Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Beating the Summer Heat?
July is always one of the hottest months in the U.S., but this year the heat got an early start. Sustained hot weather has slammed huge parts of the country, and led to some serious consequences. All those AC units employed to bring some relief to homes have contributed to the extended post-storm power outage in the eastern part of the country; five days in, the count is still over a million customers in the dark. (I'm writing from Austin; this year Texas's famously warm weather is a little less impressive by comparison to the midwest, the Carolinas, and many other places; temperatures are expected to remain under 100 until Saturday.) If you're in one of the severely affected areas, how has it affected you? More importantly, what strategies have you used to beat the heat in the absence of (or simply unreliable) electricity? Details help. In particular, how are you keeping the human and animal members of your household safe from overheating? Read on below for an extended set of questions on dealing with the ongoing heat wave of 2012's early summer, and respond to any of them that make sense in your situation. Note, answers are of course encouraged from people who aren't in the worst-hit areas, too! Though you're free to respond however you'd like, it would be useful if you start with your location right at the top of (or in the title of) your comment, so others can scan them easily.
- How hot is hot for you, locally? What temperature extremes have you seen in your own dwelling or neighborhood in recent weeks? (Also, how are you measuring them, if in any way more specific than reading local weather reports? Do you have a home weather station, and is it hooked to an upstream data feed like The Weather Underground?)
- Have local power systems failed, and if so for how long? Do you have a generator, and do you have any advice for others who are considering one?
- Some people (especially kids) face greater risks than others in sustained heat, and some types of medicine require refrigeration. What are the consequences for you and your household of extreme heat?
- If air conditioning is part of your strategy for keeping cool, what do you do to maximize its effectiveness? (Insulate or cover windows? Run it at certain times of day? Raise the thermostat and rethink your idea of "room temperature"?)
- If your power goes out, how prepared are you for a one-hour blackout? What about a day, or a week? Have you taken any measures to keep your life sane if a storm (or just a glitch in the grid) robs your home of AC, TV, and PC? Even if your local summer weather hasn't been unusually hot thus far this year, are you keeping more water or other supplies on hand in case your area later gets gets the heat-and-darkness treatment?
- What advice would you give to others who want to maintain safety and sanity while under the broiler? (Especially useful are ideas for city dwellers, who don't generally have space for an extra freezer or a safe place for a generator.)
- Whether you're in one of the worst hit areas or not, are you taking any steps to protect electronics and data from outages or extreme heat? Have you seen any failures that you believe to be caused by temperature extremes?
- Finally, what are you doing to find some relief from this summer's heat, other than cranking up the AC? Are you spending more time at the local pool? Waking up early to enjoy morning temperatures? Scanning San Francisco real estate prices?
I hope your Independence Day is a good one, no matter the temperature.
Get the fuck out of here. How exactly does my use of an air conditioner in the summer contribute to extended post-storm power outages?
Don't worry, AC, he wasn't talking about you...
To beat the summer heat, turn off your Bitcoin mining rigs. If you turn on the air conditioning to compensate, it's going to cost you more electricity than the value of the Bitcoins that you generate.
Paid Q&A/Research
It was 106 at my car on friday when I got out of work. It was 107 outside my house saturday. Some areas around atlanta his 109 reportedly. My work parking lot is a big slap of concrete surrounded on 3 sides by buildings and the 4th by a hill, so it focuses heat even more with no chance of wind. On way home from work stopped at a bank drive thru. While in line I normally fill out my slip on the back of my visor, which is solid enough to be a good writing surface. Couldn't. It was too hot to rest my hand on it, as it was painfully hot to touch. Mostly stayed indoors as much as possible. Installed some thicker curtains to block more sunlight. Drank a lot of water. Made sure dogs did not stay long in yard, and did not walk on pavement. I used to live in florida, which stays hot longer, but doesn't get as hot because the sea moderates it somewhat. But it was more humid there. Prior to that I lived in the republic of panama, which is even moreso (never gets anywhere near as hot, but even more humid). I just keep telling myself that here, at least the heat eventually ends.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
My location: http://freecampsites.net/!#mammoth lakes, ca
It's nice.
and my biggest weather problem is keeping my coffee warm.
You know how a lot of people rag on the preppers who keep plenty of supplies & their own generating kit & stuff for end of of times. Guess who has power & food that isn't going to go off. Prepping isn't just for alien invasion scenarios.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
I live in Seattle, you insensitive clod!
(where many residents were still using their furnaces as of last week, and today's the first sunny and warmish-day in what seems like a month)
I bought one on Amazon just to try it out. Who would have thought a bunch of people living in a desert would have figured out how to stay cool. Re-wet it depending on how hot it is. Wring it out and put it on. Keep water in the fridge and it works even better.
If I've come back from a long run nothing cools me down faster than 1 or 2L frozen water bottle applied directly to arteries.
No AC growing up, and we just layed in front of fans and drank water. Human body can take quite a bit if you give it adequate water.
Location = SC.
Temps = over 100 last few days, 97 today, Horrid humidity as normal.
I had coated black roofs for years (I prefer metal roofing because it's tough and taxes are lower. I loathe asphalt shingles!) but two years ago I hit all my roofs with white roof coating including my non-air conditioned shop.
It reflects so much light that you can get sunburned by the reflection if you apply it on a bright day. I had to wear sunglasses while mopping it on!
Hard to measure on my utility bill what with all the tools I run, but I'm much more comfortable. If your local codes/covenants allow white or light roof materials or coatings, give them a try.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
http://www.builditsolarblog.com/2012/07/cooling-without-power.html
Assuming a properly constructed and well insulated newer house, I can't overstress the importance of blackout roller or honeycomb shades in cutting down the thermal gain from sunlight on windows.
