Have I mentioned that it’s been HOT this summer? No, not hot. SCORCHING. We haven’t seen temperatures under 90 since the first week of July. We haven’t seen temperatures under 100 Since the last week of July. Two days ago we broke a previous daily record as we hit ONE HUNDRED AND NINE DEGREES.
Yowza.
Yesterday was our first sign of relief as we only got up to 98 degrees. ONLY 98. There’s something wrong when you say, “Oh it’s only 98! Yay for 98!” Twisted weird. Wrong.
Today is miraculously, wonderfully, amazingly only supposed to get up to 89. Ok, that’s still hot but after two months since we’ve seen it last I am SO glad to see 89 again!
This summer has warped me, I tell you.. WARPED.
Maybe that’s because this summer we roughed it out without central air conditioning. (WITHOUT. A. C.) The reasoning for that being the unit was so old and inefficient and the ductwork under the house just as bad.. that last summer even with the air conditioner running non-stop our house still got up to indoor temperatures of 93-ish at the peak of summer. And we paid an arm and a leg for an air conditioning bill that we weren’t experiencing. We turned our unit off last fall (a time when our unit doesn’t run at all) and watched our electric bill drop in half.
Let me say that again.
We turned the central heat and air OFF, instead of just kicking it off and just not having it running, and our electric bill for a month that the unit usually doesn’t run at all was HALF what it was from the previous year.
There is something wrong with that unit.
We haven’t turned it on since.
It would be crazy to do so!!
So we survived the winter with space heaters (and did just fine) and then we survived this summer with 3 window units. One in the master bedroom, one in one kid bedroom (they all slept in one room) and one in the separate office/school room. The living room and kitchen? They still got hot. TOO HOT. We spent all our time in an air conditioned room and came out here as little as possible. (Kinda goes to show you how little space you actually need to live, doesn’t it?) Anyway, it worked. We survived. (And P.S. our highest electric bill of the summer was still only half from the year before. SHEESH.)
But now that the worst of the summer is behind us, now that we’ve melted and deep fried and lived to tell the tale, I find this wonderful, cheap, easy, simple solution: Space blankets and velcro.
S p a c e B l a n k e t s and V e l c r o. What are space blankets? Highly thin, heat reflective, durable, CHEAP emergency blankets that cost under $2.00 a piece. And we all know how inexpensive the peel and stick velcro is. I am truly tempted to go ahead and do this to our windows anyway.
I’ve been resisting the whole “tinfoil on the window” suggestion all summer … I guess the space blanket and velcro is just a little bit classier, or maybe after sweltering through the summer I’m more willing, I don’t know. But doesn’t it really sound like a good idea?? What do you think – would you do it?
I’d do it, if I were in the situation you were in. At least on the windows that get the most direct sunlight. I do like having a lot of natural light, but I’d rather be comfortable in my home.
That’s one of the reasons I’ve never done anything like that before.. I LIKE LIGHT. But in the heat of summer we try to use dark curtains and keep them closed anyway, so, I guess it’s a moot point.
Not being able to see out the window also kind of mildly freaks me out, but at least with the velcro, you could pull back a corner, see who pulled up or what cat is yowling at or whatever, and then velcro it back. 😉