10 Ways to Stay Cool Without Electricity
If you’ve ever had the power go out at your home during the summer, you know exactly how hot and miserable it can get in a short amount of time. Losing electricity can cause tempers to flare up, and there’s not much relief that you can seek in the meantime. Something’s going to have to give, because even you may lose it at some point. Here are some ways to stay cool without electricity.
Ways to Stay Cool Without Electricity
While taking a cold shower will briefly help, or leaving your home for a few hours may be of some improvement to you, at some point, you’ll have to return to the heat and mugginess of your home. Fortunately for you, there are still a bunch of ways that you can try to keep cool in your home, even when flipping on your air conditioner is no longer a solution. These are ten ways to stay cool even without electricity.
1. Seal Any Leaks in Your Home
Sealing the leaks in your home, especially around your doors and windows, will keep the hot temperatures out. Wherever you notice air coming in around those areas, use caulk and weather stripping to tackle the job. This step needs to be done long before your electricity ever goes out because you’re already going to have enough other things to worry about.
2. Hang Heat Blocking Curtains
Blockout curtains that are thermal insulated will do a good job keeping heat out, but if you specifically get heat blocking curtains, you’ll notice even more of a difference. But I get it, buying this type of curtains for every room in your house will cost a decent amount of money. If you’re in a pinch and needing a way to save yourself money with this tip, here’s how to make your very own heat blocking curtains while spending less.
3. Purchase Battery-Powered Fans
You’re going to want some type of fan action in your home when you’ve lost your electricity, especially when your ceiling or plug-in fans become entirely useless. By purchasing a battery-powered fan, you’ll have a cooling solution to help your family tolerate the heat. This example is just one type of battery-powered fan that you can get that does a great job. Also, having more than one battery-powered fan will be worth investing in to help cool more than one room of your house.
4. Buy Some Travel Fans
Maybe you want a fan that you can carry with you to stay cool? There are traveling fans that may be worn around your neck. There are also ones that fit in your pocket and can be pulled out to use anytime. Traveling fans run on fewer batteries than larger battery-operated fans, and will also cost you a lot less too! I’d suggest that you get each of your family members one or the other based on their personal preference.
5. Create Your Own Solar Powered Air Conditioner
Here’s a fun survival project for you that’s not only easy to do, but quite effective. For hardly any money at all, you can create your own solar-powered air conditioner. The fan that you will be using does require the sun, which won’t do you much good on a cloudy day, but on those days you could also use a battery-powered fan as I mentioned earlier.
6. Put on a Wet Bandana
By covering your neck and your head with a cool wet bandana, you’ll be able to lower your body’s temperature by a few degrees. Just that much can make all the difference. You could also try filling up a water bottle with cool water and spraying your arms and your legs as well. I love Frogg Toggs Chilly Pads, you soak them with water and they cool you instantly. Wet them again, you are cooled down again. Another one is called Mission Neck Gaiters, you wet them and they cool you down about 30 degrees. We use these all over in the desert.
Last year my husband went with friends to play golf in Scottsdale, AZ in August. Crazy time of year to play golf there. It was typical to walk off the course in the early to mid-afternoon and realize it was 114 degrees. They wore these neck cooling scarfs that they dipped in water every hole or two, it made all the difference in the world!
7. Avoid Sleeping Upstairs
As you probably already know, heat rises. For some of you, this can be a bummer because most of your family’s bedrooms or your apartment are located upstairs. During a power outage, the best place for your family to sleep is on the main floor or basement, where it’s not nearly as warm. For those of you in an upstairs apartment, I feel for you. Hopefully, there may be a breeze that could help if you opened a window or two, particularly at night (see below).
8. Open Your Windows at Night
While you most certainly want to keep your windows closed during the day, opening them up at night could bring in some cooler temperatures into your home. Just be sure that you close them as soon as the sun starts to come up in the morning, unless there are some helpful breezes to help out.
