Ask Lemmy

As a northern Canadian, I kinda chuckle at the need for an air conditioner. Of course, my punishment in winter.

Close on the sunny side during the day. If the air on the shadow side is cooler, less humid or same as inside, open that side. If your home is more humid or hot than the sunny side, close it just enough to prevent sun ray for entering.

If the heat is not also damp, put wet clothes next to windows or fan for natural refreshment. You can also spray water on your curtain.

Wear natural fiber, coton or lint. Loose clothes, that does cover you body. This way, the evaporation of sweat cools you down. You will also smell much less than if you are wearing synthetic fibers.

Wash your feet, your face, your forarm with water regularly. Do not use cold water, room-temperature or fresh is better but go all the way to the articulation (ankle, elbow), wash inside and outside and let the water dry on you.

Drink small amount of water regularly. Once again not cold.

Keet your heat cover when you expose yourself to the sun. When you get home change out of your clothes that were heated by the sun.

Do not over exercice.

There kind of.. isn't. I've been battling heat with extreme prejudice my entire life. MAYBE the closest thing to a solution is to drink lots of ice water and then hopefully you're not one of those people who can't sleep if its hot (i am).

Try to "store" as much "cold" as possible. i.e. if you have a half working a/c unit, run it at 100% at night and once the temperatures get as low as they're going to get, close all the windows, cover the windows, unplug fridge or whatever is producing heat you can afford to shut down and maybe if you're lucky it will be around 1 or 2 pm before it heats up to utter bullshit temperatures.

If you have a way to get unlimited free ice (IMPORTANT: and NOT from the fridge in the living space you are trying to cool), you can use that to cool things down in the evening when everything is the hottest. If you have to buy the ice, just buy a ac unit because it will pay for itself in no time. And if you're doing this because you can't afford the electricity, maybe see about wiring up a solar panel and battery which, again, will pay for itself if you could've afforded to literally buy bags of ice every day. And if you're doing this to protect the environment, get a ac unit that doesn't contain ozone-layer destroying coolant (i.e. most of them). Buying ice for cooling is incredibly inefficient.

You can also take the ice-based cooling strategy further. Get a bucket. A fan. A big radiator (you need quantity(sq area) not quality, get a shitty heater core one and not a pc watercooling one). A pc watercooling pump. Some tubing, along with whatever barb fittings and pipe clamps you need. Make it so that the radiator is sitting in front of a fan while having water from the bucket being pumped through it. Add your ice to the bucket. This system will dump the "cold" from the ice into the room as quickly as possible, MUCH quicker than just setting the ice in front of a fan to melt by itself. If you actually have a truly unlimited source of ice this will provide nearly the same amount of cooling (while the ice is fresh at least) as an actual window ac unit. I do this irl sometimes and usually keep one mostly set up and ready to go just in case my a/c stops working.

It's going to take time to find a cheap or free radiator if you're living like this for financial reasons but bending some copper tubing around the fan also works decently. If you buy it at the hardware store its likely going to come coiled up in a box and already in the perfect shape for this.

At a certain point, obtaining the amount of ice you need to maintain this becomes a problem. If you REALLY don't want to buy an ac unit at this point as maybe some kind of personal challenge or whatever, its time to science the shit out of it. Get a refrigerator. Put it outside, as leaving it inside will dump heat into the room defeating the purpose. Mod a bucket into the fridge and run 2 tubes out of it: an input and an output. Run this tubing into your living space somehow and into the radiator and the fan. You could alternatively put the fridge inside and find a way to attach a duct to the back of it to vent air outside which is may be more convenient depending on your living situation. Congratulations. You've built an a/c unit without technically actually building an a/c unit. Maybe in some countries this helps for tax purposes. I've never tried going this far with it before saying fuck it and getting an a/c unit so post pics if you do.

I put foil insulation on some of my bigger windows in the summer. Especially southern facing windows (in northern hemisphere). That mixed with tons of fans and the occasional cold towel when needed helps tremendously.

Didn't say if you own the home or not, but if so:

Mind it's only hot for 2-4 months out of the year for me, so I have a winterized attic fan. Just means I'm not losing heat in the winter and paid a little more to buy it. You can just get a regular attic fan if it's never or rarely cold where you live.

You leave windows open, but now there's negative pressure from pushing air out the attic where a lot of the heat is trapped and sucking in air from outside even if there's no breeze. I leave the attic access hole open when it's running. The rare day I still use a Window A/C to sleep.

move to Alaska?

Curtains are a god send. Make sure you have them to isolate things coming into and out of your house. So have a curtain to isolate your entry way. That way the heat stays there. Same things at the stairs so you can keep the cool in the baseline while you stay there

Also to note that depending on your house and the outside temp its not worthwhile to open the windows at night. But generally it is better. Make sure you have a fan in the window blowing the hot air out as well. Its best if its upstairs to draw the cool air in.

Get a box fan and a coil of copper pipe, run the coil all around the front of the box fan like a snake going back and forth, on the top end of the pipe attach a box for icewater, and a bucket to catch the outflow.

Put an adjustable valve at the end going into the drain bucket and let it dribble a bit. You'll have to adjust it to get the longest cold air time/least having to get up to empty the valve

It's not super efficient but it's cheap and can be made with parts in the garage

You'll need a lot of ice tho

I've been getting by just fine with a couple standing fans. I've had to turn the ACS on a couple times for my kids when I was around 110F

Before going full blast AC in all the rooms I'll turn on the big Window unit in the living room and set up fans so it blows the cold air through the whole house (our house isn't big) and I find its a good middle ground. It cools down the rooms pretty well.

Hot showers at night or when you’re feeling extremely overheated. Trust me, that’s way better than cold showers. First shower warm, then get soapy, and then shower as hot as you feel comfortable. I do this for over 10 years now and it’s amazing. My theory is that it heats up the body and due to the outside being cooler, it actually cools your body down - albeit 35°C. By the way I shower with ~42°C regular lol

If you own the place or can get permission, a mini-split air conditioner is very easy to install with minimal tools, and they're pretty affordable online.

For under 500 buck including drill and bits you could have AC in a few days. It's not free, but it's a huge quality of life improvement.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/O2COOL-Deluxe-Handheld-Battery-Powered-Water-Misting-Fan-Pink-New-3-7-inch-by-10-6-inch/266174408?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&selectedOfferId=E796AF3D453545CEA73408F9E18C74C5&conditionGroupCode=1

I am fortunate to have moved to a climate where the heat is less severe and when it is hot it tends to be dry-ish. My house does not have AC so we put a big exhaust fan on the top floor and crack a window downstairs. Works so far, but we have some small portable AC units for the bedrooms just in case we need them.