This is nothing. I beat the heat by denying it because global warming is a hoax. The invisible and infallible hand of the free market will cure this problem just as it has with every other problem humanity has ever faced.
three comments and I am forever at terrible karma
Comment removed based on user account deletion
After living in Memphis for some years now, here's how I adapted and feel completely comfortable at 90-100F
The adaptation phase:
1. Go outside, work in the yard, and sweat.
2. Drink lots of gatorade.
2. Set your thermostat at 80F, use fans when sleeping.
4. Get used to feeling sticky.
5. Drive with your windows down, no A/C
When going outside, I wear a wide brimmed hat, a long sleeve Dry-tec shirt, any color.
I now feel cold and need a jacket below 70F
We managed a staggering 67F yesterday. Saturday did manage to struggle to 73F before some rain brought the temp back down to 64F. Today should get to 72F. At 14:40pm, it's 65F. As for overnight lows, anywhere from 36F to 45F. The local ski resort was open last weekend into the bargain.
The heat has been bad, very bad in Charlotte, and rather humid in GA. I think we hit 108 in charlotte at one point last week.
The thing, wear comfy loose fitting clothing, lighter colors are best.
Also, I found a good pointy bamboo leaf hat is amazing. Take some silk, and put it inside so it makes a band between your head and the hat. After you start sweating, take off the hat for a minute or two, then put it back on, The silk will feel amazingly cool. This is an awesome thing if you cannot be in a place with AC, or in some cases power.
QUIT CRYING, AND PLAN + INVEST $$$ BETTER.
As an accident of geography, my town has three power companies. In my corner, luckily, I have the power company that does preventative maintenance and when there's a bad ice storm, we lose power for usually a couple of hours, once nearly a day.
Seven miles away, they have two-week outages. The PUC sets the rates independently, so it's not a matter of funding. If anything, my part of town is lower profit (less dense).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I've had a few power outages lasting maybe 30 seconds in total, which is rare, because prior to several weeks ago, it has been over a year since the last (20 second) power outage. It is currently 19C here, with a high of maybe 20. It will cool off to a chilly 6C tonight, so I shouldn't have any problems sleeping. My cat is fine and my AC unit is still sitting in the shed beside my snow shovel.
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For me the killer now is humidity, it is somewhere around 67%.
Fortunately we have power so the AC is running strong.
One thing I did is get tinted window film, this helps a lot, particularly on large glass windows or sliding glass doors you don't want to put blinds on.
I moved back to Canada.
Bonus: I don't have to hear about the presidential election.
Move to the Pacific Northwest. That's what my wife and I did.
http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/graph/USOR0275
No concern of heat or dry or hurricane or earthquake or tornado ...
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Why can't you live without your AC? Many places are much warmer and people can't afford AC. They simply adjust and get used to the heat. Men is adapted to hunt kudus in the scorching heat of the southern African plains and should be able to deal with this. Accept the heat and stop wasting energy please.
Highest temperature I can recall ever seeing here in my 13 years living here. There haven't been any major power outages in the region that I've heard of (the local news has been pretty much leading every broadcast talking about the heat), although a few days ago a couple thousand people lost their power for a few hours in the middle of the night. Bet that was awesome, as our overnight temperatures are hovering in the high 70's, low-mid 80's. At 10 o'clock last night it was 85 or somewhere around there, I was sweating my ass off watching our local Independence Day fireworks...
Our boxer absolutely cannot deal with this heat (he's got longish hair, looks almost like a miniature St. Bernard even though he's been genetically tested 100% boxer) so we've been minimizing his trips outside to potty breaks, although we spoil the shit out of him so I doubt he really minds being stuck inside with his humans in the A/C.
Ponca City, Oklahoma
Back in the 1950s, we used "coolers" - huge metal boxes that cooled by evaporative cooling. The walls of the cooler were filled with porous wood shavings and a pump circulated water that dripped through the shavings while a 10 horsepower motor sucked air through the shavings and into the house. My bed was right in front of the blast of air from the cooler and I remember that it seemed to cool quite well - probably lowering the inside temperature 5 to 10 degrees and making it quite comfortable during the night. I found out years later that what we called "coolers" were called "swamp coolers" in other parts of the country and in my travels I saw swamp coolers still in use in desert climates in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California.
One reason that coolers worked so well back then was that during the drought, the humidity in Ponca City was about zero so water evaporated readily. It seems to me that up until about 1976, when Kaw Dam was built east of town, the humidity was a lot lower in Ponca City. My mother says that having Kaw Lake so close changed the weather patterns around Ponca City and that the humidity rose a lot since its construction. If someone tried to use a swamp cooler today, I doubt if it would work at all.
Every summer I would spend a month with my grandparents in Boswell, Oklahoma. Nobody thought anything about the heat - it was just how life was. But everybody looked forward to the cool of the evening, just when the sun got low in the sky and the shadows would lengthen and the fireflies would come out. The whole family would go out on the big front porch, sit in the swing, drink ice cold ice tea, and wait for our neighbors to come around and sit down with us to talk about the events of the day. Simpler days and better perhaps - at least in memory.
Ponca City, We Love You
We were without power for two days during the first snow storm of this winter. I've never had a huge amount of faith in our electrical grid, but that pretty much eliminated whatever faith I had left. I have gas for hot water and the furnace, but the furnace also needs electricity to run. So I'm planning to put a standby generator in and run it off the gas, as soon as I can afford it. It doesn't even really have to be all that big. It wouldn't take a lot to run my refrigerator and furnace, and maybe a couple of lights. It'd still cost a bit to have a contractor pour a concrete block and have a panel installed so I don't inadvertently fry linemen who come around to fix the power outage, but I'd be a lot more comfortable having backup power.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How about not living in a hot place in the first place -- at least for the summer months?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Has been out of power 2 days. Having multilevel housing helps the temperature distribution vua wide vertical passage through the stairway. Spent it in the first level.
Most pressing was having cellphone powered. Did it in the mosque (only two buildings in the area were left powered: mosque and McDonalds), thanks to Allah, I go there for all five prayers.
Two of my friends (Virginia, Maryland) did not have it today. One of them got it today.
