12 Simple Ways to Stay Cool at Home This Summer — Even When You Don’t Have Air Conditioning

It’s the middle of summer, the air outside feels like a sauna, and the fan is just moving hot air around the room. Sound familiar? When you don’t have air conditioning, staying cool at home can feel like a losing battle — but it doesn’t have to be.
These 12 simple, tested tricks for beating the summer heat without AC range from the surprisingly counterintuitive to the genuinely brilliant. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention — and summer is very, very motivating.

The first rule is to keep the sun out of your home. Close the windows and cover them with thick blackout curtains early in the morning, before the air has a chance to warm up. It’s important to choose curtains in light shades or with a special white thermal backing on the reverse side. Dark fabric, on the other hand, actively absorbs sunlight, heats up, and starts working like a radiator.

And instead of an ice-cold soda, have a cup of hot green tea. It’s no joke: in the East, people have been staying cool this way for centuries.

A simple damp cleaning can lower the room temperature by a couple of degrees and noticeably freshen the air. Fill a bucket with ice-cold water and wipe the floors.
If you have a fan, try placing it in a small vent window or an open window, but only once the heat has eased in the evening, with the fan facing outward. It will push the warm air that built up during the day out of the apartment, making room for the cool night air.

This simple way to cool off is still used in Asian countries today. A “Japanese air conditioner” is just a clean scarf, a piece of gauze, or a thin cotton cloth soaked in cool water and tied around the neck. As soon as it starts to dry out on a hot day, simply soak it in cool water again.

In the summer, the stovetop and oven can turn your kitchen into a sauna while you’re cooking, and the heat quickly spreads through every room. If you need to make something, be sure to close the kitchen door and turn the range hood up to the max. On especially hot days, it’s worth taking a break from cooking and order delivery instead.

And if you decide to switch to chilled soups like gazpacho, they’ll fill you up and cool you down. Don’t forget light salads and fruit, too. In hot weather, this kind of food feels so much better than “winter” dishes.

On very hot days, freeze a couple of plastic bottles filled with water mixed with regular salt. The salt is needed because salty ice pulls more heat from the air. Once the water freezes, take the bottles out and place them in a deep plate (to catch condensation) right behind a table fan, then aim the airflow toward yourself. In this cool “microclimate,” you can work comfortably or enjoy dinner.

By the way, you can wrap another bottle like this in a towel and place it in your pet’s bed. Just tighten the cap securely and make sure your pet can’t chew through the plastic.

You can also do this at work if your boss allows it (and the conditions make it possible). Take a simple basin and fill it with cool water. Place it under your desk and dip your feet in. As the water in the basin warms up, add more cool water, for example, from a pitcher nearby.

These 15- to 20-minute sessions throughout the day can really help during the hot season. The main thing is to make sure there are no cords or power strips around.

Standing at a bus stop in the heat or riding a bus with no air conditioning? No one deserves that! It’s worth getting yourself a refreshing face mist (any spray bottle will do). You can find plenty of them on online marketplaces and beyond.

Pour in a little chilled mineral water from the fridge, then head out and take care of your day! As soon as the sun starts blazing, spritz your face a couple of times and enjoy the cool refreshment.

The sheet you’re planning to sleep on tonight — whether it’s a regular one or a fitted one — should be chilled in the freezer. Yes, really! T

ake an airtight zip-top bag, place the sheet inside, and then put the bag in the freezer. Leave it there for at least 15 minutes. Then make the bed, and you’ll feel the difference. In that amazing coolness, you’ll be able to fall asleep easily and quickly.

If you open the windows wide in the middle of the day, only scorching outdoor air will rush into the house. To avoid it, soak large sheets in cold water, wring them out lightly, and secure them over the window openings or curtains. As air passes through the damp fabric, it will cool instantly as the moisture evaporates, creating a pleasant, light sea-breeze effect in the room.

Send all rugs, fluffy throws, and extra textiles on a long vacation until fall. Exposed laminate, linoleum, or tile feels pleasantly cool on its own, and walking on it barefoot in hot weather is a little joy all by itself.

Plus, if you’re the lucky owner of a fluffy pet, you know how much fur drifts around the apartment. As a bonus, damp cleaning will become much easier and faster. Put the rugs away until fall and use the tip from point 3.

Mirror solar window film can help you beat the heat while keeping your natural light. It’s a thin material applied directly to the glass, usually with plain water from a spray bottle, and it works like a one-way mirror. It reflects up to 80% of infrared and ultraviolet rays, keeping the room from turning into a greenhouse while still letting in plenty of daylight.

Plus, no one outside will be able to see what’s happening inside your home.

Important: Be sure to buy removable static cling film or foil blind curtains with suction cups. Cheap construction foil attached with tape can bake onto the glass under the sun’s rays — by fall, you’ll spend a lot of effort trying to scrape off the residue. In addition, this kind of foil gets very hot and can damage the window plastic.

It may seem logical to drape a damp terry towel over a running fan so it blows cooler air in hot summer weather. Never do this! First, the heavy wet fabric blocks airflow to the blades, forcing the motor to run at its limit, overheat, and potentially burn out completely (or cause a short circuit).

Second, the fabric dries quickly, while the humidity in the room rises sharply. In the end, you get a tropical swamp effect — the room won’t just feel hot, but unbearably stuffy and sticky. It’s better to hang the wet fabric nearby or use the ice bottle method from point 5.

• My grandpa has always been incredibly handy. Fixing the wiring, tightening a faucet, or sorting out a car problem is a piece of cake for him. But he also loves working on his inventions. He can shut himself in the garage in the morning and stay there even for a couple of days, depending on how much water and food he brings with him.
  So this summer I came to visit him, the heat was unbearable, I was soaked with sweat. I walked into the living room, and it was nice and cool in there. I thought Grandpa had installed an air conditioner, but he had made a huge chandelier out of 3 fans! It was genius.

The good news: You don’t need an expensive appliance to turn your home into a comfortable place to be this summer. A wet scarf. A frozen sheet. A saltwater bottle behind a fan. Small adjustments that add up to a genuinely cooler home — and a much better night’s sleep.
The key is combining several of these rather than trying just one, and avoiding the classic mistake that turns your room from merely hot into actively tropical.

Read next: 11 Tips That Teach Us How to Always Pick the Best Summer Fruit and Berries—Even When They All Look Perfect on the Outside