10 easy ways to green your home

The key to keeping cool in the summer without cranking the air conditioning is to force warm air out of your house as quickly as possible and to have air constantly moving over your skin.

Vents in your attic space - combined with insulation in the ceiling below - keep the cool air downstairs from being warmed by the pocket of hot air above.

A whole-house attic fan, which pulls hot air from the rest of the house into a well-ventilated attic, can let you turn on the AC less often. (Just make sure you put an insulating cover over the unit in the winter.)

When building, place windows and doorways to maximize cross-ventilation so that breezes flow easily through rooms.

NEXT: Be wise about windows