apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Katy,

Air rises to the top and will get trapped if there is nowhere to escape. Make sure that your roof is well ventilated. This is also to prevent too much warm moisture in the upper parts of your house, which could lead to mould.

If nothing else, sleep in the bottom floor, if you can.

If you own this place, I would say bite the bullet and have central a/c installed. I ended up doing this in my former rowhouse in DC - it cost about $12,000.

Otherwise, again, bite the bullet and buy one or two portable a/cs for upstairs, and one or two for downstairs. You can get portable a/cs for between 500 and 700; just make sure that you get the right BTU for the size of the room.

Honestly, I could not think of any other way to cool down. Standing fans helped, but not much.

I hear it's gonna be a hot one this summer, so good luck with whatever you end up deciding.

btw: if that's your house in the photo above, it looks real cute.

I was going to suggest an attic fan, which is in a similar vein to practicallydone's advice. Like opening the sunroof when you get into a parked car, it lets out a lot of trapped heat.

I'm in an apartment with regular windows but now cross-breeze and am slowly realizing that I will have to put in the air conditioner this summer. I've made do without in my former apartment which had windows in front and in back. I'm definitely feeling your misery and marination.

Good luck.

After living in the midwest for 4 years withut AC I learned a little bit on beating the heat. The biggest is to take a cool rinse before bed. keep the air moving with fans. I used to sleep under just a sheet in the summer, but it is good to have a light blanket handy if you get too cold. I would open up all the windows (and make sure you have screens) at night, and close them up during the day (maybe not so good for the top floor). During the day, curtains provide shade, but at night, they trap heat.

Hi! This is Katy. Thanks for your comments so far!

1) Luckily our bedroom IS on the first floor, so that makes it a bit more bearable.

2) And unfortunately we're only renting, and our house doesn't have an attic. So the attic fan and central A/C are out as well.

3) And get this! An electrician stopped by last night and said he didn't think our outlets would support a portable A/C...

Ahaha!! Gadzooks! I'm sunk!

PS: And yes, that is our house in the picture. Thanks for the compliment :)

Hi! This is Katy. Thanks so much for your comments so far!

1) Luckily our bedroom IS on the first floor, so that makes it a bit more bearable.

2) And unfortunately we're only renting, and our house doesn't have an attic. So the attic fan and central A/C are out as well.

3) The cold shower before been has definitely helped us the most so far.

PS: And yes, that is our house in the picture. Thanks for the compliment :)

People dealt with heat for hundreds of years before the advent of A/C:

Open the windows on either side of the house and leave the doors between rooms open so that passing breezes can flow through freely.
Open the windows of the rooms on the upper floor to allow heat to escape.
Make sure the attic is well ventilated and if you have an door/access hatch to the attic, open it in the summertime.
Sleep in a bedroom on a lower floor.
Take a cool bath before going to bed.
Wear clean & loose fitting light colored pajamas to bed.
Sleep on light colored, all-cotton sheets.

From your question, it appears that you might not know that there are window air-conditioners meant for casement windows. (Home Depot; Sears) Of course, keep the air moving. There are window fans for casement windows as well.

If you can, put fans in the windows exhausting out on the top floor to blow the hot air out, and suck the cooler air up.

Also, this crafty engineering student created a homemade a/c out of a fan, some copper tubing and ice water: http://www.gmilburn.ca/ac/

That might be something to try!

If you're going to get air conditioning (which you absolutely should), you should really insulate very well, because otherwise, you'll spend a fortune, and it will be a colossal aste. I'm hoping that my new air conditioner, which is an Energy Star appliance will make my electric bill go down, but I'm in a big old brick pre-war apartment building.

Every little bit helps. Close curtains during the day to keep out sun. Use fans. If at all possible, vent the roof & the top floor. On very hot days, put soaker hose or an oscillating sprinkler on the roof; as water evaporates, it cools (water wasting).

Some people close up the windows during the day to keep the heat out, which works, but I like fresh air.

http://healing.about.com/cs/livingsimply/ht/How_staycool.htm
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/how_to_stay_coo.php
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19195388/

Are there parts of the house where sunlight streams in, especially on the south side? Invest in light-weight blinds and keep the house as dim as possible during the day.

Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate. Careful use of window fans (not fans stuck out in the middle of the room) make a huge difference.

Is there a basement? If yes and it's halfway decent, can you sleep down there when it's really really hot?

If the answer to the above is yes, put a de-humidifier down there when you sleep. I'm willing to bet at least half your problem is humidity.

