Summer in the Kansas City area can be beautiful. The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. But summer in Olathe also brings with it extreme heat and high humidity that can make things uncomfortable both indoors and out. While we can’t do much about the heat and humidity outside the house, your friendly neighborhood HVAC service company is happy to share some unique tips to help keep your home cool during the sweltering summer months.
Of course, while these tips can help to offer some reprieve from the scorching summer heat, they aren’t a substitute for a well-maintained HVAC system. To keep your house cool and your air conditioner running at peak performance throughout the summer, you’ll want to get regular maintenance from an Olathe heating and cooling professional, like the ones at Davenport Service Company. In the meantime, let’s check out those brilliant tips.
1. Cotton and Linen are Your Friends. Lightweight, breathable materials such as cottons and linens are ideal for summertime—and they aren’t just for clothes! Select them for your bedding and anything else that might help you stay cool during the hot summer months.
2. Hang Damp Towels. Long before we had air conditioners, people already knew this simple trick to help keep cool. In fact, it goes back as far as ancient Egypt! Water helps to cool down the surrounding air as it evaporates, so you can lower the temperature by simply draping a damp towel in front of a window or even over the back of a chair.
3. Block Out the Sun with Outdoor Umbrellas or Shades. Odds are, you probably already have a big umbrella hanging around outside: the one that’s attached to your patio table. Use it and any other large, outdoor shades to block sunlight from the sunniest areas of your home, such as your east- and west-facing windows, and watch your temperatures drop. Just remember to take them down in the event of severe weather, which is also fairly common in summertime.
4. Hydrate Your Houseplants. You aren’t the only one who can get overheated in a Kansas summer. Your houseplants need plenty of water as the mercury rises. There’s a silver lining, though. Remember how those damp towels could help cool down the house via evaporation? As the water that you put on your plants evaporates, it will help keep the house cool, too! That way, everyone is happy!
5. Optimize Your Fridge and Freezer. Your air conditioner works hard during a hot summer day. Your refrigerator and freezer do, too. Fortunately, you can help them work a little less hard by making sure that they’re well-stocked. Both work better when they’re full. What’s more, this will help keep the rest of your house cooler, too, as a fridge that doesn’t have to work as hard also doesn’t generate as much heat from its motor.
6. Put a Bowl of Ice in Front of a Fan. This is basically a homemade air conditioner. The ice is cold, obviously, and it releases that cold into the air as it melts. Then, the fan blows across that cooler air, distributing it throughout the room.
7. Place a Fan Outside the Bathroom Door. If you’re a fan of taking hot showers, even during the summer months, you probably already know that all that warm steam will raise the humidity and temperature of the whole area, not just the bathroom. Unfortunately, that hot, humid air has a habit of lingering, especially in the summer. Consider putting a fan outside of the bathroom door before you shower. As it runs, it can help to circulate and disperse all that hot air more quickly.
8. Reduce Humidity with Dehumidifiers. “It isn’t the heat; it’s the humidity.” How many times have you heard that? Well, you’ve heard it a lot because it’s true. Higher humidity makes your home feel hotter. Unfortunately, we get a lot of humid, muggy days in Kansas during July and August. A dehumidifier can help knock that humidity out of the air and keep your home feeling more comfortable.
9. Build a DIY “Swamp Cooler.” Have you seen these posts on social media already? A “swamp cooler,” also known as an evaporative cooler, is something that you can build with just a few household items. In fact, it’s not that different from the fan and the bowl of ice we mentioned before. All you have to do is put some ice and water in a pan or large bowl. Drape a towel over it, and let part of the towel dip into the water. Set all of that in front of a fan, and you get a longer-lasting version of the fan-and-ice trick. These have gotten more popular with the advent of social media, and you can find numerous websites and YouTube videos that will walk you through the process step by step.
10. Optimize Your Air Conditioner. Okay, this one is nothing new, but the best thing that you can do to keep your house cool through a sweltering Olathe summer is to make sure that your air conditioner is up to the challenge. The best way to do that is to get a professional tune-up from Davenport, your hometown HVAC service company. A well-maintained air conditioner that has been inspected, cleaned, and repaired (if needed) should not only be up to the task of keeping your house cool all summer long, it will be ready to do so in the most energy-efficient (and therefore cost-effective) way possible.
Here at Davenport Service Company, we know the challenges that your HVAC system faces during a hot Kansas summer. That’s why we always offer the very best in air conditioner repair, maintenance, and—if the worst should happen—replacement. If you want to keep your family cool this summer while also enjoying peace of mind and an unbeatable price, it’s time to call the Olathe heating and cooling professionals at Davenport Service Company at 913-441-2222 today!
