The electrician just handed you a bill for regular maintenance on your HVAC system. Looking at the total, you wonder if you can use lace fans like Scarlett and Melanie used to cool yourself and the fireplace for heat. There are other ways to heat and cool your house. They may be better, depending on the size of your house and your definition of warm and cool.

Different Heating Methods

Many homeowners won't heat rooms they're not using while at work, at school, or asleep. They opt for a heat source in each room and only turn them on when the room is occupied.

Natural Gas, Propane, And Oil Heat

Natural gas and propane are used to fuel stoves, fridges, and other appliances. They make good home heating fuel as well. Heating oil is only used in heating appliances and may be the only heating source available in some areas of the country.

Natural gas lines and propane tanks have their contents blown into the ducts of a house much like an HVAC unit. They're often used, in addition to oil, in space heaters and gas “logs” in a fireplace.

Water Heating

Today's technology morphs old electric baseboard heaters into water-driven heaters. Water is heated in a boiler and then circulated through the baseboard units. This heating method is installed when the house is being built, though it would pay for itself just as well due to strides in technology if the units were installed post-construction.

Wood Heating

A timeless classic, wood heating remains the most popular method of heating a room or a home. Fireplaces, wood burning stoves, heating appliances using pellets, and fireplace inserts all provide heat and a kind of coziness not found in other heating methods.

Different Cooling Methods

Cooling a room is about cheating the sun. You'll need drapes with white backing, ceiling fans, window fans, and you won't be cooking or doing laundry until night.

How To Position Fans

When ceiling fans rotate clockwise, they push air down. When they rotate counter-clockwise, they pull air up. Make sure your fan is rotating the right way.

Place one box window fan blowing air coming into a window if the wind is blowing it inside. Place another box window fan in a window across one or two rooms you're working in, but facing outside the window. One draws warm air and directs it out, while the other draws air in.

Use Water To Advantage

Place a bucket of ice beneath the fan drawing air inside. It will blow the coolness into the room.

Get the bottom of the drapes wet and open the window. The breeze will blow the cool moisture through the room.

Cook At Night

Ordering in every day gets a little expensive. Make meal preps for the week in one night and use the microwave to heat them. You can use your outdoor kitchen, too, to keep the house cooler. Do your wash at night, too, when it's cooler.

Turn Everything Off

If it's electric, it puts off some amount of heat. Switch old-fashioned light bulbs to LED bulbs, which put off next to no heat. Unplugging small appliances, computers, and entertainment items will keep the rooms a little cooler.

Heat actually kills people according to the CDC. It's not necessary, though, when there are cool ways to heat and cool a home without using the HVAC unit. If our ancestors used what they had in the house along with a few neat tricks in order to stay warm in winter and cool in summer, so can we.