Green ideas for keeping cool

As is char­ac­ter­is­tic in Ohio often­times, we are going from chilly and rainy to hot and humid. With the sum­mer heat of 90 degrees plus upon us, here are some eco-friendly ideas for stay­ing cool with­out crank­ing up the air con­di­tioner. Now, don’t get me wrong, when you gotta do what you gotta do, get the air on and stay cool and safe. But, if you want to try and cut costs and keep your car­bon foot­print low, try these time-tested tips which I found online.

Keep win­dows closed dur­ing the hottest parts of the day. When win­dows are open, be sure to open a few to allow for a cross breeze.

The sun can really heat up the house, so keep the shades drawn dur­ing the peak of the day on all your non-north fac­ing windows.

To max­i­mize effec­tive­ness of open win­dows, use a fan in one win­dow to push hot air out and another in another win­dow to pull air in. A breeze of 1 mph can make you feel four degrees cooler.

On really hot days, try hang­ing wet fab­ric in front of an open win­dow to cool down the air.

Dress your­self and your fam­ily in loose fit­ting, light-colored cloth­ing to stay cool.

Try not to run a lot of appli­ances which only gen­er­ate more heat in your home — even keep­ing the lights off helps.

Most impor­tantly, drink more water. Drink, drink, drink. As my son’s Scout Camp leader said last sum­mer, “Hydrate or die!” Okay, that’s a bit harsh, but you get the point. So did my son, and he uses his water bot­tle often.

Enjoy the sum­mer and best wishes to all you grad­u­ates out there and your fam­i­lies. (Source: greenlivingideas.com —Stephanie Evans.)

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware and is the mother of three, soon to be four, who enjoys writ­ing about green liv­ing ideas.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Jun 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.