My swamp cooler is struggling. Hot humid days have arrived and its not even August yet… giant cantankerous clouds rolling in over the Sheephole mountains tearing up streets and flooding homes in Twentynine Palms, but losing most of its fury by the time the damp warm air reaches Joshua Tree and Yucca Valley.
When it’s over 100 and low humidity, clicking on that swamp cooler is one of the best feelings in the world. But on days when the humidity is already hanging on you as you walk to your car in the morning – the house can feel like a sauna.
If you only have a swamp cooler or your AC is struggling in the last heat wave – here’s a few things to check around the house before the august heat hits.
Do you have some practices around the house that you do to keep things as cool as possible? Share them with me
“Reset” your house at night
First off – opening all your windows at night and circulating the warm air out gives you a good start in the morning – just make sure to close up before the temps start to rise. If you are primarily cooling with a swamp cooler, this also gives your house and the air in it time to dry out as much as possible before the humidity settles in during the day.
Keep the sun out as best you can with blinds and curtains – but if you have a particularly exposed set of windows or a sliding glass door, consider hanging something up outside to block the sun before it hits your house – heating up the glass and curtains. Keeping the shades and curtains closed add an extra bit of insulation to keep as much coolness inside as possible.
Electronics and lights can heat up a room
Keeping lights off can feel cooler – but even more energy efficient LED lightbulbs create a small amount of heat.
If you are still using old-school incandescent bulbs, I admire your choice of color light temperature but these old bulbs waste a lot of energy in the form of heat. If you love warm light but need to make the switch, but they make some pretty nice tungsten-equivalent LED bulbs that give off a warm glow without the warm feel.
Even if you have modern LED bulbs in an older vintage lamp, the electronics inside the lamp can throw more heat than you realize. Walking around and feeling the base of lamps and electronics can be surprising in how much ambient heat they throw off. Try to keep electronics off as much as possible on the hottest days. Shut your computer or game console down completely when you aren’t using them.
Camp at home for a cooler staycation
Photo: Robert Haydon
Hear me out on this one: but if you have camping gear you can set up a staycation at your home if you have the private space.
A camp stove outside to make coffee and breakfast in the morning doesn’t heat up my kitchen – and feels nice in the comparatively cooler mornings . Its a nice stand-in for the outdoor kitchen I dream of building at my house someday. Keep the camping vibes going by setting up a tent in your yard or just throw a camping pad onto the open desert and experience the desert like the old-timers did, except you still have access to WiFi and Totino’s Pizza Pockets.
If you haven’t ever thought about it or just forgot this year, gas heaters usually have a pilot light that should be safely shut off in the months you aren’t using it.
What did we miss?
There are dozens of little things you can do during the day to keep cooler, and getting used to extreme heat might be the new normal from here on out.
These small things to check around your home may save you a few precious degrees on the hottest days. But thinking long term isn’t a bad idea either – so start planting those native plants and trees on your property now so you can lounge in their cooler shade in the future.
What tips did we miss? Obvious ones? Do you have a trick you swear by? How do you keep your house cool when nothing else seems to work? Send in your suggestions, I’d love to read them: [email protected]
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