights that are on and how long they are on for. Granted that means you have electricity and are turning it off, but those bulbs put out a lot of heat. Also, you can get used to doing things in the dimmer light, during the day at least, and don’t usually need the lights on during the day, contributing to the heat.
I live in an older house (134 years) and one of the ways I help cool it down is to open up the door down to the cellar/basement and put a fan there to pull the cool air up out of there. Also Swamp cooling (placing wet towels in front of fans) helps to cool things down. I have also made a portable “air conditioner” with ice and a bucket, and dug a hole and sunk a hose in it to create a heat sink. That’s a fun one. You pull air from your hot house down thru the hose into the ground where it gets cooled down and then the cool air circulates back up thru the house. There are some really good sites on how this is done.
I want to try making a pop can heat exchanger next.
You can’t stick a $15 box fan in the window. You need a durable fan. A quality fan may cost $100 but will not heat up and will run for many years. I have one that is a lot older than you. It was left in this house when we bought it in 1975. I have another high volume fan that is only 20″ which sits on a stand at the floor and can be turned to blow at any height. I bought that at Sam’s in 1990 for $39. Those fans are about $50 now. I use mine in my basement garage. I have to make sure the garage door is open before I turn it on, because it will blow any dust out the door.
Don’t forget about awnings, my parents now 99 and 100 years old used awInns to help cool our home. I decided to give it a try as most of my windows are southern exposure. It worked amazingly. No light blocking in the winter, love them!
Yes, at my old house we had a huge picture window in the front of the house and it was an eastern exposure. I could not believe the difference in the AC bill and the temperature of the room in the summer when the awning was placed and we did it just for looks
Putting a fan in the window to draw in hot (106*) outside air will not cool your house down, even though you put another fan in another window for cross ventilation, it just blows hot air. Besides that it takes electricity to run the fans, if you’ve already have electricity just buy an air conditioner!
Umm you put the fan in the window and turn it on when the sun goes down and the outside air is COOLER. And it’s much cheaper than an air conditioner.
My Mam told me about hay boxes that my Grandma used during the War. Basically, you’d start a casserole off early in the morning, and finish it off in a hay box ready for dinner. A hay box was a wooden carton with a lid. Hay was layered thickly in the bottom, the piping hot casserole dish was put in, more hay was packed firmly around the sides, and a thick layer of hay was put on top. Then the lid was put on, and the whole thing was left in the sun for the day. If I were to try it, I may experiment with polystyrene boxes that fishermen use. Not sure if it worked on cloudy days. Possibly.
I remember doing hay box cooking at Girl Guide (Scout) camp. We used a tea shipping chest (that gives away my age!!), lined with hay. I seem to think it was put in a hole in the ground, though.
Exactly. I’m sure this is fine for the northern parts of the US– even in the Texas panhandle where I grew up– but anywhere else in Texas we need some other way to cool down the inside of a house than opening windows to 90-95 degree outdoor nighttime temperatures.
I would love to see pics of your set up for out door cooking. We are in process of building and setting up and any info would be great. Thanks
We live in an extremely hot place during the summer, while we do have ac I try to use it as little as possible. We bought a 70% shade cloth for the side of our house and boy that made such a difference!! Amazing.
I find hanging large while towels in southern windows helps mimic blackout curtains without cost or changing curtains:)
I live in New England, and I have always heard tips #1, 2 & 4 referred to as Yankee Air Conditioning. Good to see that it is known outside of New England, too.
Melissa, I grew up without air conditioning. We opened the windows at night. We had a table fan that was put at the food of the bed. We were hot at first, but by morning, we were reaching for cover. It got pretty cool. We do have air conditioning here in East Texas, but also have installed an attic fan and we use it when it’s not so hot. I love the fresh air. We are spoiled from air conditioning now.
I do love all of your posts! Thank you so much for everything you share with us.
I grew up in a modernized raised ranch in CT where it’s humid. So the downstairs was cooler and we used Dehumidifiers on the lower floor. This really cooled it off. Windows open at night. Curtains facing sun closed. We had a dumbwaiter that went from the upstairs kitchen down to the lower floor so we filled it up with our dinner and ate downstairs when it was hot. Also we did have trees for shade.
I grew up in a modernized raised ranch in CT where it’s humid. So the downstairs was cooler and we used Dehumidifiers on the lower floor. This really cooled it off. Windows open at night. Curtains facing sun closed. We had a dumbwaiter that went from the upstairs kitchen down to the lower floor so we filled it up with our dinner and ate downstairs when it was hot. Also we did have trees for shade.
This is one of the reasons why why I never want to live in a house that doesn’t have a full basement. Its at least 15-20 degrees cooler down there (although in the winter its very cold too!)
Iowa temps can soar into the 100s in the Summer. Even when using A/C we still practice many of these tips to keep our electricity bills in check. Trees take many years to help but that investment pays of in the end. We also close blinds on the east side of the house in the mornings, and then on the west side in the afternoons until sunset. Ceiling fans also help to keep air movement, or in extreme temps we have used the fan function on our A/C to keep air circulating even when not using the cooling function. Keep costs down by blocking off vents and closing doors to unused rooms — and keeping the basement door and vents closed since the basement is already cool naturally.
I use a damp bed sheet as a cover at night… or just have it beside me to put a leg or an arm on. Cools you down nicely:)
I live in Phoenix and we live with 118 degree heat every year. Last year it was 55 days straight of 118 degrees. 3 of my trees died. It is hot from April until October here. I don’t know how the pioneers did it without a/c! People die from heat stroke every year. We have a/c and a high electric bill but still get heat exhaustion. We have backup generators for the brown outs. We do heavy chores and gardening at night after the sun goes down or at 5am before it gets horrible outside. We eat cold cereal for dinner or sandwiches a lot in the summer. Pepermint oil products and vics vaporub makes you feel cool. Mint tea. Icecream. That’s all I got lol.
I live and work in a commercial facility with a black asphalt parking lot which hits over 140 degrees on a summer afternoon. My bedroom windows face this parking lot. I cover the windows with five-buck emergency blankets taped around the window frame. Styrofoam cut to size goes on top of this, and then a plastic storm window is applied. An old-fashioned window shade tops this.
This works for any window where a fan simply does no good. Try it and you will find that the minimal expense cuts your cooling bills if you have AC and increases your comfort if you don’t.
Um fans and instapot with no electricity? How does that work?
I said some of the tips require electricity and others don’t.
DeWalt makes a fan that sits over a 5 gallon bucket with water in it. It blows cooler air. I have seen people use these at baseball games to keep kids cooler.
Sit with your feet in a container of cool water and periodically add a few ice cubes, keep it up for half an hour to an hour and it will cool your body down for serval hours after that! Also, get a child’s pool and sit in the shade with your feet in the water or sit in the water and it will take your temp. down several degrees. It works, I have done it. 👍😊
Before I replaced my 70 year old windows with double paned, argon-gas filled windows ( an investment that is totally worth the cost! I live in Southern California and rarely need to use the a/c or heater since installing them), I had bubble wrap covering my windows, which helped, especially the west facing windows. Luckily, my house was built before air conditioning was a thing, so the east facing windows and front door are fronted by a large porch, the west facing ones have either a patio or awnings, and a big old pine tree that helps, as well. But the new windows are a blessing!
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