The Environment #2: Keeping Cool
I still have lots and lots to say about the world of publishing, and how it’s changing EVERY DAY, and how I’m learning something new EVERY DAY, but I sadly fear the environment is also changing every day, and not in such an exciting way, so I’m finally making time to pick up on this series again.
My first shout-out in this post goes to Andrea Tomkins, blogger extraordinaire, who turns out to be a kindred spirit to me in the worship of ceiling fans. Ceiling fans! Was anything better in the world ever invented? OK, maybe narrow that down to anything that hangs from your ceiling. Andrea and I had a great discussion a couple of weeks ago about how much we love our fans.
Our house is small. I think it’s about 1,300 square feet. And we have SEVEN ceiling fans. Which still leaves us without one in the spare bedroom. However, the spare bedroom has now mostly become my office (perhaps I will post photos later), which means it’s just about due for a ceiling fan.
To tell you why I love these fans so much, I need to also tell you how little I enjoy AC, and how I struggle not to use it. Our cooling thermostat is set to 26 Celsius during the day. If I don’t bake a lasagna, and keep the blinds semi-closed, the house will never hit 26 during the day – except on one, or two, ridiculously hot days in the summer - and so our AC really doesn’t come on during the day. In the late afternoon (when my more heat-sensitive husband comes home from work) the thermostat lowers to 25, and the AC cycles on a few times, and then at bedtime, it goes down again to 24 – that’s the lowest we ever set it at. Because our house is nearly 100 years old (and leaky), the thermostat being 24 means the upstairs bedrooms are about 26 – but it’s a DRY 26. No humidity thanks to the AC.
This is where the ceiling fans come in. I’m telling you; a ceiling fan circulating dry air around, will easily keep you cool on even the hottest day. They’re also great on those “should-we-shouldn’t-we” days, where we don’t really want to turn the AC on, but it’s a bit hot for sleeping. More times than not, the ceiling fan means we go without AC and then, of course, overnight it cools off a bit and we’re glad we never turned the AC on in the first place.
Other things ceiling fans are good for:
1) Entertaining babies. Our first – very colicky – child was only ever quiet when being held (and bounced) or when lying on his back staring up at a ceiling fan. Other mothers got to know this worked, and would call to see if they could bring their babies for a “playdate” (aka, lying the babies side-by-side under the ceiling fan).
2) White noise. Whether it’s for babies, or yourself, I love the sound of a ceiling fan. Not a buzzing, unbalanced, fan, but the hardly there swooshing of a constant, even fan. So soothing. I find the bedroom so quiet the first night in the fall that it’s too cold to have the fan on.
3) Heat redistribution. A well-placed fan will move cold air through the house in the summer, and warm air through the house in the winter too. They can be year-round money-savers / comfort-makers.
4) Beauty. A well-proportioned ceiling fan is gorgeous. Andrea Tomkins has a lovely one in her addition.
We stay cool in the summer, while trying to minimize our impact on the environment, by using fans – ceiling and stand-alone, too – keeping the house closed up and shaded and, when all else fails, a swim before bedtime is fantastic for cooling the skin and letting you fall off to sleep.
How do you stay cool in the summer, without cranking the AC?