Also, if you're renting there's not much you can do about this, but I'm willing to be a large part of the problem is lack of insulation, not heat per se.

put that GILA film on the windows. Makes an enormous difference.

i used to live outside boulder, co in a teeny apartment attached to a aluminum-clad riding arena. needless to say, with only a few small windows and no AC, it got hot, hot, hot under the constant colorado sun.

i would like to echo the advice of bigcityboy2: open all the windows at night to capture the (relatively) cooler air and keep them closed up during the heat of the day. if you can use heavy drapes to keep out the light, you might find it actually bearable. aside from blocking the sun, such a shady interior just makes your feel cooler.

it took me 2 years to figure this out and, despite seeming counterintuitive, it made a huge difference!

after hearing about the heatwave(s) back east, i'm finding new ways to appreciate seattle's coldest june on record!

I had a similar problem. I took out the window entirely, put in a window AC in the space, and then cut a thick piece of plexiglas to fill in the space above the window AC unit.

It's far from an ideal solution, but I only did this in my bedroom, and only ran the AC at night for sleeping.

Yikes, that's too bad about your outlets not supporting a portable AC. If you still think you might want to give it a shot, try hitting up Craigslist. If you're lucky you might snag one on the cheap. I got mine for just $75!

If you can use window fans, place one on exhaust/suck on one side of the house and one on blow on the other side of the house. It will circulate the air through the house by pulling it from one side and out the other.

Similarly, when it's extra hot outside, set the fans to suck air out, and when it's cool, set them to blow air in.

Not sure if this would work with standalone fans too, but it seems like it could help a little.

If there's a basement leave the door open and put a fan at the top of the stairs, sucking air out of the basement (where it's cool) and into the ground level.

Well, all of those suggestions about opening up the windows at night don't necessarily provide comfort when the temperature is 90 degrees outside (it's already happened in NY) with 80% humidity. I do not have an a/c unit in my apartment by choice. All I can say is that the first couple of brutally hot nights of the season are rough, but after a while you do get used to the heat. Also, taking a cold shower before bed definitely helps.

Weird, I think I've seen your house before (maybe just one that looks similar). I don't know how to ask where you live without you giving more information about your address than you want to post online.

Um, does the town start with an A (or maybe an E, but closer to the A, I think)? Okay, now I just sound crazy.

What people did before air conditioning became common is immaterial today, having adequate air conditioning is a health necessity, regardless of your health status. One need not be elderly to die in their home of heatwave induced hyperthermia.

Here are some steps you might take to resolve your air conditioning situation:

1. If you can afford it, try to purchase a casement window air conditioner. Yes, they can be pricey, but if you do some searching they can be found for somewhat reasonable prices new at the bigger appliance, home stores, warehouses (Home Depot, Lowes, Costco), etc, or used off of Craigslist, the classifieds, or ebay.

2. A dehumidifier can really help make a space comfortable in hot weather. It's only doing half the air conditioner's job, but it is an important half. They can usually be purchased for about $150.

3. Assuming your ceilings are high enough, consider installing one or more ceiling fans. They are a fairly easy DIY job.

4. When outdoor temps are bearable, place box fans facing outward in your upstairs windows, then open your downstairs windows. This will create a convective airflow pulling air into the house through the downstairs windows, and expelling it through the upstairs windows.

5. As for the electricity, call the electrician back and find out from him what kind of service you currently have and which outlets are served by it. If you don't have enough electrical circuits to live in the house normally with the air conditioning operating, get an estimate for some new electrical circuits. You're not going to be happy with the place long-term anyway if you have to turn off all the lights to run your iron, hair dryer, or microwave. After getting estimates, meet with your landlord and discuss splitting the installation costs.

Good Luck!

You could try a ductless air conditioner as well. Examples ...

http://www.panasonic.ca/English/appliance/airconditioner/index.asp
http://www.mitsubishielectric.ca/ductless/index.html

There are a lot of solar powered things that might be effective or at least HELPFUL.

You might be able to rig this for your windows:
http://www.greenhome.com/products/appliances/solar_power/fan000001

Or this one, less expensive:
http://www.oceanfan.com/product/441aa3d0-b12a-4c8c-9323-1b44399aa1b0.aspx

I wondered about the potential of using the car solar exhausts for homes, and so did someone else here:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/solarpowered_ca.php

Over here they have a solar vent fan that might be useful (not the one to clip on your hat):
http://www.advancedenergysolution.com/catalog/applications/Small%20DC%20&%20Solar%20Fans.htm

eBay has the same/similar thing for a lot less:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Solar-Panel-Room-Window-Desk-Fan-Ventalator-Ventilator_W0QQitemZ320129538521QQcmdZViewItem

Those kinds of things will help keep the air moving during the DAY, and can even be left on all day, without costing you anything (other than the purchase price).

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For a super quick fix for now, those car auto shades can be cut down to fit the window. No, they won't look pretty. And your landlord may not like the appearance of a very shiny thing in your window.

