How To Protect Your Home During An Air Conditioner Outage In Extreme Heat

The summer heat in some places is not a joke. It is often assumed that if people once lived without air conditioning, they should be able to do it now if the air goes down. Unfortunately, the modern home that normally has air conditioning is not always set up to handle the excessive temperatures during an air conditioner outage. Your house may be filled with valuable collectibles that are vulnerable to the heat, for example, or you may have pets, plants, small children, or even health concerns that are a big issue if there is no air. Here is a look at some of the things you can do to protect your home during an air conditioner outage in extreme temperatures. 

Close all the blinds and draw the curtains. 

The sunlight streaming through your windows can rapidly bring up the temperature of your home. The difference between areas in the sun and shade can be drastically different. Therefore, if your air conditioner goes out in the middle of a hot summer day do everything you can to shield your windows from the sun. According to SFGate:

Usually, the difference from the sun to shade will only be between 10 and 15 degrees Fahrenheit, says retired meteorologist Jim Lushine, in an interview with Florida's "Sun Sentinal." 

Blocking the sun can bring down the inner temperature of your home during an emergency. Close the blinds and draw the curtains tightly—even go as far as hanging heavier curtains if you have them. If you have no curtains, hang heavy blankets over the windows to provide shade. If you have no blinds, try wrapping cut-to-size pieces of cardboard with aluminum foil and taping the pieces to the window to reflect heat out away from your house. 

Push heat out of your house through open doors if possible.

Your home is meant to be well insulated, and in most situations, that is a really good thing. However, if your AC goes down, this can mean hot air will get in your home and become trapped, essentially making our house hotter than it is outdoors. 

If you have ceiling fans, turn them on to keep the heat inside the house moving. Open up a few doors that are not in direct line with the sun and use a fan to push hot air out of your house. If your home has a central fan system, turn it on to pull hot air out of the house and push it out through the exterior vents. Contact a company, like Estes Heating & Air Conditioning, for more help.