How To Cool Off At Home This Summer

That time of the year is upon us again, where the days are long and the nights are hot. For many people, it can be difficult to fall asleep without some form of cooling in your home. Air conditioners can be worth their weight in gold as they turn what could be a sauna of a bedroom into a relaxing and cool environment.

There are a couple of different options when seeking the best air conditioner for your house. You will need to take into account:

• The size of the room it’s cooling
• Your price range
• How quiet you want the air conditioner
• The size of the item

At the higher end of the budget you can get portable ground air conditioners the quietest of which is purported to be the Whynter Elite at 52 decibels. These units are very effective at cooling rooms, but they do require an outlet to run to the outside of your home. This is typically in the form of a small circular hose that you can plumb into a window frame.

Another very common option is the wall mounted or window mounted air conditioner. Many prefer these types of air conditioners as they can be easy to mount and don’t take up any precious floor space. However, they do tend to be less silent than the other options.

If it’s not possible for you to establish an outlet for your air conditioner, or if you don’t have any windows to mount a window air conditioner, then you will have to opt for a fan or evaporative coolers (also called swamp coolers). Swamp coolers work by passing air over pools of water in the unit (hence how they got the name swamp). The evaporation cools the air before it is passed out through the unit into your room. The downside of swamp coolers is that they will only work in the right climate. If the area you live in has high humidity, then these types of coolers are unlikely to work. Basically, as humidity increases the effectiveness of evaporative coolers decreases.

At the cheapest end of the spectrum, you have the simple fan option. This could either be a pedestal fan or there are other devices out there now such as the bed fan which blows cool air directly under the sheets of your bed. This unit actually looks like it would be very effective and simple to set up. One just places the fan at the base of the bed, slips an outlet under the sheets and turns it on. If you’re looking for the best balance of price and effectiveness to cool yourself this summer, then this is probably it!

Samantha

Samantha hails from Virginia and is a proud wife to a retired Deputy Sheriff and mother to two amazing little boys named Jack & William. A veteran product reviewer; Samantha has been reviewing products for 8 years and offers high quality product reviews with original photography.