- 16 minutes ago
A wet sheet, a bowl of water, and three minutes can cool a room by 10 to 15 degrees without air conditioning, a fan, or any electricity. Elias Yoder breaks down the simple evaporative cooling method, why it works, and how it connects to 4,000 years of dry-climate physics used by Egyptians, Persians, Mughal India, and Pennsylvania Dutch farm families.
The video also shows the practical setup for a cross-breeze window, the two-pot zir cooler, and three old farmhouse habits that help cut summer cooling costs: using a basement during the hottest hours, locking in night air with a sunrise window-close routine, and adding strategic shade on south and west exposures. It is part home-saving guide, part history lesson, and part off-grid living tutorial for anyone looking for low-cost ways to stay cooler in summer.
Created for viewers searching for no electricity cooling methods, evaporative cooling, passive cooling, Amish home hacks, summer heat relief, and budget-friendly ways to reduce AC bills. It is also useful for DIY cooling, old-fashioned home tips, and practical energy-saving ideas for hot weather.
The video also shows the practical setup for a cross-breeze window, the two-pot zir cooler, and three old farmhouse habits that help cut summer cooling costs: using a basement during the hottest hours, locking in night air with a sunrise window-close routine, and adding strategic shade on south and west exposures. It is part home-saving guide, part history lesson, and part off-grid living tutorial for anyone looking for low-cost ways to stay cooler in summer.
Created for viewers searching for no electricity cooling methods, evaporative cooling, passive cooling, Amish home hacks, summer heat relief, and budget-friendly ways to reduce AC bills. It is also useful for DIY cooling, old-fashioned home tips, and practical energy-saving ideas for hot weather.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00It is a Tuesday afternoon in late June. The thermometer on your back porch reads 98 degrees Fahrenheit.
00:07Inside your house, with the central air conditioner running full blast since 7 o'clock this morning,
00:13the thermostat says 76 degrees, and the unit has not shut off in three hours.
00:19You open the electric company's app on your phone. Your projected bill for this month?
00:26$243.
00:26Last month, it was $180. The month before that, $155.
00:33And you know, because every weather forecaster in America is saying it, that this is going to be the hottest
00:40summer on record.
00:42150 million Americans are in the middle of a heat wave right now.
00:47One in six households is already behind on their electric bills.
00:51Cooling costs across the country are projected to be the highest in 12 years.
00:57Half the country is choosing between groceries and air conditioning.
01:01And the central AC unit running in your living room is the single most expensive appliance in your house.
01:08Now I want you to sit with this.
01:10There is a setup you can build in three minutes using two materials that cost less than $2 total
01:17that drops the temperature of any room by 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit with no electricity,
01:24no moving parts, no monthly subscription, no licensed contractor, no air conditioner of any kind.
01:32Just water, fabric, and 4,000-year-old physics that every dry climate civilization on Earth
01:39figured out independently before mechanical cooling existed.
01:43The chemistry is real.
01:45The history is real.
01:46The setup works.
01:48And the only reason most Americans have never heard of it is that nobody in the cooling industry
01:53profits from teaching folks how to cool a room with a bucket of water and a wet sheet.
01:59My name is Elias Yoder.
02:01I am Amish and I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
02:05Our farmhouse has no central air conditioner.
02:08It never has.
02:10300 years of Pennsylvania Dutch farm families have lived through summers like the one outside right now
02:16using exactly the methods I am going to walk you through today.
02:19The headline three-minute setup that works in any house in any state
02:24and the three supporting old farmhouse methods that compound the effect.
02:29By the end of this video, you will know how to cool your house this summer
02:33without running your AC at all for half the day.
02:37And you will save somewhere between $300 and $500 over the season doing it.
02:42Quick word before I get into it.
02:44The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
02:50I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
02:54The book is the long version.
02:56If you want it, it is there.
02:58I will not mention it again.
02:59Now, the three-minute setup, plainly.
