My House Is HOT!

Maybe you could look into putting protective UV-blocking film on your windows? We did this recently in two of our hottest rooms, and it has made a significant difference! It does make the window tint slightly darker, but not as dark as keeping blinds and curtains closed. 3M is a good brand, if you're not sure where to start.

I live in an area with 100+ degree temps much of the summer. The first two years we lived here, we thought the AC just couldn't keep up with the hot weather. Finally broke down and had it checked. Turned out the whole fan unit in the attic had been damaged when the home was built a few years earlier and the vents couldn't open all the way. It was freezing over the AC unit outside when it would jam trying to open. We got that fixed and our house has always been comfortable, even on the hottest days approaching 110.

I know you had your AC checked last year, but I think it's worth a second opinion. If you have AC in your house, your house should be quite comfortable.

Im in houston, and i feel your pain, i am very hot natured, i barely wear jackets in the winter and always have it so cold in the house.

this year even though it looks tacky i put foil on my windows , all of the windows that cant be seen from the street, i swear its lowered my bill and keeps the house 5 degrees cooler.

i would reccomend a 2nd opinion on the ac unit, it could be something simple (i recently had a frayed wire that was not allowing the thermostat to control the temp), you never know.

Be sure to not try to keep your temp control too low during the hours of 5-7, 75 degrees is about what you want to put it at for texas. I have two families i am close to that own their own s/c businesses and they have recently informed me that anything cooler than 20 degrees than the outside weather is not a stable temperature to maintain. It will overwork your ac unit.

Make sure all your windows and doors are sealed.I have read, yet not tried this attic cover/cozy thing that is supposed to prevent cold air from seeping into the attic.

hope this helps.

I changed almost all my lights to the energy efficient kinds. They give off much less heat. I cook the next days meals at night so I don't add heat with the oven or stove. I bought hard insulation (like stryofoam) and put it in the windows of the rooms that were vacant during the day.

If you have curtains in the room that are open (away from the wall) on the bottom and away from the wall on the top, they will actuall help heat the room/house. Why? Hot air rises. The air between the curtain and the window is heated by the sun or outside air. The hot air rises bringing air in from the cooler room and the heated air rises and returns to the room through the top of the curtains. Feel the window. Feel the room temperature. If there is a big difference convection currents are heating your room.

We have an attic fan, some times called a whole house fan. I have an inside/outside thermometer. When the outside temp is 8-10 degrees cooler than inside I turn on the attic fan and open the windows two rooms at a time to cool them off. It helps our electricity bill and cools the house with fresh outside air. I turn the attic fan off when it starts to heat up in the morning. Our 2200 sq ft house took $65 to cool in June. I turn the A/C on during the day when it gets too hot to stand.

Good luck to you and yours.

We have window fans. During the day we use them to suck the hot air out of the house.

On the cool evenings we turn them so that the drag the cool air from outside inside. When it just gets too much for us to bear, we go and steal air conditioning from the local mall, home improvement store, movie theatre (it has an arcade we let the children play games not over $4.00 worth - get some popcorn and soda to munch on and when they are finished playing they get to munch). We also go to the local pool or beach or playground with an accessible water feature.

When they were really little I let them run through the sprinkler, made water balloons, got a kiddie pool.

I also keep bags of ice on hand. I use this to make icy cold glasses of water. Fill glases with ice then add water. If the ice begins to float before the glass is full of water I add more ice before adding more water. Also passing around a huge chunk of ice from the bag of is is a messy, cooling fun thing to do. We usually set a timer and the last person holding the ice is out of the game. This game is great for outside or the kitchen (since you will have to clean the floor at some point anyway).

I hope these tips help.

I'm so sorry. It sucks to be uncomfortable at home :-( I'm in Sacramento and tripple digits are just a part of summer, unfortunately.

Check the direction of your ceiling fans. Generally, counter-clockwise is best for cooling (should look like it's going left when you look up at it). I was visiting a friend in DC last week and her room (upstairs) was miserable despite having a window AC unit and a ceiling fan. I switched her fan to run counter clockwise and the room was cool in a mater of minutes.

Give it a shot.

Also, if you aren't already open the house up at night and let some cool air in from outside. If you can run your sprinklers at the same time it'll feel great :-)

HTH

T.

It sounds like something is wrong. The house should not be uncomfortably hot. How old are your Ac units.

We noticed a HUGE difference when we ripped out the 2 AC units/furnace that the builder used when we built this house in 2000. We replaced everything by 2004 because the unts were undersized for our home. We also added more insulation. We spent about $20,000 but it has been well worth it.

We keep the temp on 78 and keep ceiling fans going 24/7. I do not close everything up. We do leave the garage door open and the garage attic door open for ventilation. We don't have an alley way so having the garage door open is not an issue for us.

Good luck! They say we have a few more days of this heat. I hate the cold so I am ok with it.

Good luck.

This may not help too much, but I live in an old trailer that has absolutely no shade. We had our central air unit service and was told nothing was wrong with it but it never got the trailer even cool. We also had 600 dollar light bills in June, July and August. We eventually got window units for the trailer and now it gets cool and thank the Lord, our light bill has actually gone down.

Have you checked the insulation in the attic? I keep our thermostat at 75 degrees during the day and we haven't had any issues with keeping the house cool and we don't have any trees around our house (unfortunately).

we open the blinds at night and when it gets too stuffy, we open the windows when it's cooled off a little at night, which can help.

I'm in DFW area too. It sounds like a problem w/ your AC unit. that's worth getting checked out b/c your electric bill might come back really high this month. You should be comfortable in your home even in this triple digit weather. I keep our home at 78 during the day and it's quite nice with ceiling fans on. I have our window blinds open too b/c I love the sunlight.

We do have a new AC unit (2 yrs old) - 14 SEER unit. The best investment! AND when we had our roof replaced 3 yrs ago, they put a radiant barrier decking on it and that has really helped keep it cooler/more energy efficient. More than insulation. But new insulation is good for the home too, especially during winter.

So I'd get 2 or 3 opinions from an AC company. And look into getting radiant barrier on your roof decking- it really helps!!

get a dehumidifier. I bet you have a freon leak. have it checked again.

Since I can't tolerate a/c, we simply use window fans that have the exhaust option, and then have a UV blocker on a few of our windows. It actually isn't too bad in here most days. We've had days well above 100 and the house has only hit mid-80s.

It sounds like something is wrong with your AC. Freon can leak and even though you had it checked last year, it might be leaking. Our AC seems to run more in this extreme heat but the inside temp stays the same--whatever it's set on.