Small detail. Monday morning during commute hours noticed police car in the ambush at the unpowered intersection with major road/minor road scenario), checking for rollers. Really, police? Really?
I am originally from the steppe area of Russia, so we have derecho-shmerecho all the time, only it was called strong wind. Short after I left, there was the most serious hurricane that broke half of the trees in my parents town. The power was restored within few hours. That was 90s, the time of lawlessness and collapse in Russia, black years of Yeltsin, organized crime and disorganized government.
This country is going down.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Are you fucking kidding me? We're doing a Slashdot version of AM radio weekend shows where old people call up and the host says "what's the weather like, where you are"? Fucking lame.
Anyway, it's not that big of a fucking deal. It has been between about 95-105 every day in Denver for the last two or three weeks (though it'll be cooler over this coming weekend). I keep the evaporative cooler dialed to '6' and when it gets a little warm, it kicks in. Keeps it at around a constant 70-75 degrees indoors for a whopping $20/mo. The only time it would become anything less than completely comfortable is if it happened to become very humid outside (doesn't happen much in the summer) or if the temperature reached about 115 degrees outside (also not likely to happen).eath
As timothy mentioned, the Texas ozone hole has been working out and seems to be in better shape now. I typically bike for 20 minutes around noon everyday, and it tends to be ~95-100 F. If power goes out, I will survive for at max a day on. After that, I'm moving in my university lab.
Couple of points to keep in mind to avoid heat/sun-strokes:
- Wear a cap, no matter how douchebag-y it makes you look. Heating up of the head leads to headaches, drowsiness and other symptoms of a "heat-stroke"
- Avoid frequent high temperature gradients. For example, if you're driving to lunch from work, and the restaurant is only a few minutes away, I suggest do not turn the AC on. It sounds like a Herculean task to sit in that hot tinbox without AC, but it's the frequent hot-cold-hot-cold cycles that actually hurt your body more. If it's unbearable, just put it on low cool and low fan for a few minutes.
- Drink loads of buttermilk (the salty/sour ones, my choice). It is culturally used as a coolant in parts of middle east and most of India since the days of the dinosaurs.
I built a water rocket launcher for my kids. http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/waterRocket/index.htm
Currently it is 92.5 degrees at the high school weather station. When the storm came through we lost power twice, but only a matter of milliseconds each time (UPSes switched over and lights flickered). My family does have a generator that we can use if there is a long duration power failure.
My biggest advice for purchasing a generator is to know how to size, maintain, connect, and most importantly for portable models store the generator. When sizing the generator, take the following priorities in order. (NOTE: THIS LIST DOES NOT TAKE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT INTO ACCOUNT, THAT IS PRIORITY ZERO!) First, you want to maintain your refrigeration of food, cooking can be done with non-electric methods. Remember, you can disconnect a refrigerator momentarily to run the microwave if you have enough capacity in your generator. Second thing you want to look for is cooling of people, if cost of the generator is a problem, rule out air conditioning and use fans during the outage if possible, otherwise you may want to look at dropping some of the lower priority loads. If you must have air conditioning and you have a central air conditioning system, use a window unit in one room temporarily and live out of that room for the duration of the outage, this reduces the cost of the generator substantially. Third priority is lighting at night. This is best provided by incandescent or halogen lights as CFLs and LEDs can be damaged by power fluctuations in smaller generators caused by refrigerators and air conditioners starting. Fourth on my priority list is battery charging for communications, The idea is to charge batteries later at night when your generator load is lower. Get a jump start pack and charge that up and use the lighter sockets in it to charge the cell phones during the day. Don't worry about cordless phones, that is a very low priority in this situation use a wired phone on the landline. Everything after these four priorities are considered luxuries. TVs, PCs, even your router and modem are very low on the list. A transistor radio will serve you well to bring news and information.
In our household the extreme heat means we are running air conditioners harder than normal and in the case of the bedroom units, starting sooner than normal. The obviously affects our electric bill.
Preparation for a long duration outage in my household simply means we will have to take the gas cans out of the area to get gas for the generator. If out power dies, at least two of the local gas stations will be down as they are served from the same substation and it is very unlikely that the line between my house and the substation would be knocked out as the line is short (I'm about a block from the substation).
My advice to the city dwellers that don't have power or air conditioning in this heat is to simply get out of the situation. At a minimum go shopping at the mall during the daytime and best find another place to stay.
Protecting electronics and data is actually of minimal concern to me as my equipment is protected by a UPS and my data is backed up with the most critical backed up in multiple places. I do recommend an off site backup of some kind though. I have not seen any damage directly related to this extreme heat in any of my equipment or any other equipment that I've seen.
My method of beating the heat is simply cranking up the A/C and drinking more water. My home has air conditioning, my car has air conditioning, and my office has air conditioning.
sudo mod me up
You insensitive clod, so even though it's hot outside, it stays relatively cool down here.
What is this I don't even?
106 degees F briefly here in West Chester, Ohio this afternoon. Started planning for global warming in 1996. Down sized to a small 1100 sq foot house. Between then and 2007 put an additional 20" insulation in attic and attic vents, replaced all external doors with insulated ones (including the garage door on the attached garage), put in all new triple pane, xenon(?) gas filled windows w/ UV blocking exterior panes, installed a Kohler natural gas 17KW backup generator with auto-failover, replaced central air conditioner with 3 smaller individual Mitsubishi ductless high efficiency 20 SEER AC units (2x 12K BTU and a "main" 24K BTU). I can cool this puppy down to 68 in weather like this without breaking a sweat (pun intended). I can pretty much take anything short of a direct hit by a tornado, or a significant earthquake, and stay cool (or warm in the winter). Planning is everything.
It has been one of the wettest ever Junes here in the UK and it is still raining heavily. When it is not raining it's heavy cloud. Although that's stereotypical weather here, it's more like what you'd expect in the winter. I'm feeling like an extra in Waterworld and shall shortly be growing gills... The problems started when drought measures were brought in to combat falling water reserves.