03:02The chemistry of evaporative cooling, plainly.
03:06Before I walk you through the setup, you need to understand why it works
03:09because the chemistry tells you what to expect and what not to expect.
03:14When water changes from liquid to vapor, what we call evaporation,
03:19it absorbs an enormous amount of heat from the surrounding air.
03:23Specifically, every single gram of water that evaporates
03:26pulls about 540 calories of heat energy out of the air around it.
03:31That is real high school physics.
03:34It has not changed in 4,000 years.
03:37And it is the most efficient natural cooling mechanism that exists on this planet.
03:42To put that in everyday terms,
03:44one pound of water evaporating from a wet sheet hanging in your window
03:48pulls about 1,000 BTUs of heat out of the air passing through.
03:53That is the same cooling unit your central air conditioner uses to measure its output.
03:58A wet cotton sheet is producing real, measurable, documented cooling power
04:03without electricity, without machinery, without a single moving part.
04:08This is why your skin feels cold when wet skin meets a breeze.
04:13The breeze accelerates evaporation off your skin.
04:16Every drop of sweat that evaporates pulls heat out of your body.
04:20The same chemistry that cools the human body cools the air passing through wet fabric.
04:26This is the principle.
04:28Air passes across wet surface.
04:31Water evaporates.
04:32Heat leaves the air with the water.
04:35The air on the far side of the wet surface is measurably cooler than the air that entered it.
04:41This is not a folk remedy.
04:43This is thermodynamics.
04:46Why it was forgotten.
04:48And who profits from your forgetting.
04:51The story of how Americans stopped knowing this is not a conspiracy.
04:56It is plainer than that.
04:58It is the same pattern I have shown you with home canning, with lard rendering, with homemade yogurt, with everything
05:06we cover on this channel.
05:07When something works perfectly without you paying for it, nobody has a financial reason to teach it to you.
05:15In 1902, an engineer named Willis Carrier invented the first electrical air conditioning system in Brooklyn, New York.
05:24By 1955, one in four American homes had mechanical A.C.
05:31By 1980, more than 60% did.
05:35And with each year that mechanical A.C. spread, the inherited knowledge of evaporative cooling faded further from public memory.
05:44The HVAC industry in America today generates over $240 billion in annual revenue.
05:52Central A.C. installation costs $7,000 to $15,000 up front.
05:59Annual electricity costs run $1,000 to $2,000 per household.
06:05Filter replacements, refrigerant recharging, and maintenance contracts add another $500 to $800 per year.
06:14That is real money flowing to a real industry every summer.
06:20A wet sheet in a window costs nothing.
06:23It produces no recurring revenue.
06:26It cannot be sold back to you on a monthly subscription.
06:30And so the industry that grew up around mechanical cooling had no reason to teach you about the chemistry it
06:36was replacing.
06:37And folks gradually forgot, over two generations, that water and cloth had been cooling human homes for 4,000 years
06:47before electricity arrived.
06:50This is not a conspiracy.
06:53It is a system nobody had to coordinate.
06:56Every household that bought an A.C. unit and stopped teaching their children about wet sheets at the window contributed
07:03to the forgetting.
07:04And here we are now, paying $200 a month for a problem that a bucket of water and an old
07:12cotton sheet would have solved.
07:15The 4,000-year history verified.
07:19Let me show you, plainly, that this is not invention.
07:23It is recovery of lost knowledge.
07:26I am going to give you four verified historical traditions that used evaporative cooling, every one of them documented in
07:35archaeological records and academic research.
07:38Ancient Egypt, 2500 B.C.
07:42Wall paintings from this period show Egyptians hanging wet reeds and wet linen across doorways and window openings.
07:50Howard Carter, the archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, documented in his field notes that Egyptian burial chambers and
08:02palace ventilation systems maintained interior temperatures 15 to 20 degrees cooler than the outside air, using nothing but evaporation and
08:13natural airflow.
