What are some environmentally friendly ways of cooling my house?

Question

It's hot (35 degrees celcius, and it is still spring), I am renting my house and I want to cool it down, without turning on the electric fan, because of the global warming thing, and because I am poor and don't want to pay the power bill after 4 months of aircon.

What are some ways I can cool my house? I am sick of the heat!!!

Answer 1

Global Warming is not real, dont be lead astray by the media, go ahead and turn on the fan

Answer 2

Bring more live potted plants into your house.  Plants cleans the air by absorbing the bad gases and produces more oxygen for your home.

It's also proven you can stay cooler by wearing silk clothes.  

Use light color curtains to reflect the sun's energy from the room.

And lastly open all the windows to let the hot air out and the cool air in.

Answer 3

I suppose the ideal way is to have a brick or fieldstone house, etc and have tall trees grow over your house.  The trees leaves will absorb the sunlight.  The roots will get in your sewer though and will require snaking about once a year.

As far as an immediate solution, I cannot think of one.  All the good things I can think of, take time.

Answer 4

Ask Al Gore to pay your electric bill. He has lots of money.

Answer 5

Plants will keep the house cooler.......keeping the shades closed during the highest heat and highest sun.  Best plan is plant trees outdoors around the house (deep rooted, native species best) Trees won't be a solution now, but they will eventually shade and cool the entire area. They act as insulators in the winter months too....keeping bills lower.

Also try not to be in air conditioning at all, this will re-acclimate your body to the heat and in time you will be used to it and it won't bother you. I tend to not use air in my car or I try not to be indoors a long period of time (stores and what not) so that my body doesn't get used to 30 degree coolness. A lot of people live in areas that are hotter than ours and survive fine without fans and airconditioning. :)

Answer 6

Use a fan, dehumidifier and ice cubes.  And drink more plain water.

You might think this sounds silly, but I do it. My housemates ****** about the heat, I just go grab some ice cubes from the refrigerator and use them to keep me cool. The fan pushes air past my ice cubes that I keep in a bowl and keeps me cool.  I also rub some on me. The dehumidifier gets rid of excesss moisture the cubes produce

All of this is much less expensive than using an air conditioner. Air conditioners use a tremendous amount of energy and are expensive to use. Not only that, it is air conditioners that put a tremendous strain on resources and electric grids during the summer when everyone wants to use them

Answer 7

then it is badly designed ,

Ever heard of permaculture ,the designers manual offers many designs to make hot houses cool, and cool houses hot

What you basically need is a hole in one of the lower walls on the side of the house that is the coolest and in the shade ,the hole must be a low as possible and you screen it of with chicken wire or a wire mesh is better ,to stop mice coming in ,

the air is the coolest at ground level.

if you put some plants infront of the hole, that you keep watered , it will even more cool the air that enters ,(cold air sinks to the bottom)

Then in the highest part of the house you make another hole ,mabe a zink chimney with a hat on it (to stop the rain from getting in )

the chimney heats up in the sun

the hot air moves upwards (it always does).

and so pulls the air beneath upwards and out ,like a pump

this is also how you remove smells from an out house.

A draft is created ,with hot air leaving at the top and cold air entering the house.

This is standard in most tropical house design.

You can also heat up houses ,with design ,but that is another story.

In a rented place you would have to confer with the owners ,but you would be improving the house ,at very little cost .

furrher more, stop the sun from hitting the house or entering the windows ,with trellises that have vines around the house or trees,

In emergensies ,you hang a wet cloth in front of an open window, where there is wind coming in ,and as the cloth dries the incoming air is cooled .

This is how you cool beer in the woods ,a wet cloth bag with the beer hanging in the wind .

but you must keep wetting the cloth .

You can even make a water fridge ,by building a toilet sized room ,with holes all around

(so the bricks are laid leaving gaps between each)

  ,these hole you fill up with charcoal,or better still clinkers from a large furnace.

Put chicken wire around to keep the charcoal in,and one side mosquito netting ,for insects and mice ,

And have a water drip system on the top of the walls which keeps the wall wet ,and the room can go as low as 8 degrees centigrade ,for keeping meat ,eggs ,butter cheese etc.

Just use a plastic hosepipe ,prick a few small holes in it with a small nail ,about one hole to each wall ,conect to a tap and keep the tap almost closed ,so a very little water comes out .

These are Environmental cooling systems ,with out using technowlegy ,but just using design

for more info read ,

the permaculture Design Manual by Bill Mollison about 40 dollars ,

here are some links on permaculture

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE d**n SPELCHECK ,yAHOO IS REALLY GETTING CHEAP.

Answer 8

Use the fan but not the air conditioner. Air conditioners use about 10 times more power than fans. But fans do not cool the air, they only cool people by enhancing the rate of heat loss by evaporation of perspiration from your body. If there is nobody to feel the draft of the fan it is doing no good and should be turned off. Do not run a fan in an empty room.

Answer 9

open your windows

Answer 10

Well you can take cool bathes, that's for you, open your windows at night its cooler then and cool air will come into your apt.  but it may not be a safe way , depends on where you are and who lives with you.  Long ago the Egyptians grew lots of vegetation, which helped to cool off.  Keep yourself hydrated if hot enough you will sweat and sweating cools your body off.  Sorry not aware of anything else to cool off your apt. if I was I would use it where I live.

Answer 11

Ask your landlord to replace the roofing with a highly reflective, durable, white metal roof.  Ask him or her to look for a metal coating with as high a solar reflectance index as possible (the index only goes from zero=black to one=white, so any index over 0.8 is great.  Too much expense for the landlord?  Ask him or her to install a radiant barrier.  There are lots of ways to do that (search the net), but one of the easiest and least expensive is to paint the underside of the roof deck in the attic with a radiant barrier paint formulated for the attic installation.  The attic paint does not have to be applied thick, in fact, it's best effective when it's thick enough to see, but it's still easy to see the grain and color of the roof deck, too.  Have your landlord install a solar-powered attic fan.   Sounds like you are south of the equator.  Check the  book I suggest below.  You might be able to identify what kind of houses and buildings would be cooler than others without having to resort to air conditioning.  If your current rental is hopelessly too hot, hopefully you can move into a place easier to cool.

Answer 12

You can have my step mother- she's a bucket of ice any time she comes over.