Cooling yourself without air conditioning
San Francisco is notorious for forgoing air conditioning in most homes, since we ostensibly “don’t need it”. But the climate emergency is rapidly changing that, and as I write this, it’s powerful hot out there.
In previous years, we’ve been able to go to malls and movie theaters and other air-conditioned venues to cool off. But being in any such building is a risk now due to the pandemic, and going outside at all may not be an attractive prospect due to wildfire smoke.
So, from my experience cooling myself off in multiple pre-AC ways, here are some ways to keep cool at home without air conditioning.
- Drink water. Even straight-from-the-tap is better than nothing—remaining hydrated will help you self-cool.
- If your fridge doesn’t have a cold water tap, put another glass of water in the fridge. When your current glass runs dry, refill it and swap it with the one in the fridge.
- Take a shower or bath. It’ll wash the sweat off and the water will help cool you—as will the air over your wet skin when you get out.
- Point a fan at yourself and spray yourself with water from a spray bottle. This is essentially a manual swamp-cooler. The water will help conduct heat out of you into the wind, and the water’s evaporation from your skin will cool you further.