Picture this (and it shouldn’t be hard this time of year):

It’s a blistering, humid, hot Missouri day. 

You’re spending some quality time with your family in your air-conditioned home. 

When suddenly, the A/C stops blowing… and doesn’t start up again. 

It slowly gets warmer and warmer. You check the thermostat. You try to adjust it. You might even try to tap on it, thinking “maybe it’s some kind of glitch.”

But as the day wears on, and as the temperature inside your home increases, you begin to realize that this isn’t a ‘normal’ A/C glitch. 

This is a full-fledged breakdown. 

Thankfully, we here at F&S Master Air offer 24/7 repair services. Contact us at any point, day or night, and we’ll dispatch a technician to get you taken care of as soon as possible. 

But what should you do in the meantime?

What steps should you take to mitigate this crisis until help arrives?

These are valid questions. And in this guide, you’re going to learn the best plan to help you keep your home cool in the summer in the event of an A/C breakdown. 

Let’s dive into it. 

1. Open The Windows

Normally, you’d want to keep your windows closed while your A/C is running, to avoid losing all of that crisp cool air. 

But if your A/C goes out, and your house starts to heat up, then you’re going to want to open the windows — as many as possible to try to establish a cross breeze. 

When you open all the windows, and keep all of the interior doors open, in line with the wind direction outside your home, you should be able to establish a healthy cross-breeze that’ll naturally blow through your home and keep the air circulating. 

Even if you don’t have fans, this technique can do a lot to help you lower the internal temperature of your house and keep it cool until that A/C is back online, assuming there is some natural air movement. 

2. Set Up Fans

If there is no wind at all, and you have some box fans, then you can use these to set up a breeze, or super-charge the natural cross breeze by using them to aid in air circulation. 

As a general rule, fans will aid more with overall air circulation if you set them up to blow air out of the house—as this will cause air to flow in from the cross-window to compensate. 

But sometimes, it may be preferable to set up your fans so that they’re actually blowing on you and your family instead of outside—because this can actually cool you down faster. 

‘Old-timers’ from before the days of ubiquitous home A/C would also tell you that a large bowl full of ice cubes set in front of a blowing fan can cool the circulating air down even further.

So, do whatever seems the most appropriate for the moment—but make sure to get those fans blowing so as to make full use of their air-moving power. 

3. Use Shade To Your Advantage

Sometimes, open windows are a double-edged sword because sunlight can shine through them and heat up the interior of your house. 

When this happens, you can find yourself in a situation where keeping the windows open helps by producing a cross breeze, but hinders by failing to keep the sun from heating up your living space anyway. 

Thus, using tactical shading to your advantage can give you a massive boost to your overall efforts to curb the ‘solar warming’ that may happen within your home otherwise. 

The best method for this is generally to use your blinds. Just lower them enough to block the sunlight, but keep them open to the degree that the air can still move through without being shut off or disrupted too much.

If possible, keep blinds and shutters on south and west facing windows closed, as these will keep out the most heat during the hottest parts of the day.

Conclusion

It’s never fun to lose your A/C. 

And while you might be able to survive for a few days without it—the truth is that your home can get very warm, very quickly in Missouri in the summer without it. 

This can even become a hazard to your health and safety. 

Thus, it’s always better to call us sooner rather than later, so that F&S Master Air can help you to sort out the problem and get it taken care of quickly. 

Remember, you can contact us 24/7 for assistance!