Inexpensive Summer Home Cooling Tips

Utility Bills Keep Climbing

Unless you have switched to solar for your home in the last few years, you have seen your PG&E bill continually increase. Frustrating, we started with four tiers for our power usage, a few years ago it went down to three tiers, and now we only have two tiers which have made utility costs climb even higher. We like to think of solutions for our clients, so we share with you today some easy and inexpensive ways to cool your home this summer and lower your PG&E bill at the same time!

 

You Want to Stop Heat from Getting Into Your Home

A good basic tactic to keep your home cooler this summer is to keep heat from getting into your home in the first place. So, we will discuss outdoor cooling ideas first and then jump to indoor cooling ideas for this summer. For each of these tips, we made sure they were inexpensive, cost-effective, and simple to accomplish. Most of these tips are quick immediate fixes, but we also threw in a couple of long-term solutions also for keeping your home cooler during the summer months.

 

Outdoor Blinds to Help Cool Your Home

Outdoor blinds help keep heat and the sun from entering your home, to begin with. You can go very inexpensive with bamboo blinds which tend to last a couple of seasons or you can invest in roll-up shades that are more expensive, but we are on our fifth year of wear on ours and we have south-facing windows that get beat with heat. Blackout roller shades are one of the most complete solutions. Blackout roller shades provide insulation between the sun and your window and allow no sun to enter your home. My blackout rollers for three windows were about $250, but they have lasted four years and still going strong, prices have come down dramatically, and they are now available on Amazon and other online retailers.

 

Outdoor Skylight Covers Cool Homes

Outdoor skylight covers have been one of the best finds I have ever made. Five years ago, I bought outdoor insulated elasticized skylight covers for my four-foot skylights that are over my kitchen. I love those skylights, they provide so much light, but during the summer they literally bake the house. Technology had finally come far enough a few years ago and I bought a pair of elasticized skylight covers that are so easy to just stretch over my skylights and then store for the rest of the year in the garage. This will be their sixth year and they are still going strong for the $200 investment, even if they just made it through this year cost would be $33 a year, and a much cooler home during the summer months.

 

Indoor Skylight Covers to Keep Your Home Cool

If your skylights are hard to access by roof access because of a very steep roof, indoor skylight covers are the next best thing. Two years ago, I found thermally insulated skylight covers on Amazon that are held in place with suction cups. I have a 10/12 roof, very steep, so these are applied on the inside of the skylight and I can get these installed on four skylights in about 10 minutes. What a difference this has made to my upstairs office during the summer, it’s dropped the temperature dramatically and saved me money in utility bills stood!

 

Indoor Window Film for Hard-to-Reach Windows

Indoor room darkening window film has been a game-changer in our living room. We have beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows that don’t lend themselves to shades and indoor room darkening window film has helped so much in keeping our living room cool during the summer. Our living room faces the southwest and gets a lot of sun, which is great in cooler months, but absolutely evil in the summer with how much it heats up the house. We just use dark gray window film, but if you want to really reflect the heat you can buy outdoor one-way sun-blocking UV effective window film to do the job.

 

Indoor Blackout Curtains Reduce Keep Your Home Cooler

If you don’t stop heat from the outside you can still effectively cool your home down by using thermal insulated blackout curtains on your windows. The prices have come down so much making these an attractive way to reduce summer heat in any room in your home. Thermal Insulated curtains also help keep heat in during the winter, so they are a great year-round solution to lower your utility bills. They are available at many online retailers at amazingly low prices. I have an open-air loft office that opens to a stairwell. I used indoor blackout curtains to seal off the room from the stairwell causing cooled air to escape, it has been a game-changer during the summer in keeping my office cool during the heat of the day.

 

Portable Air Conditioners Can Save Money

Many people in Sonoma county have whole-house air conditioning systems. Cooling your entire home when you are living mainly in one or two rooms most of the day is costly. We invested in one and then bought two more portable air conditioners with heat exhaust through the window. We have these in our living room, bedroom, and office and they make a dramatic difference in the temperature of the whole house, but especially these rooms at a cost that is very reasonable for how long they last. We bought the first one 6 years ago and with yearly cleaning, it is still going strong.

 

Awnings Can Help Cool Your Home

Awnings are both decorative and also provide heat reduction for your home by shading windows from the sun. Window awnings come in both stationary and retractable. Stationary awnings sometimes need to be taken down after the summer if you live in a high wind area, whereas retractable awnings can stay installed year-round. Retractable awnings have come way down in price making them an affordable way to shield your windows from the sun and lower the heat absorbed by your home while helping to reduce utility bills.

 

Gable Vents & Attic Fans Help Cool Your Home

Most homes have gable vents and access to the crawl space above their home. A whole house attic fan or a solar attic fan can be a great year-round solution to keeping your home cooler during the summer and warmer during the winter. Traditional attic fans cost under $100 and solar attic fans run in the mid-$300 range. This solution takes a bit more work but you reap the rewards of year-round savings on your utility bill and a more comfortable home year-round.

We are all hoping for a cool summer like last summer, just enough warmth to enjoy the days and not so much heat that it increases our utility bills and fire season risk. To enjoy summer more delegate your house cleaning to Crystal Clear Home and let us take care of this chore while you enjoy the beauty of a Sonoma county summer and relax, renew, and recharge! Just give us a call at 707-827-3316 or fill out our FREE ESTIMATE FORM and one of our trained cleaning professionals will call you to help meet your cleaning needs.