Lower utility costs are among the main advantages apartment living holds over homeownership. This is particularly apartment during the swelteringly hot summer months, when people begin running their air conditioners on a regular basis. Unsurprisingly, cooling an apartment costs considerably less than cooling a larger home. However, this isn’t to say that all apartment residents have it easy throughout the summertime. While some landlords don’t charge extra for heating and cooling, a fair number of them won’t hesitate to do so. Furthermore, older apartments are liable to lack AC altogether. Luckily, even without air conditioning, keeping an apartment comfortably cool all summer long should be well within your abilities.
Put Your Ceiling Fans to Good Use
In the absence of AC, modern ceiling fans can serve as your apartment’s primary cooling aids. Dependable ceiling fans can help increase airflow in your apartment and evenly distribute cool air throughout the residence. You can even enable your fans to produce their own downward-flowing cool breezes by adjusting their blades to spin counterclockwise. If the ceiling fans in your apartment have seen better days, consider asking your landlord about swapping them out. If the fans in question are noticeably broken or majorly out-of-date, they may be required to replace them free of charge.
Open Your Windows at Night
Cool nighttime air can be a boon to your summertime cooling efforts. So, if the temperatures in your area tend to cool down during the overnight hours, open some windows and take advantage of the naturally cool outdoor air. In addition, make sure you ceiling fans are on, as they’ll help distribute said air to various parts of your apartment.
Minimize Sunlight
The intensely bright summer sun can inconvenience you on two separate fronts. Firstly, it can make your apartment uncomfortably bright, which can prove particularly inconvenient for people who enjoy sleeping through the early morning hours. While a little bit of natural light is never a bad thing, there’s such a thing as too much sunlight – as anyone who keeps their curtains and blinds open during the summer months will quickly learn. Secondly, the blazing summer sun stands to increase the temperature inside your apartment, which can prove detrimental to your cooling efforts.
Luckily, you can nip both of these problems in the bud with the help of cost-effective sun-blocking window dressings. Stick-on blackout screens are among the least expensive solutions. As the name suggests, these screens can be attached to windows in the same manner as stickers – and like stickers, they typically can’t be reapplied after being removed. Of course, considering how inexpensive they are, replacing them shouldn’t prove financially strenuous.
If you’re in the market for a more aesthetically-pleasing, longer-lasting solution, look into purchasing some high-quality blackout curtains. These curtains are composed of thick thermal materials, enabling them to massively minimize the amount of sunlight that gets in through your windows. As an added bonus, blackout curtains can also help seal in cool air and drown out noise from outdoors. So, if you live in a busy area with a lot of traffic – or foot traffic – getting a respite from all the noise is liable to make relaxing at the end of a long day and sleeping through the night much easier.
Don’t Use Your Oven During the Day
The smaller the living space, the hotter oven use stands to make it. In other words, if you use your oven during the summer, don’t be surprised if your pad gets a lot warmer – especially during daylight hours. You can get around this by minimizing oven use throughout the summer months, limiting it to nighttime hours and using your kitchen’s exhaust fan whenever you see fit to turn on the oven. Furthermore, giving your oven a break will provide you with the perfect excuse to start dabbling in delicious oven-free dishes.
Although cooling an apartment without the aid of air conditioning may seem like an uphill battle during the summer months, it’s much easier than a lot of renters realize. If your landlord charges extra for AC or your apartment lacks air conditioning altogether, keeping your pad nice and cool throughout the summer doesn’t have to be an arduous undertaking. Apartment residents looking to keep their living spaces comfortable and inviting all summer long can benefit from the measures outlined above.