08:14Egyptian palace architects built entire wind channels designed to push hot, dry desert air across wet linen panels before it
08:25entered royal living rooms.
08:28Ancient Persia, 400 B.C. onward
08:31Persian architects built towers called badgir, windcatchers, that rose 30 feet or more above palace and home roofs.
08:41The tallest windcatchers still standing in the world is in Yazd, Iran, over 33 meters tall, more than 2,000
08:51years old, still functioning today.
08:54Researchers from multiple universities have measured interior temperatures in Yazd's traditional windcatcher buildings during heat waves with outdoor temperatures over
09:05108 degrees Fahrenheit.
09:07The interior temperatures measured between 72 and 78 degrees, a 30-degree natural cooling difference maintained by architecture and evaporation
09:19with zero electricity.
09:21Mughal India, 16th century
09:24Emperor Akbar's summer palace at Fatehpur Sikri used wet-woven grass mats called kus screens placed in window openings.
09:35Servants poured water over the screens continuously through the hot afternoons.
09:40Interior temperatures dropped 15 to 20 degrees below the outside air.
09:46Indian summers that regularly exceeded 115 degrees Fahrenheit were made bearable inside the palace using nothing but water, grass, and
09:57the steady evaporation of moisture into the incoming air.
10:02Pennsylvania Dutch America, 1700s onward
10:06This is the tradition I know best because it is my own.
10:11Pennsylvania Dutch farm wives hung wet sheets across kitchen windows on the hottest summer afternoons.
10:19Esther's grandmother had a small wet linen panel she would tack across the kitchen window when the cooking made the
10:27room unbearable.
10:28The breeze coming through the screen cooled the kitchen by 10 to 15 degrees.
10:34Folks kept a bucket of well water in the kitchen on summer days, and the cool earth temperature of the
10:41well water added to the cooling effect.
10:44This is documented in Pennsylvania German farm diaries going back 200 years.
10:51And in the modern era, real, verified research, not internet stories.
10:57In 1986, researchers at the University of Arizona built a passive evaporative cooling tower in Tucson, Arizona.
11:07The performance data from that experimental facility became the foundation of evaporative cooling tower design guidelines that engineers still use
11:17today.
11:18The tower produced sustained 10 to 18 degree cooling in Tucson's dry desert summer with zero electricity.
11:294,000 years of human civilization figured out the same answer.
11:34The chemistry has not changed.
11:36It is just sitting in your linen closet right now, waiting to be remembered.
11:42The 3-minute setup.
11:45Now, exactly how to build it.
11:48Pay close attention because the placement matters as much as the materials.
11:53The materials list.
11:55Total cost under $2.
11:58One bowl or bucket of cold water.
12:01Any container that holds about a gallon.
12:04A mixing bowl, a 5-gallon bucket, a pasta pot, whatever you have.
12:11Cold tap water works.
12:13Adding ice, if available, accelerates the cooling for the first 30 to 60 minutes.
12:20One or two large cotton towels or cotton sheets.
12:24Old bath towels from the lemon closet are perfect.
12:28Old cotton sheets work.
12:30The fabric must be cotton or linen.
12:33Natural fibers absorb and release water far better than synthetic fabrics.
12:39Polyester does not work for this.
12:42Use what you already have in your house.
12:45A window with a cross breeze, meaning a window that has airflow either from outside or from
12:52an open window on the opposite side of the room.
12:56That is the entire materials list.
12:59Total cost?
13:01Nothing if you have a bowl, an old cotton sheet, and water, which means everyone watching this
13:08video has the materials already.
13:11The build.
13:123 minutes start to finish.
13:15Step 1.
13:16Set up the cross ventilation.
13:19Open a window on one side of the room where you want cooling.
13:24Open another window on the opposite side of the room, or open the door to an adjacent room with an
13:30open window.
13:31You need air to flow from one opening, across the wet fabric, and out the other side.
13:38If you have only one window, set up a small fan to push air through the wet fabric.