No installation costs, not permanent, just five bucks a window on the sunny sides.

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For nighttime fans, I wonder if some of the larger clip fans would help?
http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail/params.aol_refer.false.tpl.detail.msn_refer.false.item.H140831.ref.GBA?cm_ven=GOOGLEBASE&cm_cat=For%20the%20Home&cm_pla=Home%20Environment&cm_ite=H140831

It will clip onto things that are almost 2" wide. And it's a big fan, it will be fairly heavy, so I don't know if you could clip it to the window, but you might be able to clip it to the window FRAME.

That particular style of fan is VERY effective. Note the similarities:
http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/wonder_of_flight/engine.html

There is a very good reason why you don't see "box fan engines".

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The only other standbys are...

Lie in an empty bathtub, naked.
Lie on a concrete floor, naked.
Stand in front of the open fridge, naked.

All of which I've resorted to on hot days and nights. Just need to get that body temperature down.

Open more windows on the leeward side of the house and fewer windows on the windward side. The vacuum created by the wind traveling a greater distance over the roof than through the house will create more velocity and the breeze coming through the windward side windows will feel cooler.

One could stand naked in the breeze as TRUE BLUE suggests...it might be too cool!

We sucked it up and bought a portable air conditioner this week. We live in a badly-insulated log cabin with all-casement windows as well, and the 2nd floor -- even with an attic fan -- was 92F. Yikes.

Our Home Depot (we live in northern NH) had a $299 portable air conditioner that plugs into a normal socket and takes about 1000w at full-blast. So we have it plugged into a circuit that doesn't have anything else on it (which isn't too hard in the summer) and we just use it to keep the temp down to 80F. It reduces the humidity as well as the temp, so 80F feels lovely.

As for the casement windows -- we've wedged the window conversion thing vertically in a just-open window (to make a wedge). It leaves the top and bottom triangles open, but honestly? Cold air. Inside. Yee-ha.

Open all of the windows at night.

During the day, keep all of the ground floor windows and blinds closed. But, open the second story windows and any doors leading upstairs. The hot air will rise up & out as much as it can.

or you could just air condition your bed!

http://www.kilian-nakamura.com/catalog/kuchofuku-airconditioned-bed-p-140.html

I don't have much more to add except to comment on the comment about how people dealt with the heat for hundreds of years without air conditioners so we just need to tough it out. There are serious consequences to electronics that are left to stew in extreme heat, particularly computers. There can be loss of data or complete failure if they overheat. Also, if you have pets, they can die in too hot environments.

Enduring the heat sounds good from an environmental viewpoint, but we don't live in the same world as folks a hundred years ago.

I lived w/o ac for almost 40 years, but I don't recommend it. It is really hard on your body and several people die every year. A method I found really helpful was to put fans in two windows that are at right angles to each other. Position the bed so that the air flow from the two fans crosses over it. I don't know the physics of it, but the breeze can get really cool. Make sure you get plenty of time in ac during the day so your body temperature can go down. Good luck.

Turn heat-generating appliances and electronics OFF when not in use. A computer generates quite a bit of heat. Cook with your microwave and toaster oven. Do not use your dryer if you can avoid it.

Take frequent cold showers. A long, cool bath at night will work wonders. Block sunlight from windows with aluminum foil. This has a tremendous impact on the heat in the house.

Wear a cool, wet dish towel over your shoulders, around your neck. Sit with your feet in a dishpan of cool water.

As for people not having A/C a hundred years ago.....they used to sleep outside when it was hot. With the mosquitos and who knows what else. It was a lot easier to die back then. Not entirely because of heat, but I'm sure plenty of people did not survive the summers.

If there are some rooms that you don't mind being fairly dark during the day, I would HIGHLY recommend getting "black-out" curtains that are specially lined to keep rooms cool in the summer and warm in the winter (not to mention block out light). I got my brown faux-suede ones at Linens N Things, but I've seen them all over - Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Anna's Linen's, etc. They aren't terribly expensive, but since you're in a rental, be sure to get a color you like so you can take them home and use them in the future...besides keeping a room cool, they make it REALLY dark and make for an amazingly restful sleep. You'll be ADDICTED!! :)

I would disagree about the dehumidifier idea. They throw an enormous amount of heat. We have one in our basement, and when it is on throughout the day, the temperature rises at least 10 degrees. Air conditioners also remove humidity, but the portion of the machine that heats up remains at the exterior of the building, and so it doesn't heat up the space.

I believe AT had a post about GILA heat film (also blocks UV). I've had two apartments in a row that didn't have A/C - same issue with our electrical system. I put up the film on all the south facing windows. It helped by at least a few degrees, which isn't much but every little bit helps. I would also second the light-blocking drapes suggestion.