Take steps to keep home cool as temperatures rise

With this summer’s weather staying consistently hot for the longest time since 2013, Your Home offers advice on how to keep your home cool

With temperatures outside soaring, the heat inside the home can become unbearable. With this in mind, below we’ve compiled a list of ways to keep your house cool without spending a fortune on air con, both long and short term. Investing in a good pair of dim-out blinds or black-out curtains is a great way of keeping the heat out of the home. A good set of window coverings will prevent sunlight from warming up the inside of your house, much like it would a greenhouse. Better still, invest in a pair of thermal energy-saving blinds, structured to keep the home cool in the summer and warm in the winter, saving money on energy bills.

For the ultimate in control you can adjust some electric blinds from work or anywhere in the world with your phone. When the sun starts to rise during the day, an automated electric blind can be adjusted at the tap on an app and will close or open your blinds from anywhere. These blinds can also be integrated with the latest home assistant gadgets from Google and Amazon.

Installing concrete or stone flooring into your home is a great way to insulate your home, as it stays cool during the summer months but also retains heat during winter. It can be installed anywhere in your house and can actually be styled to give a rustic feel. It can also be used for counters, sinks and others appliances around the home to maximise its use.

It’s a common misconception that insulation is used purely to heat the home, and keep it warm during the winter period. Whilst it does serve to insulate the home to keep it warm, insulation also serves to keep the heat out, so is certainly worth having if only to save on energy bills. You should have a com- pletely different set of bedding for summer than you use in the winter. First of all, ditch the chunky duvet you’ve been using to keep yourself warm, and opt for a lightweight one instead. Alternatively, take the duvet out of the cover and just sleep with the cover on. If your sheets are not already cotton, make sure that they are now, and swap your pillows up for buckwheat ones, as these don’t absorb heat so will keep your head cooler.

As well as changing up your bedding for when the summertime comes, there are some tricks you can try before going to bed that might help to keep you cool. Place your sheets in the freezer inside a plastic bag just before you go to sleep, and it will provide you with a cool bed just before you drop off. Similarly, slightly dampening your sheets before bedtime will have the same effect, and is supposedly a method pioneered by the Egyptians.

It might be tempting to open all of your blinds and windows at the first sight of sun to cool the house down, but this can actually have the opposite of the desired effect. Instead, open your windows at night to let the cool evening air in, but keep them closed during the heat of the day, as it will just let warm air in. Consider keeping some blinds shut to limit the sunlight coming in, but change which are open during the day with the movement of the sun. If you do feel the need to open windows during the day, try opening them at opposite ends of the house, as this can create a sort of wind tunnel and lets a breeze in.

Fans are a great way of keeping yourself and your house cool, but used in the wrong way might end up just blowing warm air around the place. Top tips for using fans to cool the house down include keeping them low down, blowing air upwards. This is because heat rises, so the lower down the fan is the cooler the air it will be blowing. Another easy trick is to put a bowl of ice, or something similar that would imitate the effect, in front of a fan, and it will blow lusciously cold air around, at least until the ice melts. Appliances in the house give off a whole lot of heat, so when they’re not in use make sure to turn them off, lest you give more heat to the house. Similarly, lights give off heat as well, so try to avoid using them during hot spells, or consider using low-energy bulbs, as these give off less warmth. As well as keeping the use of appliances to a minimum, consider not using the oven as this will create extra heat that can make your kitchen unbearably hot.

Modern glass is designed to perform by keeping the room cool or warm in winter. Over the years, grime and dirt build up and impede the performance of the glass. A conservatory valet can bring window glass back to its sparking best and will also help to regain its thermal performance.

BREEZE: A carefully placed fan will provide refreshing cool air