How do amish deal with summer heat?

[jirwin]

Looking for ways to deal with summer heat with no a/c or electricity as the amish do. Building construction ideas that help? attempting to make homestead more passive and efficeint. Thanks.

[dlskidmore]

Drink water. Stay in shade during the heat of the day. Cook outside.

Never had AC growing up. Had it for a couple years in my first apartment, but for the most part get by without it.

If you use electricity but not AC, use upstairs exhaust fans to fill the house with cold air at night, then shut it up tight before 9 AM when temps start to rise.

[pancho]

The seasons come on gradual. That gives a person time to adjust.
The only time I use AC is sometimes at night when I sleep. Not many times then. I am outside all of the time and get used to the heat.
Some people like for the temp in the summer to be in the 60s and the temp in the winter to be in the 80s. I don't try to change mother nature, just get used to whatever she hands out.

[Vickie44]

I think if you avoid air conditioning you get used to not having it, it doesnt bother me . I would not be able to sleep upstairs with out the fan but a sleeping porch would be ideal . My basement is very cool .

[dirtman]

I don't know how the Amish do it, but thermal mass is the secret to both heating and cooling. Pretty hard to retrofit, especially if you have frame construction through. Frank LLoyd wright used a sunken hearth fireplace that he filled with water in the hot weather and natural convection cooled the room.

[poorboy]

Til I was about 26 yrs. old, worked out in temps as high as 117 (highest) in Ariz. usta cool down at night in the desert..Growing up in the Ozarks as I remember we had shade trees and windows,doors with screens ,High ceilings, 2 story farm house. In the day time the upstairs was intolerable, house had porches on North, East and west sides. North porch was tolerable in evening , upstairs bedrooms were a b--ch for us kids at night, til about midnight..You just put up with it...ijust came from going to the bank in a non AC pickup ,temp 104*f, A one hr. errand. I'm finishing my 13th Lustrum and I survived it (104)..If I donna lose a little weight it's gonna be harder to take afore long..

[Melissa]

Our Amish friends pretty much moved to the basement during the really hot summer months. It was nice and cool there and they had a creek that ran right through the middle of their property so the kids played in it a lot.

[FarmboyBill]

Didnt have AC till I was in my mid 20s. Summer nites upstairs as a kid were hail.

My dad said they used to sleep in the hall way ( Same house), and with the door open hope for a breeze. The only breeze they got in the summer of 36 was from the mosquitos. They said it sounded like they was going to come through the wire and haul them away,

[edcopp]

I am not sure what our Amish neighbors do, exactly; but it does seem to cause them to have lots of little Amish babies.

[RedDirt Cowgirl]

Besides construction thermomass, shade and earthen retreat considerations, as much living green cover and ground moisture as you can provide will help keep the ambient temperature lower. There's reflective material ($$$!!) for window glass, but I'm not ashamed to stick aluminum foil to the outside of any windows that are sun-struck. The old houses here had "summer kitchens", a screened on 3 sides room on the north, or wherever the coolest side of the house is.

The evaporative cooling effect can work wonders if the humidity isn't too high. The whole "swamp cooler" concept was a take off on people hanging wet sheets in airways. And the basic dispell the heat, store the cool as long as possible can take you through a good part of the day. Sleeping outside is an old family tradition; my blast from the post-modern-past secret is sleeping on a unheated waterbed, but those seem to have gone the way of dinosaurs... you need a double valve air mattress to duplicate that one.

Keeping oneself as oil-free as possible is cooler too.

[edcopp]

Amish in my area have ice brought in daily.

[Forerunner]

Don't know how the Amish keep cool, but......

We use no electricity for comforts.

There are no fans at bedtime, even.

Shade over the house helps tremendously.
Trips to the pond, as necessary.
Cold hydrant water, gravity fed, is kept refreshed in an outdoor tub for the little ones.
Ample cold spring water is available at all times.
All cooling water is used to irrigate orchard and gardens as it's dutiful end.

Mostly, as has been mentioned, it is an adjustment....and, we're just a tough bunch.

[Cabin Fever]

[sidepasser]

Well I lived without a/c for 21 years. My barn house did have 14 ft. ceilings and I did install a whole house fan during the last five years I lived there. Before I had the fan, I simply adjusted to doing chores early in the morning and very late in the day. Also my barn house had 8 inch block walls that acted as insulation. When it got really hot during the day, over 100, I would spray the roof and and sides of the house, the evaporative effect made the house much cooler.

You simply learn to slow down, adjust, and be careful doing chores.

[blufford]

Shade trees.

[ET1 SS]

Move somewhere you don't need A/C.

[Common Tator]

There is a reason that some old houses had big gracious front porches. Nice for sitting with ice tea in the evening, and it casts shade on the house and helps keep it cool too! And the smaller porch upstairs is called a sleeping porch. If you are lucky, it is screened in.

[Heritagefarm]

Originally Posted by jirwin

Looking for ways to deal with summer heat with no a/c or electricity as the amish do. Building construction ideas that help? attempting to make homestead more passive and efficeint. Thanks.

Get up really early in the morning, do as much work as possible, and then hide somewhere cool (basement, creek, pond, cellar, cistern, fish tank, etc.) the rest of the day. Pop out again sometime in the evening and hope to not get heatstroke because you have to wear dark colors.

[lorian]

"How do the Amish deal with the heat". LOL... Well, my Amish friend/neighbor bought an air conditioner, installed it in my shed and brought a chair over. She sits in there every afternoon during heatwaves and pays me for the electric. Really.

[salmonslayer]

The thermal mass concept is one I really had no experience with until we move to this old Ozark Stone house. Its a slip form design with walls over a foot and a half think of stone set in concrete and we replaced all the windows and doors with the low e argon gas impregnated dont really understand it but it works design. We keep the house about 68 - 70 during the summer and our electric bill runs about $120 - 150 during the summer (our last one was $91), We ventilated the attic when we re-roofed it a couple years ago with gable end vents and three turbo vents which also seems to help.

Stone/masonry structures like this are also warm during the winter once you add heat to them as they act like a heat sink but if you let the magic fire go out it takes a long time to warm them up. One of the things we really like is that its incredibly quiet and we have virtually no drafts. It can be blowing like snot and we wont hear anything except the rain hitting the windows sometimes.

When I was a young newly married Marine I rented a small house in Hubert NC that had no AC and just an old oil burner in the living room and we were miserable in the summer and froze in the winter...I remember everything getting moldy and staying damp it was so humid. I dont know how you guys survive without AC....I am serious, I admire those who can do it and admit I am not up to it myself.