I live in the southern hemisphere, you insensitive clod!
Ok, so it hasn't been unseasonably warm yet but this weekend it's forecasted to be fairly toasty. I have an acreage with my own well. Having recently replaced the old oil burning furnace with a high-efficiency nat.gas furnace, I had the HVAC guy install a chiller coil in the plenum for an extra $150. The water I pull out of my 10gpm well comes out at 8C so I plumbed the well water through the chiller coil in my furnace (after removing the orifice), and hooked a solenoid up to the furnace so when the thermostat calls for cooling, well water runs through the chiller coil and blows cool air through the house. The output goes to a sprinkler on the roof of the house which further cools the house. The output of the eaves runs to a drip irrigation setup which irrigates the plants and garden... Eventually, the water ends up back in the ground. Along with some awnings in front of the SW view windows, the house stays fairly cool for the price of pulling the water out of the ground (and with a variable frequency drive well pump controller, it's also fairly economical). It's possibly more economical to run an actual compressor with refrigerant for shorter duty cycles. Not sure.
But, San Diego has many other negative aspects, not least of which is the gaggle of idiots in Sacramento.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Personally, I find that few things beat a couple of bursts of liquid air in cooling, even if it doesn't last long...
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
"Have local power systems failed, and if so for how long? Do you have a generator, and do you have any advice for others who are considering one?"
Power does fail sometimes (less than 15m per year on average), but having the powerlines above ground level where it can easily be damaged is just stupid. Unless you live in a geo unstable area, underground cables are less prone to bad weather.
Alternating Current, that is exactly what we're talking about here.
What's heat?
I live in central Canada, so I use two A/Cs in my condo, at will. I love being Canadian.
I try to open the windows if I can, but my condo has no cross-breeze that I can generate, and I'm on the third/top floor. I am sure the insulation in this place is crap or non-existent. Our heating bill in winter is almost what a small house's would cost.
I have light-blocking curtain liners on all my windows, so I keep those closed in the morning (our side faces east), and crack them half-open in the afternoon. When I'm at work (September - June), I leave the drapes half-open all the time on a hot day. The plants need some light and I don't want my fish to get depressed :)
I drive with the windows down in my car if I am taking a shorter drive (>10 minutes).
Temperatures here recently have been hovering around 32C/90F.
Gold Bond Powder and I go commando... What else is there to do?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Don't live in a part of the world where you have to keep your house refridgerated.
- Reduce your physical activity to avoid heat stress
- reduce electricity usage by doing activities such playing board games or reading
- Avoid direct sunlight, go to a cool location such as a basement
100 deg f in Ct have a home weather station. Backup generators make a lot fo things a lot more livable. At the time I bought my last portable unit the inverters were to costly at 10x the price for the same kw that's come down to 2.5x they are more fuel efficient and a lot quieter. Getting a generator large enough to start a whole home AC unit is rather expensive easily 10 or 20 times what your going to pay for a portable job.
As to food etc I have a lot of family up north where having a month or more's consumables is normal. When your expecting snowfalls in the feet ranges on a regular basis your not expecting to hit the grocery store even a weekly basis.
As to electronics most of them will be fine well past temps that would hurt you.
No sir I dont like it.
visit the UK .. Nice and cool here, Noah would love it
I live in London, you insensitive clod!
"I have the power company that does preventative maintenance and when there's a bad ice storm, we lose power for usually a couple of hours, once nearly a day."
My power company also does preventative things by BURYING THE FUCKING CABLES!
I had no outage for 19 years, the year the house was connected.
I work outside. I'm pretty well acclimated. I just adjust my fluid consumption accordingly. 85 on up all feels the same to me - although one friend suggested that was probably neuropathy.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
I live in an expensive area of the country, partially just to avoid the heat. I spent 20 years in Phoenix and don't mind paying a few hundred extra per month to live here. I don't think it's hit 80 degrees yet today.
Apparently it's raining in Phoenix and potentially ruining what few outdoor plans were made. In the summer (6 months of the year) it's either 110+ degrees or it decides to rain, thunderstorm and a dust cloud rolls in. I don't miss that place right now.
We have buried cables and lost power during a flood last year, for almost two weeks.
It's raining. As usual.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
The local stores such as Lowes are completely out ... and have been even before the storm ... of the type of air conditioners people want. I talked to an employee there who told me even the store manager there is pissed off because headquarters is too clueless to send the kinds of air conditioners people want, in sufficient quantity. It's portables that people want. The store has over 200 window units that don't sell very well, and 0 portable units that are in high demand. This employee said he gets 10 to 20 queries a day for portables, and about 4 units come in every couple weeks. There's something stupid going on at headquarters ... his words!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Damn tiny mobile fonts! Thought it was a new porn site.
Have gnu, will travel.
Soak the bed sheets in sweat all night. Listen to the insects banging at the screen to get in. Know that tomorrow will be just as hot and the office fan won't be much help.
This was routine in the days before air conditioning at home, work, school, car. People survived without too much whining. It's still routine for billions who aren't accustomed to luxury.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I live in 27106. I've been working on a roof in Advance, NC. We start at 6-6:15 am. I fiigure +30 for temp on the roof over air temp. My crew is off the roof before it gets really hot. I think most US people are a bit spoiled; no ac, oh splinters on my deck, my pet is severe_condition, sometimes i hear my_child has severe_condition, will there be dust? Geez lady! I am going to change out your front door! Of course there is going to be dust! And Yes the dreadful outside air is going to come inside your house! This is July so hot air will be going in; I can wait for it to rot out some more and do it the second week of November; just before Thanksgiving, that would be nice. I left my back door, to the house, open twice this week. Kids, go get your knees scrapped, get some sketter bites, catch some lightening bugs. Humans can and do adjust; I think I'll go outside now. -mark the carpenter
I'm not an American, I live in Southern Europe where temperatures often go over 40C (*9/5 +32 = 104F IIRC the conversion).
