With summer right around the corner, it’s imperative that you take some time as the weather warms up in spring to gauge just how comfortable your home’s interiors are with the increasing heat. If it’s already feeling a little stuffy on a 25° Celsius day, then it’s likely that considering some passive cooling tips now can help your household save big on your utility bills over the summer holidays.
So how should Aussie families go about keeping their homes naturally cool this summer? We’ll be outlining some of our favourite passive cooling tips here to help single parent households effortlessly stay on top of their home’s energy consumption and temperature control requirements over this coming summer.
How to keep your home naturally cool this summer
Swap out your window coverings
A surprising amount of cold air created by ceiling fans or air conditioners can easily be lost through your home’s windows, even if they’re kept closed on harsh summer days. This is why investing in heat-resistant window coverings is guaranteed to help keep your home nice and comfortable during the summer months.
Thankfully, there are a wide range of different window coverings to choose from, ranging from modern venetian blinds to delicate sheer curtains or even sunscreen roller blinds for added sun protection. With the diverse array of curtain and blind styles available for Aussie homeowners nowadays, you’ll easily be able to find something that complements your interior design scheme alongside helping trap cool air inside your home.
We recommend opting for window coverings that can help keep your home’s interiors nice and dark during the day, however, as darker interiors are more likely to retain cooler air. And this isn’t to say that you have to make do with dark and gloomy interiors all through summer just to stay cool! With just a few design tweaks, you can still enjoy bright interiors even with your curtains or blinds firmly drawn all throughout our longer summer days.
However, if you’re looking for a more long-term solution to combat the loss of cool air, you might consider upgrading to double-glazed windows. Double-glazed windows are designed with two panes of glass, which creates a layer of insulation that reduces the transfer of heat, noise, and cold air into your home. While the initial double-glazed windows price may seem high, they can ultimately save you money on your energy bills in the long run. Plus, they can add value to your home if you ever decide to sell it.
Invest in heat reflective (and retentive) insulation
One of the most evergreen tenets of passive temperature control for Aussie homes is utilising the power of insulation. Investing in home insulation can make a world of difference with regards to not only keeping your home cooler in the summer, but easily warmer in the winter as well. Although it may be easy to understand just how insulation works in the winter, the benefits of insulation in the summer are less likely to be common knowledge. Which is why we’ve mentioned it on this list today!
There are different types of insulation to be used in the ceilings, walls, and even in the floors of your home, ranging from natural materials like wool, other natural fabrics, and cellulose fibre, to inorganic materials like polyester batts and rolls or poly foam insulation. Reflective foil insulation can be particularly useful for households looking to reduce heat absorption through walls and ceilings. On the same note, however, foil insulation may not provide the most effective heat retention properties in winter.
Selecting the best insulation for your home will naturally require considering your wider local climate. For instance, Aussie families living along the southeast coast should take into consideration the sporadic weather conditions presented in Victoria and New South Wales. As greater Melbourne and Sydney are prone to experiencing temperamental weather conditions with bracing winters and scorching summers, your home insulation should ideally cater to both of these seasonal extremes.
This is why more modern Australian homes are opting for a composite insulation, that utilises a traditional insulatory material like polyester or wool batts which is then wrapped in a foil blanket to help reflect heat during the summer months. Simply put, securing a composite insulation for your home will help ensure your household is ready for whatever weather conditions are thrown your way.
Consider indoor plants and landscaping
One of the best parts of summer down under has to be the luxurious elongation of daylight hours across the seasonal peak. And although we may not get a traditional ‘white Christmas’ ourselves, it’s nice to be able to celebrate Christmas Day a touch longer than over half the rest of the world. So it seems like a shame to keep your curtains drawn all through the summer.
If you’re not a fan of keeping your home as dim as possible by drawing your curtains in the summer months, there are thankfully still ways that you can enjoy a little shade without having to shut out the outside world altogether. Positioning plant life both inside and outside your house can help to reduce the overall sun exposure of your windows during hot summer days.
For example, planting a tree right outside your bedroom window can help you wake up with the morning sun without having to deal with its harsh heat. Similarly, having potted plants sitting in and around your window sill can help reduce the overall sun exposure of your home’s interiors, allowing your plants to soak up all the daylight instead.
Just be sure to only place suitably hardy, drought-tolerant plants in direct sunlight! You don’t want to end up killing any of your potted plants due to excess sun exposure.
Open doors and windows in the evening
Finally, although you may not be able to open your windows during the day out of fear of letting hot air from the street into your home, there are actually some benefits to opening your doorways and windows as the sun leaves the centre of the sky and begins its descent into the evening sky. The setting sun will bring a cooler front that’ll help carry you through to a temperate summer evening, making during or after dinner the perfect time to try and get some of that refreshing evening or dusk air into your home in time to get to bed.
We highly recommend installing fly screens on your windows in the lead-up to summer, however, or updating your fly screens if they have any rips or tears. The last thing you’ll want on a warm summer evening is a litany of flies and mosquitoes invading your home through your open windows!
CONCLUSION: HOW TO KEEP YOUR HOME COOL THIS SUMMER
With all these passive cooling tips at your disposal, it should be a piece of ice cream cake to keep your home as comfortable as possible during harsh summer weather. Be sure to share all these great tips with your kids to get the whole family involved in keeping your home naturally cool without having to worry about your summer utility bills.
Further reading: How to save electricity and make your bills smaller this summer.
