When the temperatures start to rise and summer arrives, keeping your home as cool as possible is a major concern. Everyone wants to feel comfortable and relaxed in their own home. However, when the scorching summer weather comes, it can leave your home feeling anything but comfortable and relaxing. Unfortunately, a home that feels too hot can be more than just an inconvenience. Rising indoor temperatures can become a health risk, especially if you have vulnerable people living at your property. So, monitoring the temperature inside your home is a must to ensure that everyone stays safe and healthy.
As the summer starts to edge ever closer, it’s wise to start thinking about how you can keep your home cool when temperatures begin rising. For many people, the summer has already arrived by the time they start to think about keeping their homes cool. By this point, the mercury has probably been rising for a while, which means that the warm weather supplies you need to lower the temperature in your home have probably already been bought up by over local residents. This means that if you are to beat the heat, you need to get a headstart and begin your preparations early.
In this blog post, you will find tips to help inspire your summer-readiness preparations and provide ideas to keep your home cool and comfortable.
Check Your Air Conditioning Unit
Just because your air conditioner managed to hold its own against the summer heat last year doesn’t mean that it’s capable of doing the same this year. The last thing you want is to get to the first truly hot day of the year and find that your air conditioning is no longer working. You are then left without air conditioning and the struggle of attempting to find an engineer to come out of repair your AC during one of the busiest times of the year. To avoid this situation, it’s advisable to take action now.
If your air conditioning unit is coming to the end of its life, it may be worth getting an AC replacement now so that you can depend on it to work effectively right through the summer. Having a new air conditioning system installed can make a huge difference to the comfort levels in your home, and you will probably be surprised by just how efficient and effective a newer AC unit is.
Once you have had your new AC unit installed, it’s essential to keep up with regular servicing and maintenance. The better you maintain the AC unit and the more you stick with regular servicing, the longer it will last, and the better it will perform.
Insulate Your Property
Insulating a property is something that’s often spoken about during the winter months. However, insulation isn’t just designed to keep the cold weather out of your home and the warmth inside, it also works the other way around. Insulating your property can help to keep the hot outside air from traveling inside, and also keeps the cool air generated by your air conditioning system within your property.
There are many ways to improve your home’s insulation. The first is to check the insulation in your loft. When your attic insulation is poor, it means that all the cool air that your air conditioning has worked hard to product can be lost and simply escape through the roof of your home. This means that your air conditioning is under increased pressure to continually work harder just to maintain a constant temperature in your home. So, the first step to working on your home’s insulation is to check that you have loft insulation, and that you aren’t losing your cool air through your roof.
Fix Air Leaks
Have you spotted gaps in the sealant around your window, or noticed cracks in your front door? If so, they’re likely to be letting your precious cool air escape your home and allowing the heat from outside to seep inside. Identifying the gaps and cracks and taking steps to fix them is another small change that can really help to keep your home cooler in the summer.
You could use caulk or weatherstripping to repair the gaps, so this is a pretty quick job to complete. The bonus of weatherizing your home in this way is that it’s helpful at all times of the year. So, in the winter, it will help to keep warm air generated by your heating inside your home.
Dress Your Windows for Summer
Even with all your home’s cracks sealed amd adequate insulation, it can still become extremely hot throughout the day. This is because sunlight streaming through your windows can heat your home up like an oven. Anyone sitting in the direct glare of the sun is likely to feel uncomfortably hot.
If you have blinds or drapes, you may have already tried closing them at times when the sun is shining through especially powerfully. However, it’s actually better to keep your drapes or blinds closed throughout the day in the summer. This can provide some relief from the sun shining through your windows and heating up your rooms.
It’s important to note that there’s only so much that regular drapes or blinds can do to keep the heat out of your rooms. To get maximum effectiveness, you need to introduce blackout blinds or drapes. These window treatments will help work hard to block out the sun, and prevent its heat entering through your window glass.
Add Some Shade
Working on dressing your windows for summer is a must if you are to prevent the sun’s glare from heating up your home. However, you can also take action from the outside to keep your home cooler in the summer.
Focusing on adding some shade outside your home can make a big difference when you’re trying to keep the heat out. One fast and effective way to introduce some shade is to have awnings installed above your windows. Awnings provide a really effective way to shade your windows from the sun’s direct glare, and can also make an attractive addition to your home.
Shade sails are another option to consider. Having a shade sail installed on the rear of your property will prevent direct sunlight flooding your back door and windows. A shade sail can also provide a helpful cover which allows you to spend a little time outdoors without being exposed directly to the sun’s powerful rays.
Switch Your Light Bulbs
Looking for small ways to reduce the temperature inside your home can help to make a big difference when combined. One other small way to help keep your home cooler is to consider changing your light bulbs.
If you’re still using incandescent light bulbs in your home, you may have noticed that when you’re close to them, they give off a lot of heat. As well as making your home warmer, incandescent light bulbs also cost you more to run and will increase your electricity bill. Switching to energy-saving light bulbs will not only help to lower your electricity costs, but will also help keep your home cooler as they don’t give off excessive heat.
Final Thoughts
Living in a home that’s too hot in summer can be an incredibly uncomfortable experience. So, taking small steps to reduce the temperature in your home, such as checking your air conditioning and, if needed, getting it replaced before the summer, can help you to feel fully prepared when the heat arrives.
