Trying to Cool Down the House

During the summer it is near impossible to keep the house cool. Of course, it helps if the nighttime temperatures ever got low enough to make a difference too.

The last few nights we’ve had open windows and fans blowing in every direction to create cross-flow in order to attempt cooling down the house that heats up quite quickly during the few days a year the temperature gets above 85 degrees. I mean, if we had air conditioning I’m sure that would help, but seems illogical to invest in one for the rare use it will get. Then again, some days I wonder why we haven’t ever gotten even a cheap little window unit and I’m reminded of our single pane aluminum windows inability to actually use one of those cheap units and instead would have to fork over practically the same amount of money a ductless air conditioner would cost.

Even though our home is equipped with ducts that are hooked up to a natural gas furnace, the efficiency of any ductwork is crappy compared to nearly all of their ductless competitors. On the flipside, with ductless you either have to keep all your doors open or install a unit in every closed off room, so the monetary savings from efficiency might be dissipated from equipment costs.

However, until money exists in our lives once again, we will continue to employ the nightly open-window-fan strategy. Thank goodness our Great Dane, Lucy, is so large, intimidating and protective, otherwise I wouldn’t feel so safe keeping the windows open at night.