Summers are so pleasant here, in fact, that most homes don’t have air conditioning—at least the older ones. But then most cars didn’t have air conditioning in the 1950’s either. Would you order a new car today without it?

If you find yourself "Sweatin’ To The Oldies" this summer while just sitting and listening to the radio, here are some ideas for chilling out at home:

• Extra insulation can yield dramatic improvement. Attics are usually easy to add insulation to, while walls can be trickier, but not impossible. If you don’t want to disturb your vaulted ceiling, consider adding rigid insulation on top of the roof, just under the shingles when you re-roof.
  
• Deciduous trees planted in strategic locations can provide enough shade to make a real difference. They’ll lose their leaves just in time to give you the southern sun when you can appreciate it.
  
• Cross-ventilation works well on days with a breeze. Adding an operable window or two, or perhaps a venting skylight, can exhaust the heat without raising your electric bill.
  
• Windows aren’t what they used to be—they’re much better. High-tech window glazing can keep the heat out while letting the view in. If you can’t change the glass, heat-reflective films can be applied to your existing glass. Various window shades can also keep your home cooler. The idea is to reflect the sun back where it came from. Shutters, awnings, and blinds are all efficient.
  
• Attic fans with the proper number of vents will exhaust the intense heat that is trying to radiate into the house through the ceilings. Usually installed with automatic thermostats, they are efficient, inexpensive, and effective.
  
• Whole-house fans, usually mounted in the ceiling of the uppermost floor, will bring in outside air, distribute it throughout the house, and exhaust it out through the attic. Since our evenings are usually cool, these fans work well at cooling the house after the sun goes down, but they are noisy. The path of cool air through the house is determined by which windows you open. These fans are usually multi-speed and controlled by a timer. Be sure to open plenty of windows and doors, or you risk down-drafting gas appliances and their dangerous exhaust!
  
• Ceiling fans can be helpful by providing enough of a breeze to let your body’s own evaporative cooler work. Similar to rolling down your car windows to keep cool, relief is seldom adequate in July.
  
• Evaporative or "swamp" coolers work very well (on most days) in our dry climate. Usually mounted on the roof, they can sometimes be located on the ground or even in an attic with special venting and water containment provisions. If you have an attic, the cool air can usually be ducted to the ceiling of several rooms to distribute the "’breeze" throughout the house. Similar to a whole-house fan, you can control the path of the breeze by the windows you open.
  
• If you have forced-air heat, the ductwork is already in place for refrigerated air conditioning with the addition of an "A-coil" and a condenser unit. Since air conditioning requires air of a higher velocity than heating, you may need to add a new multi-speed blower. It is also a good idea to add return-air registers near the ceiling for best efficiency. A condenser unit with fan will be located outside, as far as fifty or more feet from your furnace. Since condensers can be noisy, you’ll want to locate it where the noise will be the least problem.
  
• If you don’t have the ductwork, or only need to cool one room, there are some very good through-wall air conditioning units now on the market. They have a small condenser outdoors, and a refrigerated blower unit which mounts to the outside wall. Inside the room, a louvered grille mounted high on an outside wall distributes the cool air. Installation only requires a single small hole through the wall, and the unit is controlled by a small wireless remote, complete with thermostat. While somewhat expensive, this air conditioner can be the perfect solution for cooling a single room or area.

If you’re undecided about which techniques to implement, remember that they can be used in combination. Try the most energy efficient and passive ideas first. If you still need more relief, you can add others as the budget allows. Remember, also, to start on your project now. If you wait until July to call an air conditioning contractor, it will be too late for this season.