Five Ways To Keep Your House Cool On These Hot Minnesota Days

It's been an unusually hot summer, so far, and there doesn't seem to be much relief from the heat in the near future.

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Of course, the obvious thing would be to have air conditioning but, believe it or not, some homes and especially lake cabins don't have that luxury. So, here are five ways according to SFGATE to keep your house cooler in these stifling temps.

• Keep your windows closed and curtains drawn to keep the hot air from outside and the hot sunlight from coming in.  When things cool off at night open the windows.
• Block UV rays with window film.  This will keep the heat in your home down.  Window film can block 75% of the sun's heat from getting in and it's not going to cost you a whole lot.  Amazon has it for about $30.
• Shut off rooms you are not using at the time like bedrooms and bathrooms and and keep the cooler air circulating in a smaller area.
• I'm a big fan of fans (sorry).  Place fans in the coolest part of your house and point them toward the not so cool areas.  Another good idea is to put a large bowl off ice in front of your fans.
• Use a humidifier.  Humidifiers won't really do much to cool off the temperature in your house but getting rid of the humidity will help eliminate that uncomfortable sticky feeling.

The best idea in my book is to get some form of air conditioning especially in the bedrooms.   There's nothing worse than trying to sleep when it's hot.  A window air conditioner or one of those portable units will help a lot.  may cost you a few bucks but life is too short to be miserable from the heat.