Our house is hot and stuffy :bag

[Psyche]

We are trying to acclimate to the new climate. We basically only had two weeks of late spring in MI before jumping into mid late summer weather for us when we arrived in DFW.

I'm keeping our thermostat at 78 during the say and 70 at night.

I pretty consistently this week have felt sick by mid day. I'm hot. We have ceiling fans going but it is stuffy in here.

Idk what to do to ease the transition. I'm making sure to stay hydrated.

[NewLeaf]

Could you keep it cooler in the house and slowly up the temp over time?

My MIL wore her bathing suit all day and would hop in the shower to get wet and that, with the help of fans, would help her stay cool when she was raising small kids without adequate A/C. If you're feeling particularly creative. :giggle

We keep ours at 70 during the day and 65ish at night- that is right now before the big heat comes.

Do you have solar curtains to block light and heat? My house becomes a cave in the summer. :shifty

[doubleblessings]

One thing I did often in Texas to stay cool was wet my hair in the middle if the day and right before bed. I would also if I could possibly afford it keep it a little cooler during the day. If the humidity is low adding moisture to the air can help as well.

[Psyche]

We can but we are also on a budget. I don't want to have a $300 electric bill.

[NewLeaf]

We can but we are also on a budget. I don't want to have a $300 electric bill.

Not sure which provider you have but it can also help if they have the option to pay the average each month (especially in Texas where summer bills are sky high and winter is super cheap). I'm not sure how they calculate it but they can average out the amount you would pay and then your monthly bills are more uniform. Not to negate the need for finding other ways to keep cool but just in case that would also help. :)

We also try to cook as little as possible and use the crock pot when we can so we aren't adding extra heat inside.

[Leslie_JJKs_mom]

I have found window units to be way more efficient then central. We went from a 300 dollar electric bill to a 130 when we put in a window unit and our house is cool.

[klpmommy]

are your fans going up or down? There is a switch and in the winter you want the fans to pull air up and in the summer to push it down. You can easily check by standing under the fan and seeing if you can actually feel the breeze.

Fans are a *must*. I keep my house temp higher than that, but we have stand fans, box fans or oscillating fans in addition to the ceiling fans. Moving air will make you feel a million times better.

The other thing is- make sure your blinds are closed and if you have any west facing windows it will help a lot to cover them.

i remember how hard it was for me to acclimate to MI, I can only imagine how much harder to acclimate the opposite direction. :hug

[StumblinMama]

:up I was just going to ask about the direction of your fans. We don't have ceiling fans in all of our rooms, but box fans have been a great help, especially at night.

You can get blackout curtains for $8 a panel at walmart. They come in all sorts of nice colors and they are supposed to cut your electric bill by a lot. I plan on investing in some.

[Psyche]

We do have the fans on in the right direction. I don't think they're great though because the breeze isn't strong. We also don't get direct sunlight in any window. I've been opening the back door blinds be the porch shades it and its that or a lamp on. Our bedroom is the worst bc it gets no shade.

The bill gets sent to the church for our electricity so I'm not sure how to ask for an average especially as the house was vacant for six months or more. Maybe it was 9.

I just can't imagine what we will do if we are hot when it is 90 something when it gets over 110.

[Llee]

Can you call the electric company and ask what the average was for the last year or two? That's what we did when we were looking for rentals. They don't care if it's your house or not, they'll tell you the average bills.

[doubleblessings]

my kids made one of these plastic ice cube necklaces for my birthday. It helps for a bit.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://dollarstorecrafts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cooling-necklace.jpg&imgrefurl=http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2011/06/make-a-cooling-summer-necklace/&h=399&w=500&sz=27&tbnid=iweGNRlXB24SCM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=113&zoom=1&usg=__rzxF1jn-HqTvQ8qE_zahy4D6qwQ=&docid=0JSuhBU8pW7PQM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GAqaUcXiK4XM9ASA0oHQBQ&ved=0CEgQ9QEwAw&dur=410

[MarynMunchkins]

IME, you get a lot more used to warm weather once it's been hot for awhile. I am hot at 78 in May, but 78 in August seems plenty cool. I have my thermostat programmed to stay at 77 during the day until about 4, and then bump down to 74 or so until 8. That few hours when I'm trying to do dinner and bedtime, I need it to be cooler.

