Getting along in the heat and humidity

silenthunterstudios

silenthunterstudios

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Today was a scorcher, at least for the humidity. I had a cold Gatorade G2, and got a snowball on the way home, but I was mighty stinky going without a/c on the hour ride home from work. For as fat as I am, thankfully I was okay, just not comfortable to be around :barf:. After a dip in the pool and a shower, I feel great. Got the rusty gears turning though. NO a/c at home either, eastern half of the house is in the shade most of the time, have the pool, basement is like a freezer compared to the upper level of the house. But, the air is circulated by ceiling and box fans right now (a/c just too expensive to run, even now).

We discuss what to do in the extreme cold, what about extreme heat? I am a diabetic, my main concern today was staying hydrated, and watching my sugar levels. Not too much salt either. Consequently the G2. Sugar free snowball. I was in and out of several stores, stopped at Walmart to pick up a kiddie pool for my pups (they are scared to death of the big pool, but will totally submerge on a hot day in a kiddie pool :D). Even though I only had hot air blowing through a small cab truck, I didn't have any noticeable problems health wise.

With summer coming up, and people going to the trails, got any ideas to beat this heat?
 
wow, all I know is that here in Oklahoma, where it gets over 100 on a regular basis, I REFUSE to go without AC. Just REFUSE!!!

Other than that, hydration and proper diet.

Brett
 
If you can, try investing in a house that is built semi-underground, or if you live in swamp-lands like most of Florida is, have mounds of earth pushed up on all four sides. It will look ugly at first, but when the grass starts to grow, it will look really cool and more natural (like a hobbit house). This will keep the house cool during dry heat spells, and warm during the cold. Shouldn't be too expensive either.

Hoped this helped.
 
Water. Keep a bottle around -- doesn't have to spring water -- and when you heat up, splash it around your forehead, temples, back of the head, and down your neck. Keep this handy for little kids running around in the heat, too.

Fans will do you more good than air conditioning, especially exhaust fans, pushing the hot air outside and keeping the house from getting stuffy. Air conditioning will cool you now but make it harder for you to deal with the heat when you do have to go out.

Relief From The Heat Of The Street

urban vermin dragging dripping
ripping out his hair in rage
all the traffic fingers flipping
stuck in one big urban cage

soon the airconditioned buildings
losing power start to swelter
urban vermin leave the city
find some lakeside cabin shelter

now the skies are black and roaring
wind and thunder what a blast
rain is pouring lightning flashing
urban vermin cool at last
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Fans will do you more good than air conditioning, especially exhaust fans, pushing the hot air outside and keeping the house from getting stuffy. Air conditioning will cool you now but make it harder for you to deal with the heat when you do have to go out.
Click to expand...

Thanks Esav, but I'll take my chances. I think it was 80 something here today, and I hate it.:mad: In fact, I hate summer, with the heat, humidity, bugs, etc. If it wasn't for the tremendous biodiversity summer provides, I'd cancel it!:mad:

BTW, was the poem original?

Doc
 
DOC, all winter long I am hoping for summer, and remembering how much nicer it is than winter. All summer long, I am waiting for winter, maybe a foot of snow isn't so bad.

Spring and fall, the only two seasons I need!
 
Once again, the mighty bandana comes to the rescue.
Just soak it in cold water and tie it around your head or neck. If its really hot, try putting ice cubes in it and patting it all around your face and neck.
 
3wolves, I'm with you on that. Soak a bandana or a hat and the water will keep you from heat stroke.

Doc, the poem is one of mine, one of my favorites. I spent most of my life in New York City. 80 is nothing! I hate blackouts. We used to get them here with just about any thunderstorm. Our local grid is much better now. :) It was 95 around here in north Jersey today, and predictions are for more of the same ALL !^@%#$+&_*)( WEEK. :grumpy:

I love it! :D
 
3wolves said:
Once again, the mighty bandana comes to the rescue.
Just soak it in cold water and tie it around your head or neck. If its really hot, try putting ice cubes in it and patting it all around your face and neck.
Click to expand...

I keep a clean handkerchief with me in the truck just for that, but don't tie it around my head. Usually keep a wet washcloth in a ziploc bag for long trips during the summer too, but thats more to keep me awake.
 
silenthunterstudios said:
DOC, all winter long I am hoping for summer, and remembering how much nicer it is than winter. All summer long, I am waiting for winter, maybe a foot of snow isn't so bad.

Spring and fall, the only two seasons I need!
Click to expand...

shstudios, you also make me think of a poem (and no, Esav, it's not my original :D)

As a rule,
A man's a fool
When it's hot,
He wants it cool
When it's cool,
He wants it hot,
Always wanting,
What is not.