Our ancestors managed to survive without AC using common sense.
1. Close every shutter early, and open them late (when the temperature is cooler outside). You don't want curtains, it won't work.
2. Limit your movements : you don't want to open the front door very ten minutes.
3. Shut down every electronic devices, or isolate the room in which they are.
4. Have a nap during the hottest hours of the day ( 2-5 PM), and profit of the coolest hours of the day : early in the morning, or a bit hotter, late at night. (Obviously, if you're not working, and have the time to do it.)
5. Drink often, and drink water.
6. Take care of the young, and the elderly. The latter are usually forgotten, and left alone. Have a look at the 2003 summer in France/Europe if you want to know what not to do. Sometime people were found dead days or even weeks after they actually died.
That's basic things that can make quiet a difference.
Too many questions to bother with. Power outages in the summer are just an inconvenience for us. We don't have air conditioning in the house because I like to keep the windows open in nice weather, and outages more than a few minutes are very rare. Outages in the winter are more of a problem because they might cause pipes to burst if the house freezes: we have a wood stove and a kerosene heater as backup for that scenario.
Biggest potential problem is that our water comes from a well, so without power to the pump - no water after the pressure tank and water heater are empty. Kitchen stove uses gas (propane) so we can cook without electricity. I've thought about getting a generator but extended power outages are so rare I figure the generator probably wouldn't start when I needed it anyway.
It's as if a bunch of people were brought up to believe human beings aren't adaptable to some moderate temperature hikes. We are, only stupid ones aren't.
It has nothing to do with stupidity, dumbass. The issue is that human bodies adapt slower than the weather changes. People in the midwest are not accustomed to these temperatures. Especially the old, the young, and the ill.
I'm born and raised in central Michigan, but I lived a handful of years in Tucson, Arizona. It took me about two years before I could stay outside during the day as long as natives. I would simply get too hot and have to go inside, regardless of how much water I drank. One day I literally drank three bottles of water to every one my cousin drank, and I still had to go inside eventually because I was showing early signs of overheating.
However, even in the middle of January when it would drop below freezing, I never once wore a coat in Arizona. Not even a light jacket. The natives thought I was nuts. To me, it was literally never cold because of the intensity of the sun regardless of the actual temperature. Even at night I could still feel heat radiating off the ground from the day since even mid-winter the daytime temperatures were still in the 70s.
When I moved back to Michigan, it only took one winter to reset my body to this climate, but it was the coldest winter I ever remember (the weather was actually quite mild).
In summary, I'll be pointing and laughing in six months when you get 8 inches of snow and have to shut down the entire state for a week.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
I wonder how many BTUs equivalent cooling you could get from making ice outside in the winter, storing it in an insulated box underground, and pumping air through it during the Summer on an as-needed basis. I wager the box would have to be waaaaaay too big for most suburban back yards. I'm to lazy to do the calcs. I figure if it made sense, somebody would be doing it already. Also, some of the areas that are baking in July no longer have reliable ice making capability during the Winter. They'd have to help it out with more fossil energy, which would be counterproductive in the long run...
Ready for power cuts, but since I put the system in I haven't had any major ones. A few winters ago I froze through a few days without power after an ice storm and decided not to do that again. I now have 2kW of solar panels on the roof, a battery bank in the garage, and an inverter and sub panel feeding the primary circuits in the house. If I happen to be using grid power when there is an outage, the inverter switches over so quickly the lights don't even blink. During the day I switch off-grid anyway to make use of the system and reduce the electric bill.
The system isn't large, it won't run the house AC (nor will the little Honda generator I bought) but I can run the 9000 BTU mini-split in the back room. Originally installed for all the hot computers I was running a few years back, now it lets me cool down off-grid! In winter I can run the natural gas furnace as well. Everything else that's "essential" can be run indefinitely long as there is some sun or I have gas for the generator. My ISP (Cox) lets me down after 2-3 hours though, apparently that's all the battery the local nodes carry.
I have no idea what you are talking about. It is cold and rainy here and has been all through 2012 so far. The tomatoes are rotting, the windows are still closed, and I wouldn't need air-conditioning even if I had it. It looks like it might warm up next week.
96F (36C) outside today. Keeping the shades down, drinking cold beer, and being all cool on /. of course!
--Udo.
for tv get directv + OTA or dish + OTA if you want to have TV with you back up power.
as with cable not only can the cables get knocked over. The cable nodes only have so much battery life and the cable co do not have the number of portable generators to cover them all.
For internet get DSL as the phone system has better power back up then cable.
I'm in southeast Michigan. Temp here is 98 today, and has been similar for the past week. At home, I normally run the air conditioning a couple weeks of the summer. This year, it's been running constantly since April. At work, our buildings are serviced by an internal power plant and it seems to hit capacity when the temp gets over 95 or so, so we've been under instructions for the past week to turn off lights and computers to reduce the electrical and heat load. I'm sure HVAC systems in places like Houston and D.C. are designed to deal with this kind of heat, but Michigan ain't Texas (or at least we keep telling ourselves...)
On the topic of dealing with the heat, one thing that helped me a few years ago was losing weight. I lost about 50 pounds (went from ~230 to 175), and one of the unexpected positive consequences is that I am much more tolerant of warm temperatures than before. Previously, just sitting around in anything over 80 degrees was uncomfortable, now that threshold is more like 90. (On the other hand, I'm now more sensitive to cold, but hey, that's what winter coats are for.)
We lost power (and water since we have electric pumps) for three days after the 'storm'. We spent a lot of time in the basement to stay cool. Tried to limit our activities during the day and hauled spring water to keep the garden and animals alive. Drank lots and lots of water as well. When we had to move we went slow motion, kept to the shady side of things and thought happy thoughts.
Do NOT do a DIY on a automatic power generator or try to jumper a manual generator to your house as if you do not do it the right way it can back feed and kill workmen trying to fix the power lines.