And my fans are always running once it hits 70. :)

[rjy9343]

I wash clothes and hang them to dry in front of my windows with the blinds closed. If you have fans you can do the same thing. It cools the air and moves it. It works really well. Also if you have open windows, put box fans in the windows, that is a real saver here.

[brown eyed girl]

Lived in TX 12 years. In the Spring, it's a little muggier, and 78 isn't cool enough. The A/C use shouldn't increase your bill that much if you set it to 74 right now. Basically, our rule of thumb was 20 degrees cooler than outside. In the Winter, we'd put the A/C on for a little while on those muggy high humidity 75 degree days just to dry out the air. In the Spring, I tried to keep the A/C off, period, until the overnight temperature stayed above 80. If we got uncomfortable in the house, we went outside long enough to make the house feel nice. ;) I always had a goal to keep the A/C off until May 15. Even then, there would be one-two days where I'd have to turn it on for a few hours to dry out mugginess. We didn't have a dehumidifier then. Now that we live in KC, we have a dehumidifier. I still have a goal date to make it w/o A/C, June 15. Keeping a goal date in mind helps me endure. Also the rule, if you don't like the air in the house, go outside. It works in the winter, too, when the heat is only set to 63. :)

[BarefootBetsy]

IME, it takes about 2 weeks to acclimate to different weather. The weather here this year has been so yoyo-ish that the hot days still feel really hot even though it hasn't really gotten above the mid-80s. I keep the A/C at ~83 in the summer, but it does take about 2 consistent weeks of being hot before it feels good. A lot of going outside when it's hotter out there than in the house really helps the house feel better! :yes

[klpmommy]

I don't ever like to run the daytime a/c cooler than 79* b/c I don't want my body or family to get used to it and expect that on the 100* days. I do run it cooler at night.

you moved to TX at a bad time weather wise (when we moved back it was August, which is even worse!). Your body just isn't used to this heat. it will take some time. For now, moving air is going to help the most, ime. Make sure you are drinking enough ice water and that will help, too.

my first spring in MI- we had been there for about a year- i thought 50* was unreasonably cold and i would bundle up in gloves, thermals, a hat, etc. i was *cold*. A few years later I was going outside in flip flops when it was in the 50s. :haha it just takes some time.

[rjy9343]

You thought the fifties are cold because they are.:P~ I still cannot get used to this spring.:shifty

[BarefootBetsy]

And you should see/hear the people in the Seattle area when the weather actually gets above the low 70s :haha

[Auroras mom]

IME, you get a lot more used to warm weather once it's been hot for awhile. I am hot at 78 in May, but 78 in August seems plenty cool. I have my thermostat programmed to stay at 77 during the day until about 4, and then bump down to 74 or so until 8. That few hours when I'm trying to do dinner and bedtime, I need it to be cooler.

And my fans are always running once it hits 70. :)

I agree - we are always more miserable in late May than in late summer, once we are acclimated to the heat.

[klpmommy]

Get ready to laugh when it hits the low 60s and below. people will go to the grocery store dressed for the arctic. :haha


Um, i used to do that, too. :shifty But now I laugh.

[mamahammer]

Or A/C is dead and we're holing ourselves inside two rooms with Window units. The mugginess just makes it that much worse this time of year. It's not really HOT yet, it's just... Bad.

Four summers ago, our junior high mission trip was in June in Austin and the air conditioning at the church we were staying at went completely out. It was *awful*. The eating spaces and worship spaces are the ones affected and I think it's rather have worship inside McDonald's than do that again.

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk 2

[marbles]

We have at least two fans in each of our high traffic rooms. That is a huge help. Get good ones, cheap fans are cheap for a reason. And yes it takes a couple weeks to adjust. At the beginning of every summer I'm dying and how will we live through the summer??? But by the end I'm outside all day because its only 90 :)

[Waterlogged]

You might end up being more comfortable if you keep the two temperatures closer together, or have a mid-point during the morning. Running the AC also controls the humidity - humidity is highest in the morning, and that's when your AC isn't ever coming on (since it's letting the house warm up to 78). So maybe setting your thermostat to 72 at night, 74 til noon, and 78 the rest of the day.