Keeping Cool is Easier in a Small House

It seems funny to write this as it was 37 degrees this morning, but let's just pretend it was 37 degrees celsius and we're baking like a meatloaf over here.

Seattle doesn't do 90+ degrees on a regular basis, but the last couple of summers have been scorchers by our standards. Very few people have air conditioning in their homes. Our house doesn't have a basement, so we can't retreat there. Our usual MO is to open all the windows and doors of the house in the cool morning (luckily, even on really hot days, we usually cool down into the 60s at night) and point all the fans inward to draw in the cool air. Once things start heating up, around 10 am, we shut all the windows and doors and draw shades on the windows that have direct sun. We keep the fans going. Then after the sun goes down and things start cooling down again, we open all the windows and doors for a couple hours before we go to bed. That keeps the house about 10 degrees cooler than outside. When it's less than 90, it works out just fine. But with all those 90+ days, it started to get ugly.

Hello friendly robot friend who brings us the cooling breezes of sanity!

So two summers ago I caved and bought a portable air conditioner. I figured we could use it in the living room by day, and in the girls' room by night. The thing about the "portable" air conditioners: they're really heavy. So it wound up in the girls room full-time, keeping them cool so they could sleep, so we could sleep even if we were hotter.

Which is worse: hot kids who wake up all night, or being hot in your bed?

Kids

My bed

Quizzes

This past summer I found a better solution. We kept the air conditioner in the living room full time and used a big directional fan to draw cool air into the girls' room. We also have dark, insulating window coverings to keep it cooler.

On the very hot days and nights, hubby and I blow up the air mattress and sleep in the living room, right under the delicious arctic front of the air conditioner.

It's actually a very nice and comfortable air mattress. And we could watch TV in bed!

Then we put the directional fan on the other side of the room, pointing into the hall and into the open door of the girls' room. We'd open their door after we turned out the lights. The big fan is so noisy that it blocks everything out.

Can you guess which door goes to the girls' room? 

We kept the doors to the bathroom and our bedroom shut, so we didn't waste precious cool air. With a one-room airconditioner and one fan, we managed to keep two rooms and all four of us cool!