Beat the Heat -- Ban Hot Appliances

Once you've cooled your casa with fans, the last thing you want to do is heat it up again. Beat the heat week continues with another tip for staying cool.

Tip #4: Ban Hot Appliances

It sounds simple, but it's easy to forget that many household appliances create heat. Make sure you've unplugged all of your vampire appliances and avoid using heat producers such as the oven and the dryer.

• Let the sun work for you--dry your clothes outside on the line.
• Ditch the blow dryer--find a hairstyle that'll look great without the hot air blast.
• Place the oven on summer vacation--opt for raw foods or downsize to a toaster oven.

Need to use a hot appliance? Close the door and switch the window fan to reverse mode to draw the hot air outside.

Have you triumphed over summer heat? Share your tips!

Comments

[ABW]

Actually using a self-cleaning oven, because of its insulation, probably releases less heat in the kitchen than a toaster oven, at least mine does. My toaster oven "toasts" anything within three feet of it.

[steve limbach]

Summer is a great time to also remember the outdoor gas grill ! You can grill, cook, heat-up just about anything that you can with your kitchen range/oven and have the added benefits of that "grilled" taste, cooking outside and not heating the interior of your home !!
P.S. You can use the clothesline into the late fall and even winter for drying clothes ! Low humidity plus Sunshine works in fairly cold weather as well as summer heat !

[Susan Kraber]

To cool my house, I put the fan on intake in front of the open windows at night so the house is filled with cool air. Then, since I have light-colored window shades that filter the incoming light, I leave them down during the day to keep the house cooler. Although I've had a few uncomfortable weeks this summer, most of the time it's been great.

[Claire Chambers]

1.) If you line the bottom of your oven with foil, you never have to use the oven cleaner mode which uses tons of energy. Just replace the foil when it gets too bad. The oven bottom underneath will be stay just like new.

Use a flat window fan in your kitchen window to suck the heat, grease, and odors from the stove and oven out right outside - works great!

[ursula]

In the summer when I wash my hands and other times too put the water on your skin to cool you. Also putting water in a mister to spritz your body helps especially if you add some peppermint oil which is cooling! PS Remember squirt guns?!

[Sandra]

My hub is the king of fans! Instead of using our window airconditioners, he uses air flow and a regular fan in the front of our house to pull in cool air after 3pm and another fan in reverse in the back of the house to pull out the hot. That way our house stays cool until around 10 am, at which time we close windows and keep the cooler air inside.

[Katherine RouLaine]

The clothesline will save you a money. I had a very low power bill last month and this month since I started hanging out clothes almost exclusively and I looked back at the bill a year ago when I was not using the clothes line and my power bill was $40.00 higher. Wow and do the sheets and towels smell good.

[Georgia Weatherhead]

My apartment would not be happy with me hanging my clothes out on a line on my balcony on the 5th floor.

[Allie]

Great tips!
And thank you for the link!

[hank kulesza]

I use a box fan in my kitchen to draw hot air out, since it is usually the warmest room. Espically in the evening & morning to cool the place down. Monitor the temp at the window when the air temp is rising close to room temp this is the time to close all the windows until cooling in the evening. If I have to use the window air-cond I only cool a room or two. I can close off my living room large curved doorway with a converted shower curtain & rod in the doorway. I use a second light shower curtain with magnets to cover the upper curved portion of the living room doorway.

[john]

There are numerous appliances such as commercial type coffee brewers that have NO on/off switch - no way to turn off heating element that is ON 24/7 forever - except pulling the plug. ALL electrical devices from modems & chargers to kitchen appliances should be required to have an integral on/off switch.