Your bedroom may not be the best place to sleep during a power outage. Try to sleep somewhere in your house that’s between two open windows. This will have a cross-breeze effect and help circulate cooler air into your home. You could also try hanging damp sheets over the windows as well. This will allow you to cool your home as the water starts to evaporate.
9. Close Off Warmest Rooms
It won’t be hard to spot the hottest rooms in your house. They are located on the side where the sun spends most of the day, oftentimes that involves the rooms on the west side. These rooms will be stiflingly hot and stuffy. Go ahead and close off all of these rooms and then place a bath towel at the bottom to keep any heat from coming through. Try to keep these rooms closed off as much as possible until your electricity comes back on.
10. Don’t Cook Inside
For those with a gas stove, I’d strongly encourage you not to cook with it unless you’re using it early in the morning or later on at night. But if you do, you’ll notice a difference in the temperature of your home in just a few minutes. If you happen to have a camp stove or other emergency cooking device, it would be best to cook with it somewhere in the shade outside.
Ways to Stay Cool Without Electricity
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Final Word
These are ten ways to stay cool without electricity, but I’d also recommend that you wear light, loose-fitting clothes to help in the meantime. Remember, if it’s still too hot inside, nobody will know if you’re walking around the house with nothing but a swimsuit. What are some other ways to stay cool without electricity? I’d love to hear from you. May God Bless this world, Linda.
Copyright Images: Pink Portable Fan AdobeStock_212845954 by damrong
Camp out on the porch. It’ll always cool down quicker outside
Hi Matt, yes!! We can all do that!! Great reminder! Linda
Sleep in my RV powering the air conditioner from my Honda 3KW inverter generator and have plenty extra gasoline on hand for the generator. LOL!
Hi Harry, NOW we’re talking, life is so good when you have an RV with air conditioning!! I love it! Honda generators are the best!! Linda
We installed an attic fan in our house. Not especially good for day time, but great for night time. I’m in the process of putting darkening film on our south windows to cut down on the sunlight. We also have window blinds and dark curtains on the windows. I’ve already put it on the East window in the kitchen. It does cut down on the sunlight. I can’t see if the light is on during the day, but haven’t checked it at night yet. I did also put into the west bathroom window for privacy.
Hi Deborah, oh yeah, we just had an attic fan installed last fall. We had some sunlight screens put on our windows that paid for themselves within 6 months about ten years ago. They block a lot of the heat on some of the west-facing windows. Every little bit helps with cutting our electric bill and if we lose power in the summer. Whatever helps we must do before we need it if we lose power. Linda
I have a couple of those neck things – I think they are called “Kool Necks” – not really sure as I have had them for several years. You simply soak them in water and when it is hot out, you tie one around your neck. It will keep you cooler for hours.
One other thing that I did when I was working construction in Arizona – I wore thermal underwear!!! Sounds counter-productive but what it did was soak up the sweat and in turn, kept me cooler than without. Sometimes the temperature was 110F but with the thermal underwear, I was cooler than that! I thought at first that it was ridiculous but it worked and in 2 ways – 1) kept me cooler and 2) prevented me from sunburn through my clothing. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Staying well hydrated with water and other hydrating fluids is a must as well.
Hi Leanne, I’m going to tell Mark this, he golfs in 110-degree weather! Oh my gosh!! Yes, those deals work great when we wet them, they really do cool people down, re-wet then dry out and you are cool again. I have a bucket of them for people who visit here. They are not used to the heat, so I let them use them and it helps keep them cool. I just wash them between guests. I live in the desert and it gets hot here! Great comment, Linda
When I was a kid at my gramma’s house, we each had a hot water bottle that we kept in the fridge in the daytime and then at night put a cloth over them and placed them on the backs of our necks for sleeping. That cools the blood going to the brain first and that’s kinda why the gaiters work so well too, cooling the head (which is a natural radiator) is key. This worked great, and over the years when we were in situations where we needed to cool down, we did the same. It really made a difference…and since the bottle was dry on the outside, bedding and etc. didn’t get wet over say using a gaiter or a wet cloth.
Hi Debbie, I like this idea with the water bottle! It makes sense!! Thank you, Linda