If "BUY MORE FUCKING HELP" you mean pocket all the profits and re-invest nothing? Then its correct.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
At 5,200 foot elevation in the mountains of Arizona, it is cool enough to get by without air-conditioning, if necessary. I did not have AC for the first 15 years that I lived here. I would just keep a fan pointed towards my chair. On a typical day, the average high is 88 degrees F and the low is 59 degrees F. The hottest that it gets to here is about 100 degrees F.
I once lived in an old cabin which had doors with screens on each exterior wall of each room. Each of the two bedrooms had two sets of French doors, on different walls, with screen doors attached. I would open up the doors and just let to cooling breeze blow through.
Thunderstorms do occasionally knock out the power here, in one instance for 3 days. Someday, I would like to have just enough solar power (and battery backup) to run a fan, a light, and my two ham radios.
I keep a four 7 gallon plastic cans of water full, at all times, for emergencies. If that supply ran out, I might have to refill them up from the puddles in the rock formations, or from the small lake which is about 1/4 of a mile away. The summer thunderstorms always leave numerous puddles in the nearby rock formations, that contain water, mosquito larva, and tadpoles. After attaching the water containers to my bicycle and pushing them home, I could use my Big Berkey water filter to purify the water.
I always keep at least several weeks worth of canned food, dried beans, oatmeal, and quinoa on hand. I could cook the food on my small muli-fuel camping stove. I also keep several weeks worth of fuel for the camping stove on hand.
I have several LED flashlights and an LED lantern. My Rayovac Sportsman Xtreme LED lantern will run for 150 hours on low, or 76 hours on high. It uses 3 D-sized batteries. I also have an olive oil lamp from Lehmans. I prefer using an olive oil lamp over candles, because the olive oil burns so cleanly, that it does not bother my allergies (or chemical sensitivities), the way that even unscented candles do.
I always keep my gas tank at least half full, just in case gas stations could not pump gas because of a prolonged power failure.
As a licensed amateur radio operator, I have a 2-meter radio in my pickup truck. I could still talk to other ham radio operators, if the telephone and cellular services were down.
If things get really bad, I also have a gun, to defend myself with.
normal voltage for me is between 115-199
I noticed one of my window A/C units would kick on, the compressor would struggle for a bit, then it would shut off, leaving only the fan blowing. After a couple of minutes it would try again valiently, but fail over and over.
Thinking that it finally broken, I started shopping for A/C units online at ABT, then I notice the other window A/C unit doing the same thing.
Checked the power and found 103 volts! "there's yer problem",
called ComEd and apparently it was not really something they considered serious as my lights were not "flickering".
They would not tell me what the the numerical threshold was for "undervoltage" vs "brownout".
Fired up the NG generator and plugged the 2 A/C units into it for about 8 hours until the voltage crept back up to 108, then the A/C compressors would work fine. Next day voltage was at 119
Today temps are higher and voltage is 110 and holding. I think I have a 3 volt margin?
I am hesitant to leave and come back to find that some motor overheated due to undervoltage and caused my house to burn down, also don't want to leave with a generator running for the same reason (it is big and bolted down).
All in all, not really a huge problem compared to others in areas hit by fallen trees and no power at all.
We have a huge chest freezer that is mostly filled with 2 liter bottles of frozen water and small bottles of frozen water. These come in useful when a neighbor or family member nearby loses power. We bring them a pile of frozen bottles to stuff in their fridge and take their frozen stuff back to the chest freezer until the power comes back on.
I like microcars
I would like to know why a simple infrastructure problem, and folks, this is a _simple_ problem takes weeks to fix?
Why are decisions being made to rob infrastructure improvements to our society such a decentralizing power generation out of the hands of larger companies, and into small numerous communities so power losses effect far smaller amounts of people.
?
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Pour cool water into bathtub, get in. Take a book but not an ebook.
Also if you can sleep in the day and stay awake at night, do so.
If you have a basement that you can stay in do that too.
... but only because Alec Baldwin lives there. ;-)
If you have no A/C and a two bedroom house, put fans blowing OUT in every upstairs window; block the rest of the window with newspaper or tinfoil ad duct tape. Close all the downstairs windows. If you have a furnace fan in the basement, turn it on. This works.
Animals know if you're hot, get wet. Put a wet cloth on your head, it'll dry quickly, keep wetting it. You can work ourside at noon on the hottest day by doing this.
If you're in an apartment you can get a bit of a gain from A/C by turning on the bathroom and kitchen ventilation fans. Getting rid of hot air is as important as cooling the rest of the air.
Keep in mind it's always 50F 4 feet down. If you have a house you can "easily" build a free solar aircon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_chimney
Need Mercedes parts ?
93 deg F now, a week ago it hit 97 deg F for three days.
No major power outages in the area.
We have not run A/C at all yet. (We have one small window A/C unit if we get desperate.)
Our basic strategy is to open the windows at night an run fans, and turn the fans off and close the windows (and storm windows) at 7am. Our house seems to be insulated well enough that it stays cooler indoors than outdoors most of the day. Open windows and use fans again at 8pm. If it gets too hot, opt for showering in cool water -- this requires power because we have well water rather than municipal water.
It has been warm here, probably warmer than usual. It's times like this I enjoy living in a basement apartment (no, not my parents' basement). It's warm in winter, it's cool in summer. When it gets too humid, I take cool showers. I've had a much nicer summer so far than most of the people I know just because they're surface dwellers.
I've been told that this trick works very well with double-hung windows: Put both panes of glass in the middle of window, leaving gaps at the top and bottom. In theory the hot air goes out the top, pulling in cooler air at the bottom, and it efficiently cools rooms (or at least equalizes the temperature inside and out).
Does anyone know? I have to buy new screens before I try it here.
(Of course, it requires that the air outside is cooler than the air inside.)