13:45Even a slow box fan dramatically increases the cooling effect.
13:50Step 2.
13:52Soak the cotton fabric in cold water.
13:56Take your towel or sheet and soak it completely in the bowl of cold water.
14:01Ring out just enough so it stops dripping, but leave it as wet as possible.
14:07Dripping is fine on a hard floor.
14:10You want maximum moisture in the fabric.
14:13Step 3.
14:15Hang the wet fabric across the window opening.
14:19Drape the wet sheet across the inside of the window, using the curtain rod, hanging it from the top of
14:26the window frame, or tacking it across the opening.
14:29The sheet should cover the entire window opening without completely blocking air flow.
14:36Air should pass through the wet fabric, not around it.
14:39A sheet that is too dense, wadded up or doubled over, blocks the air.
14:45A sheet that is too loose, flapping in the breeze, does not provide enough wet surface area.
14:51Aim for a single layer of damp cotton, stretched flat, across the window.
14:57Step 4.
14:59Place the bowl of cold water directly underneath the hanging fabric.
15:04The bowl sits on the floor or windowsill below the wet sheet.
15:08As the sheet dries through evaporation, water from the bowl evaporates upward into the airstream as well.
15:16This doubles the evaporation surface area.
15:20That is the setup.
15:22Three steps, three minutes.
15:25Air flowing through the wet fabric arrives in your room measurably cooler than the air that entered from outside.
15:32In dry climates with low humidity, the temperature drop is 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit.
15:40In moderate humidity, 6 to 10 degrees.
15:44In high humidity along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Southeast, 4 to 6 degrees.
15:50The cooling is real in every climate.
15:54The magnitude depends on how dry the air is.
15:58The setup needs re-wetting every 2 to 4 hours in dry climates or about every 5 to 6 hours
16:05in humid climates.
16:07Re-wetting takes about 30 seconds.
16:10Pour water from the bowl over the hanging fabric or take it down and re-dunk it.
16:16Before I walk through the enhanced setup and the supporting Amish methods, let me pause for a moment.
16:24Every home has leaks.
16:26Food, heat, water, electricity, laundry, repairs, and waste.
16:33Inside our Amish home savings system and community,
16:38Esther and I help you find those leaks and start fixing them one by one.
16:43The link is in the description.
16:46Now, the enhanced setup and the three Amish supporting methods that compound the effect.
16:53The enhanced setup.
16:55The two-pot Zier cooler.
16:58This is the version that the University of Arizona researchers studied in Tucson.
17:04It is more involved than the wet sheet method,
17:07but it provides continuous cooling for 16 to 24 hours per refill,
17:12and it works as a portable cooling unit you can move around your house.
17:18Materials
17:19Two unglazed clay flower pots, one larger, one smaller.
17:25The smaller pot should fit inside the larger one with about an inch of space between them.
17:32Available at any hardware store or garden center for about $3 to $5 each.
17:39Critical detail.
17:40The pots must be unglazed clay or terracotta.
17:45Glazed pots will not work.
17:47They cannot release water through the surface.
17:51Coarse sand, about 10 pounds, enough to fill the gap between the two pots.
17:57Available at any hardware store, about $4.
18:02Cold water.
18:03A flat plate or piece of wood to cover the top.
18:08A wet cotton cloth to drape over the top.
18:12The build.
18:13Place the smaller pot inside the larger one, centered.
18:18If the larger pot has a drainage hole at the bottom,
18:21plug it with a small piece of cloth or cork.
18:24We do not want the water to drain through.
18:28Fill the gap between the two pots completely with coarse sand.
18:33Tamp it down firmly.
18:36Pour water slowly into the sand until it is fully saturated and will absorb no more.
18:43Place the flat plate or piece of wood over the top of the smaller pot.
18:48Drape a wet cotton cloth over the entire unit.
18:53How it works.
18:54The water saturating the sand slowly evaporates through the unglazed outer pot.
