Greg Rutolo | Loan Factory

If you’ve stepped outside in South Jersey or Philly this week, you already know this isn’t your average summer heat. The National Weather Service has extreme heat warnings up and down the I-95 corridor, and heat index values are hitting 110 to 111 in Philadelphia and DC, with Boston not far behind at 106. Central Park hit triple digits for the first time since 2012. Cities are opening cooling centers, Amtrak has canceled trains because of the heat, and forecasters are calling this the most intense heat dome the region has seen in years. It’s sticking around through the weekend before easing up a bit by Sunday or Monday.

That’s the kind of heat where “just crank the AC” isn’t really a full plan, especially if you’re trying to keep your electric bill from doubling or you’ve got an older window unit that’s not built for this kind of sustained assault. Here’s what actually works.

Start With What’s Coming In Through the Windows

Somewhere around 30% of the heat that builds up inside your house on a day like this comes straight through the glass. Regular curtains barely put a dent in it. What you want are blackout curtains, or at minimum a reflective window film, on anything facing south or west — those are the windows catching the brutal afternoon sun. Close them before the sun really gets going, ideally by 9 or 10 in the morning, and keep them shut until early evening when the outside air temp actually drops below your indoor temp.

If you’ve got the time this weekend, even cheap aluminum foil taped to the inside of a west-facing window (shiny side out) will knock down the heat gain noticeably. It looks ridiculous, but it works, and plenty of people in Phoenix and Vegas do exactly this every summer.

Your AC Needs Help, Not Just Power

Running your air conditioner nonstop on a 110-degree heat index day is expensive and, depending on the unit, sometimes not even enough on its own. A few things make a real difference. Change your air filter if it’s been more than a month — a clogged filter can cut cooling efficiency by 15% or more, and that’s exactly when you can’t afford to lose it. Set your thermostat fan to “auto” rather than “on” so it’s not just recirculating warm air non-stop. And if you’ve got a window unit, make sure the seal around it is actually tight; a gap you could slide a piece of paper through is letting hot air pour in all day.

Ceiling fans and box fans don’t cool the air, but they cool you, because moving air speeds up evaporation off your skin. Run them counterclockwise in summer. Pointed the right way, a fan can let you bump your thermostat up 4 degrees and still feel just as comfortable, which adds up fast on your electric bill over a weekend like this.

Don’t Heat Your Own House From the Inside

This sounds obvious until you actually think about how much heat a stove, oven, or dryer throws into a house. On a day this hot, skip the oven entirely — grill outside, use a slow cooker on the porch, or just eat cold. Run the dishwasher and laundry at night when it’s cooler, and if you can, hang laundry to dry instead of running the dryer. Even incandescent bulbs put off real heat; if you’ve still got any in the house, this is a good weekend to notice how much warmer that room runs.

Timing Matters More Than People Think

If your house doesn’t have central air, or your central air is struggling to keep up, the window for actually cooling the place down is early morning, before about 8 a.m., when outside air is still cooler than inside air. Open everything up, run box fans in the windows to pull cool air in, and then seal the house up tight once the outside temperature climbs past your indoor temperature. A lot of people do this backwards — they open windows in the evening when it “feels” cooler outside, but with overnight lows only dropping into the upper 70s and low 80s this weekend across the Northeast, that evening air isn’t actually cooling anything down. Check an actual thermometer, not your gut, before deciding to open up.

Basement and Lower Floors Are Your Friend

Heat rises, so if you’ve got a basement, that’s where you want to be during the worst hours of the afternoon, roughly 2 to 6 p.m. If you don’t have central air but do have a portable or window unit, it’ll do a lot more good cooling one room you’re actually spending time in than trying to fight the whole house. Close doors to unused rooms and close the vents in them too, so your system isn’t wasting cooled air on empty space.

A Few Things That Matter More Than People Realize

Your refrigerator and any other big appliances are pumping out heat constantly, so check that the coils are clean and there’s airflow around the back of the fridge — a fridge working harder because it’s dusty is also making your kitchen hotter than it needs to be. If you’ve got attic access, a basic attic fan or even just making sure existing vents aren’t blocked can cut a good amount of heat that would otherwise soak down into the living space by evening. And if your dryer vents into the house instead of outside — check that, some older setups do — get that fixed before this weekend, not after.

Outside, if you’ve got trees or even large planters positioned near south or west-facing windows, they’re doing real work blocking direct sun before it ever hits the glass. Worth remembering for next summer if you’re doing any landscaping.

When the House Just Can’t Keep Up

Sometimes, especially with older homes or units that aren’t sized right for this kind of extreme heat, the house genuinely can’t get cool enough to be safe, particularly for kids, older adults, or anyone with a health condition. Philadelphia and most cities along the corridor have opened cooling centers this week specifically because of how dangerous this heat is — extreme heat is actually the deadliest weather-related hazard in the country, more than hurricanes or tornadoes. If your AC goes out or your house is holding onto 90-plus degrees despite everything, don’t tough it out. A library, mall, or cooling center for a few hours in the afternoon isn’t giving up, it’s the smart move.

Check on elderly neighbors or relatives this weekend too, especially anyone without working air conditioning. That’s usually where the real danger is during heat waves like this one — not the people out and about, but the people quietly stuck in a hot apartment or house who don’t want to bother anyone.

This heat dome is expected to start easing up for the Northeast by Sunday or Monday as it shifts west, so this is very much a short, hard stretch to get through rather than the new normal for the summer. Stay smart about it, keep the windows managed, and don’t be afraid to use a cooling center if you need one.