If you’re lucky enough to live in a warm climate, during the summer months, you may find that your container home becomes a bit too warm, just like any other house.
What can you do about it? You can always install an air conditioner. But I’ve gathered a list of other tips for keeping your container home cool in the summer.
How to Keep Your Container Home Cool
- Create Shades to Protect Your Container Home
It’s surprising how many people don’t use shades on their windows, especially those living in warm climates. Curtains can be used both to keep the hot air outside during summer and to keep the warm air inside during winter.
Make sure to paint with white or light colors as they are better for reflecting heat. Blinds can also be used, but they’re not as effective as creating natural shades with trees.
If you really want to keep your container home cool, also add curtains to any window that’s directly exposed to sunlight throughout the day.
- Use Cool Night Air
A great tip is to use the cool air from the night to circulate and keep your container home cool during the night, whenever the weather allows.
Most places get a bit of relief from hot days when the night comes. Take advantage of this time to reset your home’s temperature. Open your curtains and windows when going to sleep to allow the cool night air to refresh your home.
Close your windows early in the morning to avoid turning your place into a sauna!
- Create Your Own Green Space in Your Garden
Often, people are unaware of the impact their garden has on the home’s heat. Your garden can be used to plant trees that act as shade for your home. Not only that, but they also look great.
The hybrid poplar is one of the fastest-growing trees and can reach up to 50 feet tall. They are popular because they grow around 8 feet per year. Another popular choice is the Northern Catalpa.
It doesn’t grow as fast as the hybrid poplar, but it has an exceptionally thick leaf canopy that can provide ample coverage for your home and keep the heat away.
- Change Your Lights
Incandescent lights can waste up to 90% of energy in heat. So when you see them on the ceiling, they should really be providing you with light, not heating your home! Replace incandescent lights with energy-saving lights, also known as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).
These days, LED lights are very popular for home use, undoubtedly, this will help you keep your container home cool. Not only will it help keep your home cooler, but it will also save you some money on your electricity bill!
- Box Fans
Given the long rectangular shape of many container homes, box fans can be the perfect device to cool your home. The trick is to use one to blow in the cool air and another to blow out the hot air, like a push-pull system.
Where you place your fans depends on your container home’s location. This takes advantage of any cool breeze! Then, place the box fans on the opposite side of your home to draw out the hot air from inside.
- Design Your Container Home to Keep Cool
If you haven’t already, read about the Vissershok Primary School in South Africa here. They built an additional classroom made of a container. They wanted an affordable way to keep the classroom comfortable as temperatures can rise in summer.
The architects placed a large sloped roof on top of the classroom, facilitating passive cooling by allowing the warm indoor air to rise and exit the rooms. Additionally, the metal roof is coated with reflective paint, so much of the sun’s heat is reflected away from the classrooms.
The architects also placed many small windows on both sides of the container. This allows cool air to blow in on one side of the classroom and out the other, taking the hot air with it. It’s about using the natural environment in a smart way to keep the heat out of the classroom.
Your roof choice plays a key role in the warmth of your shipping container during the summer months. Using a reflective metal roof can not only be affordable but also provide you with significant heat reduction.
Traditional roofs, like dark asphalt roofs, will absorb the sun’s heat and conduct it into your building. Reflective roofs send the heat back to the atmosphere.
The downside to this is that during winter, the warm sunlight you actually want is also reflected away from the container, so be mindful of the weather as you explore these techniques.
- Don’t Use the Oven
If it already feels hot inside your container home, there’s no point in turning on the oven that can produce up to 400 degrees, right? Consider cooking in another way that doesn’t require using the kitchen oven.
Try cooking on an outdoor grill while enjoying the glorious weather, cook early in the day, and use slow cookers and instant pots.
- Portable Air Conditioning Units
If you’re in a stifling location, instead of installing air conditioning throughout the house, you can purchase a portable air conditioning unit.
The cooling capacity of the unit will vary depending on the room size where you’ll use it. A 12,000 BTU unit will adequately cool a room of up to 400 square feet.
- Take Care of Your Windows
Use low-emissivity glass windows on all external walls. Low-emissivity coated glass allows significantly less heat than traditional windows. This acts similarly to the reflective metal roof as it first prevents heat from entering your home.
Don’t be discouraged if your windows have already been installed without low-emissivity glass as you can still buy low-emissivity curtains to apply to those windows. These tips and tricks will help you stay cool and keep your container home cool during the summer months!
If you want to read about how to keep your container home warm during winter, read our article here.
Let us know in the comment section below if you have other good tips for keeping your container home cool.