Esav, I liked your poem :thumbup:, but you can keep your damn hot weather. :thumbdn:

Doc
 
It only got to 97 here today (only, because it hit 100 several times last week), but it was 97 with a 60% humidity. I was outside working a good portion of the day. It just saps you. All you can do is drink water continuously; till you're sick of water; till you belly is sloshing and you can't gulp another drink. Even with that I still didn't take a piss till late this evening.

It seems overused, but hydration is the most important thing. With a high humidity you're hot, sweaty, and just sticky miserable, so you're conscious that you're losing a lot of water and drink more to compensate. Hot with a low humidity is deceptive. You're sweat is drying so fast you're not nearly so miserable and sticky, so you don't know you're losing so much water.
 
The heat around here has been weird. Around 93 and very humid, which for Michigan at this time of year is unseasonably hot. More of the same on the way. But, it seems we have been having strange weather all year.

We have A/C in house, but I refuse to use it. There are way too many ways out of my control that it could just be gone. I don't want to have to wait until an emergency to try to acclimate. Plus with kids, we are in and out, in and out....you know how it goes.

I have been to Georgia in the Summer, as well as Oklahoma for long enough periods of time to "just get used to it." It is pretty much all you can do. Accept the situation and make the best of it.

With that in mind, they way our houses are built today, they are very poor at taking the environment in consideration. They were designed with cheap energy in mind, thinking that you could just pay to heat and cool it. As that gets more and more expensive, I think people are going to have to start looking at ways to do things naturally AGAIN :D Like, the previous thousands of years before the last 60 years or so :D

Here is a video on Cody Lundin's Desert House. Pretty cool.
 
I flat out HAVE to use the A/C during the day.
I work 3rd shift and have to sleep through the hottest part of the day. When our power went out due to the 2004 hurricanes, the house went up to 122 degrees, couple that with the 90-100% humidity we suffer with here, and you simply can't breath, can't stop sweating, etc. With the A/C, the house only gets down to about 96 during the day. We keep it set to go off when it gets down to 85.
 
Spring and autumn are best, heat sux. Summer is good for scouting out bushmeat on the beach and that is about it.
 
My house was built in 1950 by a guy that did not believe in AC. The windows all have awnings. The attic has double ventilation. The walls are double thick with blueboard, plaster and rock wool insulation (rare in 1950). All the rooms have ceiling fans and we have mature shade trees in the yard.

The first thing I did was to install central AC. It broke down two years ago in August with 100+ temps. We suffered for two weeks before we acclimated. It was two more weeks before the system got fixed and we were in good shape despite a record heat wave.
We would open all the windows at in the afternoon and close them when the sun came up. The house regulated its own temp due to the thickness of the walls and design. I would love to have an adobe or berm house.

When it was fixed we used the AC some but it took a long time to get used to it again. If I did not work in AC I doubt I would use it much.
 
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If you can't take the heat travel north-east.
Summer has been very s l o w getting here (Newfoundland).
Only one day so far this year when we got above 20 (23 degrees to be exact).
Thats Celsius, equal to the mid to high 70's farenheit.
Most of the time its been between 10 and 20 celsius.
It was sunny yesterday afternoon but we had a freak cold spell for a couple of hours, i was out walking and i could actually see my breath!
You can usually count on cooling winds around here.
Its only this week that we finally have leaves blooming on the trees!
Lots of icebergs this year so that might explain the chill.
We don't usually get any really hot weather til July/August.
We MIGHT get 2 or three days per summer that almost approach the heat and humidity levels of an average Ontario summer day.
lol!
 
My dad finally got to putting in central air conditioning after many years. He also installed an attic fan. The thermostat was set to turn on the attic fan at a certain temperature and turn on the AC at a higher temperature. Lo and behold, attic fan goes on, temperature goes down, no AC needed.

I open two side living room windows, one of which has an exhaust fan, and one bedroom window, also with an exhaust fan. Air comes in one living room window and circulates through the apartment. Heat and humidity go out.

In the winter, I open the curtains and let the sunshine in. In the summer I keep them closed. That's how I use my own personal greenhouse effect. :)
 
I love our AC. So far, we've only had a couple of warm days, the temps have been in the 70's. I can't always keep all the windows open at night that I want to, some are easily "climb-in-able", and I don't have a dog to wake me up... With a good breeze, the house cools down nicely, with no breeze, it doesn't.

You can also lay a dropcloth/tarp on the floor, soak a sheet, and hang it in front of your window. That helps to cool the breeze coming in.
 
Silent,

I have trouble tolerating extreme heat. Last summer the wife and I foolishly did a 34 mile backpacking trip when the temp was approaching 100 in the mountains it was miserable and we had this one day where we hiked like 10 miles up and down these knobs and ran out of water and had to hike like 2 miles sweating bullets till we ran onto the single source of water in six miles.

I think the best policy is to stay out of the direct sunlight, large hat like a chinese one that doesn't set around your temples, very loose and light clothing. If you are exerting Gatorade makes a big difference over water.:thumbup:
 
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