Beat the Heat with These Fast and Easy Cooling Tricks to do at Home

It's the middle of summer, and temperatures are getting hotter. Across the country, heat waves are causing an awful lot of issues for many families.

The kids can't play outdoors because the sun is too harsh. In some homes, indoors don't feel very inviting unless someone turns on the air conditioning. But when the cost of energy bills is also increasing, it may not be practical to keep the air conditioning on 24/7.

So, if you can't stand the heat, do these fast and easy cooling tricks, without the extra cost, to maintain a tolerable atmosphere inside your house.

1. Use bowls of ice and a fan.

Working on a desk or cooking in the kitchen? Set a desk or table fan, and then prop up a bowl full of ice in front of it. Let the fan blow into the bowl. Feel the cool air's relief on your skin as the ice melts.

2. Try a cross breeze.

Cross breeze or cross ventilation is a simple and less expensive process of cooling a room without air conditioning. According to Den Garden, this neat trick maximizes the relationship between the cold and heat.

To do this, you need to open two windows across from each other. Place one fan by the window facing inward to draw out the cooler air, then place another fan by the window across facing outward to draw out the hot air.

3. Replace the lightbulbs.

Ninety percent of the energy generated by incandescent light bulbs is heat energy. Thus, Litetronics recommends using lower-watt bulbs to reduce the heat in a room. Using LED bulbs is also fine but prepare to spend a few extra dollars because this can be expensive.

4. When not in use, turn off appliances that produce heat.

Cool down a room faster by turning off or disconnecting heat-producing appliances. Just make sure that these aren't the refrigerator or freezer. If you like using the oven, consider switching to an outdoor griller for cooking this season to avoid turning the house into an incubator. Remember, the heat from the kitchen oven can emanate into other rooms; thus, it can become uncomfortably hot.

Reader's Digest suggests baking or using the washing machine at night when it's cooler.

5. Sleep on the lowest level of the house.

Hot air rises and floats upward because its molecules are less dense than cold air. If it's too uncomfortable to sleep in the upstairs bedroom, consider moving to the lowest level of the house for the night. If you live in a one-story house, set the mattress on the floor.

6. Close the drapes.

If the sun seeps through your window in the daytime, the heat will linger until night. So, close the drapes or blinds during the day to allow the room to cool down faster when the sun goes down. The air outside will likely be hot, so it's not the breeze you'll want to have inside the house.