I shared this on a FB group and am sharing it here for any who can make use of the ideas. My love to all.
I use mylar blankets with shades behind them on the windows to keep sunlight out. My house looks like a NASA experiment, but I save on cooling costs.
I open a window in our attic and let it vent out the hot air which keeps the downstairs cooler as it pulls a draft from the cooler side of the house where I open a window when I see the temperature dropping on that side.
I open windows on the shady side of the house and close and cover (insulate the heat out) the ones on the sunny side.
I know to get my work outside done in the morning or evenings if at all possible.
Close off the rooms that are on the sunny side of the house to keep the rest of the house cooler.
Learn how to trap the coolest air in the morning in your house before the day heats up. I know which windows to open to get the airflow right to cool down the whole house quickly. Airflow varies from home to home so what I do will be different than what you do.
Staying well-hydrated is crucial to keeping the body cooler.
Digestion creates heat, so eat lightest when it is the warmest. A farmer told me to feed my animals right before bed on the coldest nights to help keep them warmer.
My family had to work outside doing heavy manual labor in 90F+ with high humidity. The heat indexes were over 100F. There was no power on this site for months. We had a battery bank for the tool batteries and a generator that we would use with a pump to pull water from the well. We also had a hand pump we could put on the well for when the generator was in use at another site. That or stored water in a cooler area might be an option for those who do not have an alternate water source.
We cooled down in the middle of the day under a tree with our feet and calves in a bucket of cool water from the well. We also applied and frequently changed cool cloths around our necks, on our heads, and around our wrists. Cooling the pulse points (where the blood flows closer to the surface of the skin) helps cool down the entire body. While we did that, we hydrated with bottles of water that we cooled down in well water in a cooler that was kept under a building.
The effects were pretty impressive and got us back on our feet working. It depended on the day and what job we were doing, but the cooling effects lasted for at least an hour or so before they needed to be repeated. Some days we only needed one cool-down break but we were doing lighter work on those days.
Sweating = evaporative cooling. It is how the body cools down. Applying water that can evaporate can help your body cool off faster. Using herbs in the water that have a cooling effect also helps. For example, research peppermint cooling spray.
There are evaporative bandanas with polymer crystals you can purchase. You can tie them to your wrists as well as place them around your neck.
I researched how people cooled down their homes and bodies before electricity and learned a lot from that. Research window quilts. Many homesteading minded are using those to cut cooling and heating costs.