Hmmm, not sure sauna folks agree with that. One sauna lesson is: after heating up, make sure to cool down. "Cooling down is part of the sauna cycle and is as important as the heating. [...] Therapeutic sauna has been shown to aid adaptation, reduce stress hormones, lower blood pressure and improve cardiovascular conditions."
The best is an auto-fail over transfer switch. I have a 17KW Kohler generator and matched transfer switch which takes 8 to 10 *seconds* from the time the utility power cuts off to it powering up the generator and switching over to the backup. Mine even does a weekly 20 minute run to make sure the generator is working. You can also get a module which sends a text message if the power goes out which is nice if you travel or are out a lot. All my computers and peripherals are on APC battery backups so other than lights going out for 8 to 10 seconds I never notice a blackout. NOTE: I can do electrical wiring but after speaking with my insurance agent they *required* installation by a licensed electrician.
To those who predictably respond to "that aura of smugness" - fsck off. I earned this. While you were feeling all entitled and not having enough of stuff to have the latest bling, I went without ANY of it to be able to afford to do this now. I've had to listen to your smugness, and superiority and "how can you live like that" when the tables were on the other turn, and take it. Your turn suckers. Now you find out as Heinlien said:
Everyone should have to run for his life at least once, to find out that groceries don't come from the store, news doesn't happen to someone else, and in the crunch, your own resourcefulness, agility and preparation is what counts.
Nice party here, despite about 100F out there, and I don't think anyone's going to ask me "how can you live like that", again - since they are also finding out that buying what you can't afford on a "can you breathe" loan isn't "living like they thought" either, when it turns out they can't pay it off when things turn south. So what if it took a few years to build up all the luxuries, like running water that wasn't sneakernet - at least I actually own what I own, not the bank. Hah!
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
I had mentioned above that it usually gets down to about 59 degrees F in the evening here at this elevation. I have wondered if it would be possible to design a house that could store that night time coolness, to stay cool throughout the day. I have imagined building a very well insulated house, which has heat storing high thermal mass interior walls. Perhaps the interior wall could have a double layer of 5/8 inch sheet rock or possibly some type of masonry, such as surface bonded cement blocks. I doubt that autoclaved aerated concrete blocks would conduct or store enough heat, for that purpose, but perhaps double thickness sheetrock or surface bonded cement blocks might work instead.
My thinking is that the home would only need AC during the humid two weeks or so, just ahead of the arrival of the cooling summer thunderstorms. During those two weeks or so during late June, it does not cool off enough during the evening. The rest of the time perhaps I could just get by with fans and the stored coolness from the night before. I have heard of a few such homes that were built somewhere in California, but do not know for sure if it would work here.
The roof overhangs and south facing windows could be sized such that sunlight enters the windows during the winter, but not during the summer. The sun is actually higher in the sky during the summer than during the winter, here in the northern hemisphere. I have seen a couple of solar energy books that describe how to calculate the size of the overhang and window sizes, for that purpose.
I am not actually planning to have a custom house built anytime soon, I am just thinking. I would prefer to be more self-sufficient and not as dependant on the electric grid for staying comfortable.
It would also be nice to have my own old fashioned hand pumped well, for backup purposes during emergencies. My grandparents had one on their farm back in the 1960s. That was in addition to also having electic power for that or another well. The link below has several models that the Amish use. I have seen one somewhere else, that is for an even deeper depth, like I would need here in Arizona.
http://www.lehmans.com/store/Water___Water_Pumps___Deep_Wells?Args=
Indeed. I currently live not too far from you, and for two decades I lived in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The year before I moved here I was walking to class in -18 degree weather with a windchill 15 points colder. Nothing shuts down just for cold up there. When I moved to Michigan there was a news story of whiteout conditions. I laughed and though "What are you on? You can still see twenty feet to the road!". Any more I have to wear a decent jacket once it gets below 35. Rather sad to think that was t-shirt weather when I was a teenager.
People in different climates are accustomed to different weather, only inexperienced (not stupid) people don't realize it.
"July is always one of the hottest months in the U.S., but this year the heat got an early start."
Was it really only six months ago that Timothy posted the question "January is always one of the coldest months in the U.S., but this year the cold got an early start."?
Three Squirrels
It's Alabama. It's hot. Always is and always has been. We call it summer. Ever heard of it? Man up, damn it.
I work outside all day. You get used to it. Drink plenty of water and take every opportunity to get in the shade. It's amazing how much cooler you can feel just by being in the shade.
When my old whole house AC went out, I had nothing. That taught me a lesson. I put in the 3 smaller individual units to eliminate a "single point of failure" issue. One may go down, but I have 2 "backups". It was a bit expensive - These ductless systems are. The aspect of zones is a plus, but not the main reason. I used to travel a lot before I retired back around 2003 and saw these things everywhere, even hanging off apartment balconies in places like Bangkok. I checked out Mitsubishi and Sanyo models. Both are pretty good from what I read at the time. I chose Mitsubishi and am very happy with them. In Asia I think I mostly saw Sanyos, if I remember correctly. I'm in my 60's and try to be as prepared as I can. Also, being ductless, they made more sense heat-loss wise since the old duct work is in the attic (all the old ducts in the house are sealed off).
Wimps! Today I worked at the local Perinton Park 4th of July celebration (NY). The Fairport Lions Club runs a food concession at this event so I was grilling hots and burgers for several hours while standing out in the 95F sun. A couple of us nearly fell over from the heat. Great time!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
For humans and many domesticated mammals, a kiddie pool is a good way to stay cool.
My dog likes to be outside, and even on a hot day, she seems to prefer the back yard to the air-conditioned house. My wife came up with the idea to put a couple of inches of water in my daughter's old kiddie pool. My dog will move with the shade, but every so often she'll just go sit in the pool for a while.
People gotta remember that dogs don't cool themselves the way people do. They've got their mouths and the bottoms of their paws and that's about it. When it's hot and there's no breeze or wind, a dog can get in life-threatening trouble pretty quick if you don't give it a way to cool down.