19:01That evaporation pulls heat out of the inner pot continuously.
19:06The inside of the smaller pot stays 10 to 15 degrees cooler than the surrounding air 24 hours a day,
19:15as long as the sand remains moist.
19:20Place the unit near an open window with incoming air flow.
19:24The cool air radiating from the outside of the unit lowers the immediate surrounding temperature noticeably within 20 minutes.
19:33In a 10-by-12-foot room with cross-ventilation, a single Zier cooler drops the ambient room temperature by
19:428 to 12 degrees.
19:45Two units placed at opposite sides of the room produces the full 15-degree drop documented in the University of
19:53Arizona research.
19:55Re-wetting takes about 30 seconds every 6 to 8 hours.
20:00Pour water over the sand through the gap at the top.
20:03That is the entire maintenance.
20:05This is the same chemistry the Egyptians used 4,000 years ago packaged into a portable form.
20:12And the inner pot doubles as a natural refrigerator.
20:15Folks in hot climates keep vegetables, fruit, and even milk inside the inner pot,
20:21where temperatures stay around 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit all day long.
20:27Supporting Amish Method 1
20:29Using Your Basement or Cellar as a Daytime Retreat
20:33Here is the truth most Americans have forgotten.
20:36Ground temperature below 4 feet stays at 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit year-round in most of the United States.
20:44A basement or cellar built into the earth maintains that natural temperature regardless of what is happening above ground.
20:53On a 95-degree day outside, a real stone cellar is 55 degrees inside.
21:00A modern American basement is 65 to 70 degrees.
21:05Either way, it is cooler than your living room.
21:07Every Pennsylvania Dutch farmhouse built before 1950 had a stone cellar directly under the house.
21:16The cellar was not just for food storage.
21:19It was where the family worked during the hottest hours of summer days.
21:23Esther's grandmother sat in the cellar from noon to 4 p.m. in July and August,
21:29snapping green beans, peeling apples, sorting dried herbs,
21:33doing the quiet work that kept the kitchen running.
21:36The men came in from the fields at noon, ate in the kitchen,
21:40then napped briefly in the cellar before going back out at 2 p.m.
21:45If you have a basement, use it.
21:48Set up a comfortable chair, a small reading area, a workspace.
21:53Move your daytime activities downstairs.
21:56The kids playing, the computer work, the reading, the napping.
22:00Do all of it in the basement during the hottest hours.
22:04You stop trying to cool the whole house with A.C.,
22:07and you only cool the upstairs bedrooms at night for sleeping.
22:12This single change can cut A.C. bills by 50% or more.
22:16The honest cost math, plainly.
22:20Average summer A.C. bill, $784.
22:24Using the basement strategically reduces overall A.C. consumption by about 60%.
22:31Annual savings, $400 to $500.
22:36Supporting Amish method 2, the cross-ventilation lockdown rhythm.
22:41This is the single most effective non-electric cooling method ever devised,
22:47and it is so simple that anyone with a phone alarm and a few windows can do it.
22:52Cool night air is free.
22:55In most of the United States, nighttime temperatures drop into the 60s or low 70s,
23:00even during heat waves, well below the daytime indoor temperatures of 80 to 85 degrees most homes hold.
23:09The Pennsylvania Dutch method captured that cool night air
23:13and trapped it inside the house for the next day's cooling.
23:17The rhythm, plainly.
23:19At sundown, about 8 to 9 p.m. in summer, open every window in the house.
23:25Ground floor on opposite sides.
23:27Upstairs, the cellar, the attic vents.
23:31Open them all.
23:32If you have a whole house fan in your attic or a strong box fan in an upstairs window,
23:38run it for 30 minutes to actively pull cool night air through the entire house.
23:43Let the cool air flow through the house for the entire night while you sleep.
23:48By dawn, about 5 to 6 a.m., the inside of the house is 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit throughout.
23:56The walls, the floors, the furniture, every interior surface is now cool.
