At night cool your house down by opening windows and using windows fans. I have a two story house. Heat rises so I’ll place window fans blowing out in the upstairs windows and fans blowing in upstairs. In the morning close up the windows and close curtains and shades over the windows that receive direct sunlight. If you have a room that gets hotter than the others shut the door to that room or hang a curtain over the doorway. My hot water tank is in a first floor room so I isolate that room and leave the windows open. Have a ceiling fan? Make sure it’s blowing in the right direction. Most have a switch so you can alternate direction it blows the air. Not always practical but soaking your feet in cool water will lower your body temperature. Much like coolant cools a combustible engine car your blood circulates through your body distributing heat. Personally I avoid using AC while driving as much as I can. It’s my opinion that when we get used to such comforts we suffer without them. I do have a window unit but use it only on the hottest nights.

I didn’t go through all the comments so sorry if thus is a duplicate.

Last year I learned that having a wet (not soking-weat) towel on your feet or your belly can keep you cool during the night. If you struggle falling asleep without a blanket and your’re to hot to sleep it might help.

Your feet and head are both very vascular, so cooling them will help lots to cool the rest of you.

Head -

Ever been buzzed or bald before? If no, now could be the time to give it a shot. Worse case scenario, you look like shit and let it grow back to whatever’s the shortest length that looks decent. Bonus: you’ll save a ton of time and money on hair cuts/care.

Keep a container of water water and washcloths in your fridge. Take a cloth out when it’s time to veg on the couch, and slap it on your noggin. When it dries, grab a new one. *recommend not throwing used ones back in the water w/o washing first, or your water will get nasty fast.

• If you decide to go buzzed and have never done it before, PROTECT YOUR NOGGIN/SCALP FROM THE SUN. Burns up there hurt like a mofo.

Feet -

This is trading heat discomfort for wet sock discomfort; but if that’s a fair trade, then… yeah, wet your socks with cold water. A tub a cold water at the base of your couch can give you something to dip in while you’re watching TV or something. Same spiel as the wash cloths - keep your socks/water/tub clean and don’t reuse without washing first, or you’ll get yourself trenchfoot or some nastiness.

Also, if you’re in an apartment that disallows window units… they fit great in a fireplace, and the hot air just vents up the chimney. Your lease likely doesn’t say anything about fireplace units. Just sayin’. Just make sure to seal the edges really well so hot air doesn’t leak back into your living space.

Buy a dual hose portable AC, that’s what I did when I lived in an apartment that would get VERY hot no matter what. (Actually, to save some $$ I got a single hose and modified it to a dual hose, but depending on the specific model and the tolerances they built it to, it risks short cycling and possibly burn out)

They’re still not nearly efficient as a window AC, but far far better than those single hose ones

If you can fit a window AC do that instead, if you are able to make modifications, a small mini split/heat pump system would do wonderfully. Though I have heard that they make mini splits that go through small windows rather then needing to drill through the wall, so that might be an option too.

The other tips and tricks are nice, if you have exhausted all other AC options and simply can’t have an AC at all (Which is mostly due to cost, dual hose portable ACs are pricey) but they really don’t compare to an actual AC system.

Open the windows at night and close them in the morning. If you have many electric devices, like I do, turn them off or put them into a dedicated room. With many, I mean lots of devices.

Windows open at night. Curtains or blinds shut during the day.

When I worked in a restaurant kitchen, we used to soak rags with water and freeze them in the walk in freezer, then once it’s nice and frozen we’d wear the rag around our necks.

There’s large blood vessels in the neck feeding your brain, so if you’re able to cool down the blood there, it’ll spread to the whole body surprisingly fast.

I actually managed to get cold in hot humid july summer in the kitchen with that method.

Those soakable cloth neck-wraps work as a cheap personal cooler($5).

The Coolify2 works as an expensive personal cooler(~$200).

If you have a fridge, freeze 2 litre ice-cream containers filled with water to make large ice blocks. Then put the block in a tub to melt, and sit your feet on it to stay cool(budget-mode, $cost of tap water)

If you live in a dry climate you can create a makeshift evaporation cooler with a fan, tub, water pump, and evap material.

Set it up in front of an opened window, blow it into the house, and open a window at the other side of the house. You can easily get 20 degree F drop in temp.

If no ac then stay in the basement while I reasonably can. Drive with windows open. If my work has no ac then the business closes. The material we work with has to be temperature controlled.

At my family cottage, we had it for over 40 years before getting portable ACs. Generally we just avoided the heat waves. Cold water in between your neck and shoulders really helps circulate the cooled blood throughout your body. We ended up getting portable ACs one year because we were spending a week there and it was over 95f every day. A few years later one of us took a paid early retirement package and we used that money to get central AC, biggest upgrade for our cottage ever.

Check out “radiative sky cooling”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDRnEm-B3AI

There might be some way to do something with this.

A cross breeze is great. I can often turn off the ac during a hot day and just open the windows.

I grew up without AC in Florida.

Sit in the shade with a fan, be still. If in the shade and a breeze, and not moving around, a pretty high temperature is comfortable.

Go to places with cold AC or to cold springs to get cold, it will last awhile after you leave.

If it gets cool at night, open your window at night to let in the cold air, close it in the morning to keep that air in for the morning. But once it heats up inside, you are better off with ventilation - open windows on both sides of the house and run fans, to move air throughout the house.

If it’s dry where you are (it doesn’t work here) get wet and let evaporation cool you. Even here you can get wet and stand naked in front of a fan you will get cold.

STAY HYDRATED.

Keep windows open at night and into the morning

Fan pointed straight at you, on max blast through the night

It’s significantly worse if your house is humid, and dehumidifiers increase the heat, but they’re still worth it