With 2024 confirmed as the hottest year on record, it’s never been a more important time to consider how to keep our homes comfortable during oppressive summer heat.
As January temperatures soar and parts of Australia swelter through a hot long weekend, readers share their eco-friendly tips and tricks for keeping cool inside, whether you own your own home or are renting.
Use fans strategically
One trap is confusing air temperature with wind chill. Say it is 25C in the house, 27C and rising outside, and there is a breeze. If you open up, it will feel cool, but the incoming air is warming the house. Better to stay closed up and use a fan. Fans do generate a bit of heat and don’t actually cool the air, so turn them off when there’s no one in the room. Do heat-generating tasks (cooling bottles of water in the fridge, running the dishwasher or a hot wash) overnight, letting the heat escape outside in the early morning. Once you’ve closed up the house, it’s too late to chill the water; the fridge will push the heat into the room.
– Derek, Balmain, NSW
Pelmets!
Thick curtains are great but the heat hits the glass and rises into the room. Enclosed pelmets make heaps of difference because they trap the heat behind the curtain
– Bruce, Adelaide
Foil
I put aluminium foil over west-facing windows (can be glued or Blu-Tacked to the glass, shiny side out). Works even better with a layer of thick cardboard behind this as well. When its hot at night I cuddle an ice pack and lay under a wet sheet in front of the fan.
– Anonymous, Armidale, NSW
Why isn’t there a mandate to have all new houses built with double glazing? Then it becomes cheaper to replace existing windows. Huge improvement in hot and cold climates.
– Anonymous, Brisbane
Seal vents
Many homes (especially older homes built more than 20 years ago) have vents in ceilings (into roof spaces) with fans in bathrooms, toilets and kitchen range hoods with no dampers. These permit extensive airflow in and out of the building, wasting energy used for cooling and heating. This airflow needs to be stopped by sealing up vent openings in walls and ceilings and by fitting ducting with dampers.
– Ian, Perth
Cold cloths
If inside your house gets hot despite everything you’ve done to keep it cool, get two hand or tea towels, wet them with cold water, put one in the fridge and the other loosely round your neck. When the one you’re wearing gets uncomfortably warm, swap it with the one in the fridge. Repeat indefinitely. Works wonders.
– Susan, Canberra
Spray
Take one of those 500ml spray bottles you use in the garden and fill it with filtered water and 10 drops of peppermint essential oil. Keep it in the fridge. On really hot days spraying this cold peppermint water on your face and the back of your neck, shoulders and chest is a gamechanger.
– Candy, Crib Point, Victoria