24:03At sunrise, and this part is critical, close every window, every shade, every blind, every curtain.
24:11Close the cellar windows.
24:14Close the attic vents.
24:15Seal the house tight.
24:17The house is now closed with cool air trapped inside and the sun blocked from heating interior surfaces.
24:25The house stays cool until late afternoon because the cool walls and floors continue absorbing heat from the indoor air
24:33all day.
24:35Temperature stays around 70 to 75 degrees inside, even when outside is 95.
24:41Repeat at sundown.
24:44300 years of Pennsylvania Dutch farm summers ran on this rhythm.
24:49Households that practice strict night-cool, day-seal cycling report AC bill reductions of 40 to 60 percent.
24:58On the average $784 summer bill, savings of $300 to $470.
25:08Supporting Amish Method 3, Strategic Shade
25:12Direct sunlight hitting your house is the heat.
25:17The radiant energy from the sun is what heats up the walls, the roof, and the air inside.
25:24Block the sun before it hits the house, and the house never gets hot in the first place.
25:31Pennsylvania Dutch farmhouses were always built with deliberate shade strategies.
25:38Tall, deciduous trees planted on the south and west sides of the house provide full shade in summer.
25:46Drop leaves in winter to let sun warm the house.
25:50Wide eaves and overhangs block direct sun from hitting south-facing windows during summer when the sun is high.
26:00Front porches with deep roofs shade the entire front of the house.
26:05Climbing vines on trellises, grapevines, hops, climbing roses planted to shade west-facing walls.
26:15The Real Physics
26:16Direct sunlight delivers about 1,000 watts per square meter of energy on a clear summer day.
26:25A 10-foot by 10-foot south-facing window admits about 9,000 watts of heat energy when fully exposed.
26:35Blocking that window with an awning or shade tree eliminates 9,000 watts of heat input,
26:42the equivalent of running a 3-ton AC unit just to compensate.
26:49Practical Applications for Your House
26:52Plant fast-growing shade trees on the south and west sides of your house.
26:58Even small trees help, and they grow each year.
27:03Install exterior awnings on south and west windows, most effective shade you can add.
27:10Use exterior solar screens, mesh fabric on the outside of windows.
27:17Block 80% of solar heat before it enters.
27:22Close interior blinds and curtains on any window where direct sun is hitting.
27:28Plant climbing vines on west-facing walls.
27:32Grape, ivy, any deciduous climber.
27:36Proper shading of south and west exposures reduces cooling costs by 25 to 40%.
27:44On the average $784 summer bill, savings of $200 to $300.
27:54Now I want to take a moment, because here is where it all comes together.
27:59Look at what we have walked through.
28:02The 3-minute wet sheet setup drops any room 10 to 15 degrees in dry climates,
28:106 to 10 degrees in moderate humidity,
28:134 to 6 degrees in humid climates.
28:17Costs $2 in materials.
28:19The 2-pot Zier Cooler.
28:2324-hour continuous cooling, $10 to build, also doubles as a natural refrigerator.
28:32The Cellar Daytime Retreat.
28:3555-degree natural refuge costs nothing.
28:39The night-cool, day-seal rhythm.
28:4440 to 60% AC reduction costs nothing but a phone alarm.
28:51The shade strategy.
28:5325 to 40% cooling reduction costs the price of curtains and maybe some trees.
29:01The methods compound.
29:03Each one reduces the cooling load on the house, which makes the others more effective.
29:1026-block the sun.
29:11The house starts cooler.
29:1427-close the windows during the day.
29:16The cool air stays trapped.
29:1928-cool the night air through wet sheets.
29:22The house gets colder than the outside temperature ever was.
29:2729-use the basement during the hottest hours.
29:29You only need to cool the upstairs at night.
29:3329-all five methods working together equals a house that needs almost no AC.
29:4129-this is how the Pennsylvania Dutch lived for 300 years before electricity.
