For probably the first time this summer, it's hot and muggy -- like late July should be around here. While I salute the return to normalcy, I also have northern European genes and tend to suffer when the temperature gets over 75F. My ancestors came from cold, windswept climes where cabbage was an exotic fruit.

So, while the excavator and drill guys were outside preparing our home site for real geothermal, I made my own geothermal air conditioning. It's not particularly ingenious, but you might give it a try. It uses the cool air in the basement, which is kept cool by the earth, transferring heat through the basement walls.

I opened the basement door, put a ducted fan (Vornado) in the basement aimed up through the door favoring one side of the stairs, and turned it on. Upstairs, I put another (ducted) fan in the airstream from the basement to blow the cool air around the first floor of the house. I put the basement fan to one side of the stairs so that (a) I can get downstairs, and (b), there is a possible return route for the upstairs air to flow to the basement.

The ducted fans are probably not essential, but at least in my imagination, they create a sufficiently narrow stream of upgoing air that there is room in the stairwell for upstairs air to be sucked down. Also, they can be aimed upward at a steep angle, which is tricky to do with an ordinary window fan. I suppose you could just lay the top end down on a brick or low box.

It would probably be more effective with the fan near the upstairs basement door, but that is a tricky place to put a fan. If I were to try that with a window fan, I'd set the fan on one side of the 2nd or third step from the top, put a cup hook or nail in the ceiling or door frame near the door, and run a string from the hook down to the fan's handle in order to lean it back and aim the airstream through the door.

You shouldn't do this for more than a day or so unless your basement has a dehumidifier, as ours does. The cool basement air will be replaced by warm moist air from upstairs (or an open window in the basement), and the moisture will condense on the walls and everything else in the basement, leading to mildewing problems in the long run.

If you had to go out and buy these things, you might spend $75 on each ducted fan (or 'way less on window fans), and $90 on a dehumidifier.

It's just enough to bring things into my comfort zone for the day, and our furry dog is also very happy.