Outdoor entertaining is a great way to inject more life, energy, and enjoyment into an event at your St. Louis home. Guests can lounge by your pool or smell the sizzle of steak on your backyard grill. Kids have the freedom to run around to their hearts’ content. There’s more open space, and as evening arrives, guests can enjoy viewing the sunset and watching the stars come out. That said, outdoor entertaining does have its downsides. One of these is that all the effort you spend cooling your home’s interior with your HVAC system can get wasted thanks to all the people going in and out of your house. Here are some tips you can try, to avoid that particular downside and keep guests cool when entertaining outdoors.
Outdoor Entertaining Tip: Avoiding All the In and Out
The main way your home heats up while you’re preoccupied with outdoor entertaining, is simply having people moving from your yard to the inside of your house, and vice versa. Kids will often do this a lot while playing, but adults do this as well. They might need to use the bathroom, or maybe they need to grab some additional drinks from your refrigerator. So, take steps to minimize this foot traffic.
When outdoor entertaining, have drinks easily accessible in your yard in a cooler so they remain comfortably chilled. This way, people don’t need to enter your home to look for refreshments. Give kids something interesting to do outside, like fun games, playing with toys, or enjoy some other form of entertainment so they don’t go wandering inside looking for something to do. In fact, if you have side access directly from your front yard to your backyard, usher people that way instead of having them walk through the house. When done right, this doesn’t detract from your outdoor entertaining. It becomes a way for guests to head directly to where all the action, music, and fun are.
Outdoor Entertaining Tip: Check Your Doors, Windows, and Seals
There are other things you can do before the outdoor entertaining starts to help prevent cool air from escaping your St. Louis home as well. For example, you can install a mechanism in your door the automatically closes it after a person enters. This is a big help because the sooner a door closes after it is used, the better for temperature control and your HVAC system. That said, keep an eye on your guests (especially kids), because they may end up opening the door wider than normal, preventing the mechanism from doing its job or even damaging it.
You can also install thick drapes or curtains on your windows, so that the sun’s rays are less able to penetrate your home’s interior. Your house may end up darker, but that won’t be an issue because people will be focused on the outdoor entertaining activities. In fact, you can even turn off most of the lights inside the house, which will reduce the heat generated by the light fixtures. You only need to illuminate key parts of the house like the bathroom, kitchen, and so on.
In addition, perform basic checks around your windows and doors, and make sure there aren’t gaps where cool air can escape.
Get More Advice on Cool Outdoor Entertaining
If you would like to learn more about how to combine outdoor entertaining with staying cool, contact us at Galmiche & Sons. Our staff would be happy to answer your questions about keeping cool while outdoor entertaining and make sure your heating & air conditioning system is in the best working condition for your party.