29:4830-and it is how you could live this summer.
29:5230-the honest cost math is plain.
29:5531-average household summer AC bill, $784.
30:03Applying all five methods together cuts the bill by 60 to 80% in dry climates.
30:1140-50% in humid climates.
30:15That is $400 to $600 saved per summer.
30:20Over 10 years, $4,000 to $6,000 per household.
30:28The honest climate scope.
30:31These methods work better in dry climates than humid ones.
30:35They work best in the west, southwest, and mountain regions where the air carries little
30:40moisture and evaporation rates are high.
30:43They work in moderate humidity across the midwest, northeast, and mid-Atlantic, but with smaller
30:50cooling differences.
30:51They work less well along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Southeast where the air is already
30:57saturated with moisture.
30:59Even in the most humid climates, the methods reduce AC dependence by 25 to 35%, still meaningful,
31:08still hundreds of dollars saved, still worth doing.
31:13There is no money in the cooling industry in teaching folks that a wet sheet in a window
31:18does what a $2,000 central AC partially does.
31:23There is a great deal of money in selling families $10,000 of installation, $200 a month of electricity,
31:30and $500 a year of maintenance, every year, forever.
31:36So the simple old methods sit quiet in farmhouses like ours, and in the linen closets of every
31:43American home, and most American families pay $700 per summer to cool their houses when 20 minutes
31:51of work and a wet cotton sheet would have done half the job for free.
31:56You can be the one who never paid.
31:58So here is what I want you to do.
32:02Tonight, before bed, open every window in your house at sundown.
32:06Set a phone alarm for sunrise.
32:09At dawn, close every window, every shade, every blind.
32:14That single change will cool your house tomorrow by 5 to 10 degrees compared to today, and you
32:22have not spent a dollar.
32:24This week, find an old cotton sheet in your linen closet.
32:28Find a mixing bowl.
32:30Set the bowl of cold water in front of an open window, hang the wet sheet across the opening,
32:36and see what happens in 20 minutes.
32:38If you live in a dry climate, the room will be 10 to 15 degrees cooler within an hour.
32:45If you live in a humid climate, the room will be 5 to 8 degrees cooler.
32:50Either way, for free.
32:53This weekend, drive to the hardware store and buy two unglazed terracotta pots and a small bag of coarse sand,
33:01about $10 total.
33:03Build one zier cooler and place it in the room that gets hottest in your house.
33:09Watch what it does over the next week.
33:12This month, plant a shade tree on the south or west side of your house if you have any yard
33:18at all.
33:19Even a small tree this year is a major shade source within 3 to 5 years.
33:25Tell me in the comments below, what is your summer AC bill, and which of these methods are you going
33:32to try this week?
33:33And if your grandmother or grandfather had her own way of keeping the house cool in summer that we did
33:40not cover,
33:40the wet handkerchief on the neck, the cold cellar nap, the front porch sleeping arrangements, share the family memory.
33:48The little inherited cooling methods are exactly the kind of knowledge that gets lost when nobody writes them down.
33:56I read every single one.
33:59Next time, since today we covered how to cool the house without electricity,
34:04I am going to walk you through seven cold meals our family eats in summer when the kitchen is too
34:09hot to cook.
34:11Pennsylvania Dutch tradition for hot weather food that requires no oven, no stove, no heat in the kitchen at all.
34:19Eat well without warming the house.
34:22Subscribe so you do not miss it.
34:25Until then, open the windows at sundown, close them at sunrise, hang a wet sheet in the hottest window,
34:32set a bowl of water beneath it, and remember that the chemistry of evaporating water has not changed once in
34:394,000 years.
34:41The Egyptian palace builders knew it.
34:43The Persian wind tower engineers knew it.
34:46The Pennsylvania Dutch grandmothers knew it.
34:49You just remembered all of it.
34:51That is how the careful old folks survived summers harder than the one outside your window right now.
34:58That is how it is still done in any home that remembers.
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