Millions of Canadians are braving high temperatures reaching the high 30s and humidity values likely reaching 40 or higher.
Staying cool can be a challenge, especially for the elderly or those working from home who don’t have air conditioning or convenient access to public places like libraries and shopping malls. The heat wave sweeping many parts of Europe has already killed more than a thousand people, while last year’s record-breaking temperatures in British Columbia are believed to have killed nearly 600 people, with the majority of deaths over the age of 70.
Statistics Canada data released in October 2021 shows that 61 percent of Canadian households have some type of air conditioning and only 42 percent have central air conditioning. Although many Ontarians have air conditioning, data shows that in Quebec, only 59 percent have some type of air conditioning and only 27 percent have central air conditioning.
CTVNews.ca spoke with Jennifer MacArthur, associate professor of architectural sciences at Toronto Metropolitan University, for advice on immediate and long-term solutions to keeping your home cool.
INSTANT SOLUTIONS
Close the blinds and curtains. According to the US Department of Energy, approximately 76 percent of the sunlight that passes through standard windows is converted to heat. This can be useful in the winter, but in the summer window coverings keep the heat out, especially in rooms that face the sun. Light-colored blinds and curtains, in particular, will help deflect more heat.
“Blinds will actually trap heat between them and the window, so you want to pull the blinds down primarily in the morning and keep them down all day,” said MacArthur, who is also a member of the Canada Green Building Council’s Ontario Regional Advisory Board and a certified energy manager.
“You don’t want to keep them up and down because that releases some of the heat into the house.” But if you’re able to shade the window from the outside, it’s 100 times more efficient, because then the sunlight doesn’t even come into your house.”
You can open your windows if the temperature outside drops below 22 or 23 C and it is not too humid.
If it gets cold at night, open all the windows, run the fans, exhaust fans in the bathroom and kitchen to try to get as much fresh air into the house as possible. It also helps limit the pollutants that build up in your home and keeps you healthier.
“You’re basically trying to expel all the heat that’s built up in the house overnight. And then as soon as the temperatures start to rise or as soon as it gets humid, you want to shut it down because your body feels a lot hotter at say 23 degrees and humid than it does at 23 degrees and dry.
How to use fans effectively. If you have a ceiling fan, make sure it rotates in the correct direction. In winter, drafts can help push heat from the top of the room down. In the summer, it should blow down or rotate counterclockwise when you look up. You should be able to feel the fan when you’re standing under it, McArthur said.
If you have an air conditioner, using fans along with the air conditioner can also help lower your energy bill, according to Natural Resources Canada.
McArthur recommends drinking hot liquids rather than cold ones and taking hot showers rather than cold ones to maximize the ventilator’s effectiveness.
“This is going to sound really, really counterproductive, but the best way to cool down is to sweat,” she said.
“What it does is it actually brings all the flowing blood closer to the surface of your skin and makes it easier for your body to shed that heat with a breeze.”
While bathroom and kitchen fans can help draw air, don’t run them 24/7, especially on hot days. Instead, release them at night when the air is cooler or after rain when the air has temporarily cooled.
“Nature abhors a vacuum, so any air you push out of the house will be replaced by air from outside, so if you don’t want that air coming into your house, don’t run those fans unless you obviously want to or you’re cooking or have to” , MacArthur said.
Some hacks suggest placing a bowl of ice in front of the fan as another way to create cool air. However, unless you got the ice from a gas station or grocery store, MacArthur noted that the heat from making the ice cubes is released into the house from the back of the fridge, which can end up being counterproductive.
A cold wet sheet. You can also drape a wet sheet or other lightweight cotton fabric over a pop-up tent or clothes drying rack. Evaporative cooling can really help cool you down, McArthur says, especially if it’s in front of a fan. It’s not something you want to do for too long, though, because the trade-off for instant heat relief is that it will add some humidity to the air and can make your home feel a little stuffy afterward, she warned.
Minimize the use of large appliances during the day. If you can, skip the stove and oven and fire up the barbecue instead. Or, if you can, close the kitchen while you cook and run the exhaust on the stove to get the heat out of the house. Microwaves, for those who use them, are another method that does not generate as much heat. Insulated electric kettles are faster and more efficient than boiling a pot on the stove. It’s also the best time of year to skip the energy-consuming clothes dryer and hang your clothes outside instead.
Using heavy gaming PCs can also heat up a room.
“But that kind of escapism might also be better for your mental health to deal with the heat, so it’s really up to each individual to decide on those trade-offs,” MacArthur said.
LONG-TERM INVESTMENTS
Turn off incandescent and halogen lights. If you haven’t already, replace your old light bulbs with LEDs. LEDs not only last years longer, use dramatically less energy, but they also don’t generate huge amounts of heat like halogen and incandescent lights.
Block the sun from outside. As mentioned earlier, covering the windows from the outside is more effective than closing the curtains or blinds. Awnings and blinds, for example, can keep out sunlight. According to the US Department of Energy, window shades can reduce solar heat gain by up to 65 percent on south-facing windows and up to 77 percent on west-facing windows.
But the best long-term solution is actually using nature, McArthur says.
“The gold standard for passive design is actually to have deciduous trees outside so they don’t block the sun in the winter and block the sun in the summer,” she said.
“They also add local cooling because the trees actually evaporate a lot of water into the air, and that process actually cools the air around them.” So the trees are actually actively cooling themselves.
An example is walking into a forest from a field on a hot day—the temperature difference isn’t just from shading, MacArthur explained. In addition to deciduous trees, hedges, climbing plants on the trellis can help. However, she cautions against using ivy, which can cause structural damage to the bricks, and recommends talking to a botanist for advice.
Weatherproof and reseal your windows. It’s a “no-brainer” that will pay off year-round, McArthur says, because it will keep cold air out of your home in the winter and hot air out in the summer. Sweeping doors can also help keep cool air in.
Update your windows. If you’re planning to replace your aging, leaky windows, consider getting them specially coated or tinted. Even a slightly tinted window will dramatically reduce the amount of heat that gets through without affecting the ability to see through them, McArthur said.
Updating your roof. If you are planning to renovate your roof, choose a light color. A silver gray tile reflects much more heat and light than one that is black. You can ask about the reflective index of the surface of the shingles, which indicates how hot they will get under the sun. Installing solar panels is another way to harness sunlight, but also to reduce the amount of heat that is absorbed through the roof itself.
Consider installing an energy recovery fan. These systems help replace stale indoor air with fresh outdoor air by getting rid of pollutants. It transfers heat from one air stream to another, MacArthur explained, so in the summer the air exchange causes heat to be lost from the hot air outside to the stagnant but cooler air inside. If you have an air conditioner, the system also reduces the amount of energy your air conditioner has to use to cool your house.
Check your insulation. The easiest way to check if you have enough insulation is to look at your roof from the street in winter. If there are patches of snow that have melted, or if you have less snow and ice than your neighbors, then you may have an insulation problem. You can also hire someone to do an energy audit.
“But beyond a certain point it just becomes too much and it’s not really that useful,” McArthur said, adding that some types of insulation require a lot of energy to produce and are worse for the environment.
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