Natural Cooling Methods: How to Keep Cool Without AC

Learn how to stay cool on a hot day naturally, which will help you save money on energy bills even through scorching summer weather.

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Learn how to keep cool without AC, which will help you save money on energy bills even through scorching summer weather.

Around 50 years ago, about nine out of 10 U.S. residents spent summertime in homes without air conditioning. Suggest turning off the AC in summer these days, however, and you’ll frequently encounter wide-eyed disbelief. Our society has come to regard refrigerant-based air conditioning as an indispensable technology and has forgotten about plenty of other cheaper, simpler ways to beat the heat.

Come Out of the Cold

The central problem with our dependence on air conditioning is its voracious energy appetite. At current usage rates, air conditioning U.S. homes, businesses, schools and vehicles releases fossil carbon and fluorocarbon refrigerants that have a total annual global-warming impact equivalent to a half-billion tons of carbon dioxide. Eliminating these emissions from air conditioning would benefit the atmosphere as much as shutting down 140 typical coal-fired power plants would.

Air conditioning also eats a sizable chunk of our budgets. In the United States, I estimate that our collective annual electric bill for cooling our homes is about $30 billion. The yearly cost per household ranges from about $200 in the Northeast to more than $450 in the sweltering South.

  • Updated on Jul 7, 2022
  • Originally Published on Jul 9, 2015
Tagged with: airflow, cold water, cooling your home, heat, natural cooling, staying cool
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