Updated: 13/11/20

How to Cool Down a Room

Heatwaves can be extremely uncomfortable for many people. The warm months are quite harrowing in the UK. Most climate activists suggest that the excessive rise in temperatures is due to an unprecedented increase in global warming. Since climate control is a collective effort, you can do your bit to help keep your home fresh, without adding too much strain to the environment. 

While it would be amazing to crank up the air conditioner all the time, the resultant increase in the electricity bill can be disturbing. You can use other methods to keep the house cool and comfortable for more extended periods without adding to your monthly light bill. There are fans, blinds, smartly used doors, and other such tricks that you can employ instead. 

Prudent use of the portable air conditioner is an added advantage and should be used only if the heat becomes too unbearable. Sleep becomes trickier, and the resultant hot air in the room can cause breathing issues for children and elderly citizens. 

Let us look at ways to cool a room down and help you get a restful sleep at night.

Improve the Curtains and Insulation

Insulation is useful for the heat and also for trapping the cold. Most homes in the UK have sheer curtains in living rooms and bedrooms for added aesthetics. While these look exceedingly pretty, they also allow hot air to seep into your house. Heavy curtains or blinds help reduce the amount of heat entering the room from the windows. If the rooms in your home get a lot of sunshine during sunrise or sunset, you could draw the curtains and ensure that the rays of the sun do not heat up the air in the room. Doing this will prevent the temperature of the room from rising unnecessarily, and keep the rooms cool at all times. 

Quiet Fans

Most people use fans throughout their homes. However, a quiet pedestal or countertop fan can gently decrease the temperature of the room by circulating cold air. Fans are predominantly used to ensure that the room does not lose out on circulation while keeping the air dynamic. Stale air can lead to stillness and stuffiness. When the room becomes stuffy, the temperature of the room rises and causes sweat to break out. The rotation of a ceiling fan or a pedestal fan creates a slight wind chill effect and reduces temperatures so that you do not need to adjust the thermostat in the house. Ensuring you have a quiet fan in the room helps prevent stillness, stuffiness, and noise pollution. It also helps elderly citizens, children, and pets breathe easily and freely.

Change the Lightbulbs

CFL light bulbs use less energy than incandescent bulbs and reduce the resultant temperature of the room. Old fashioned incandescent bulbs are energy-consuming and give off a lot of heat. CFLs use nearly 70% less energy and do not increase the temperature in the room since they do not heat up during use. They also last much longer than regular light bulbs. LED light bulbs also last nearly 25 times longer than regular bulbs and give off 80% less energy. Changing the bulbs to energy-efficient ones helps reduce the heat, trap the cold, and helps save money in the electricity bill. 

Clean the Air Conditioner

Many people prefer keeping the air conditioner on during the night. If this is a regular occurrence in your home, cleaning the filters and performing a quick maintenance service on the air conditioners can also cool the room down quickly. Air conditioner filters, once clogged, reduce the cooling of the room, and can lead to an increasing in the heat. Cleaning the filter helps condition the air quickly, and also helps decrease the electricity bill. When the air conditioner filter is clogged, it tends to use more energy to clean, filter, and process the air before releasing it into the room again. The same principle applies to portable air conditioners. Cleaning the filter thoroughly per month will help keep the room cool and save money in the long term. 

General Home Maintenance

Before the summer months start, you should do general maintenance around the house like sealing off any cracks around the doors and windows, outfitting all windows with reflective film, and add insulation to the attic. You could also add an attic ventilator to direct all the hot air out. Poor attic insulation accounts for nearly 25% energy loss in UK homes. The reflective film helps light to enter the room, but just enough to keep the heat out. Weatherstripping or caulking and sealing up cracks around doors and windows also helps trap the cold air inside.