My problem is that as soon as it gets dark tonight, a bunch of jerkoffs who drove to Indiana to buy firecrackers are going to start shooting them off, even though there are four spectacular free public fireworks displays within walking distance. By 9pm, my neighborhood sounds like the Tet Offensive. It makes my dog nuts. She'll go in the closet and try to dig a hole in the hardwood floor or squeeze under the sofa or something. My daughter will pull an old t-shirt over the dog (head through the head hole and front paws through the sleeves) and the snug t-shirt seems to provide some emotional comfort (ala Temple Grandin). That works a bit. If all else fails, I've got some valerian root dog treats that mellow her out, but I don't like to give those to her if I don't have to (however two of those and a glass of ice-cold vodka are just the thing for me).
Anyway, my heart goes out to the people to the East of me who are suffering without power in 100 degree weather and the people to the West of me who are running for their lives from wildfires. I hope those folks will be OK.
You are welcome on my lawn.
My family's house when I was growing up had a nice basement that stayed remarkably cool and comfortable, even on brutally hot/humid summer days. On the really bad ones we'd just kind of move downstairs to play games and read and do projects. Fun.
These days I like to kick it back in the cool room, and take a little reading material so I can lay low. My favorite is the latest couple blog posts from rabid Republican nutjobs insisting there's no proof of global warming and lobbying for more drilling in oil fields. That's the smell of America, baby.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
The rain stopped! It's finally above 70!
We have been pretty fortunate that the nights have been pretty cool. As soon as outdoor temp drops below indoor temp, we turn on a box fan in the attic that blows out, and open windows on the lowest floors. That vents the hottest air and fills the house with the cool night air. Then early in the morning everything gets shut pretty tight. We have pretty good shading from trees, so the whole stays pretty comfortable all day. Even if the night doesn't get particularly cool on a single we can still have a pretty livable indoor temp, but a few days running with hot nights doesn't work too well.
Ceiling fans, and box fans and a window AC unit help a lot too.
I live in New Jersey, and it's slightly hot now, however I was in Florida and the South last week where it was well over 100. I recently purchased a body hair trimmer and have been keeping my normally copious body hair closely trimmed. Especially on my chest where I had lots of curly hairs over an inch long, my skin is much cooler, and I'm much more comfortable sleeping at night in the heat. But even on the arms and legs the difference is noticeable. I think it's roughly the effect of taking off a light sweater. I do have to tend to it every week or two to keep it short, but in the fall I'll just let it all grow back in again and use it to keep me warm in the winter like I used to do. Also, I've lost weight which is probably contributing to my comfort.
Another trick is a simple one--open your windows and run an attic fan or window fans at night, and close up the house during the day. It really has to get below 70 at night (and more importantly have a dew point below 68 or so) for this to be effective, and humidity is unpleasant; but if you have relatively cool, dry nights, and are willing to let your house get as warm as 80 or so (which feels nice when it's 95-100 outside) you can avoid most A/C usage. We keep the thermostat set at 80 and it may cycle on and off for a few hours in the late afternoon/early evening, and we open the house back up when the outside temperature drops below 80 again. Generally the house cools down overnight to within 5 degrees of the lowest outside temperature. It's going to get down to the low 60s next week and this solution will enable us to avoid A/C usage altogether. A few fans to circulate air and judicious use of window shades (and of course good insulation, and the light roof would help too) will improve things as well.
Unless you have rabies and are hydrophobic you'd love it here, frankly I could do with seeing sunlight (and no I don't live in a basement) Some rich buggers have cellars - it's not quite the same thing, We've just had our wettest june ever known, typical we were prohibitited by law from using hosepipies even to drain the floodwater away.
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Large bucket full of cold water. Insert bare feet.
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
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It's not hot here. It was in the mid sixties and raining all through last month up until yesterday. We had hail in the beginning of June. Broadcast news says it might get into the eighties today but accuweather says no. It has been unusually cool for the last three years, with 2011 being the first on record with no over 90 degree days. But whenever I bring that up, I'm told that's "weather" and the blistering heat today in the east is "climate". Ok...
We got central air in the mid nineties, but haven't used it after the turn of the century. I'm not sure it even works anymore.
So... how does one beat the summer heat? I dunno, live somewhere where it doesn't get hot?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
And harden the fuck up.
Sorry, you're slow
It finally has rained but after 2 weeks straight of 100 degree temps plus an additional 50-90% humidity(the heat index was 111 a few days ago but now we finally got some rain) - all the so called "full sun plants" are dead with the exception of a knock out rose and the electric bill doubled this month as a result of the A/C constantly being on 70, 24 hours a day. You can now get up about 7 AM and you already see heat mirages. Its always like this but this has been especially hot. I have learned that 100 degrees in somewhere like California is a big difference than say 100 in one of the southern states like Mississippi or somewhere on the east coast such as the carolinas.
Use Solaris Panels to generate electricity whenever and wherever possible.
They may cost a bit more than your generator but you don't run out of energy until the sun goes down.
There's no spinning parts to fail, no noise pollution.
And additionally, solar panels take some of that energy from the sun and turn it into electricity rather than heat whereas the burning fuel in the generator will result in stored solar energy being released.
We were lucky to escape the storms without losing our electricity. If we lost power... well we have family spread out all over michigan and none of them mind hosting :>
My wife's favorite solution is just to jump into the shower with whatever clothes you're currently wearing until they are soaked with cool water. You're all set. I spent the last 5 hours feeling pretty comfortable because I took her advice and she did not. If you have fans, use them.
We also have a kiddy pool that we bought for $15. We sit outside (thankfully the mosquitoes aren't like last year) with our feet in the pool and let our daughter play in it. Dipping your feet in a tiny pool doesn't sound like it would help much but believe me, it's almost as good as sitting in the ac room. Make sure you're in the shade!
Holding a hose on yourself with cold water is pretty good, too.
The power went off just as the storm hit at 5pm last Friday. We were told that it would be restored by July 8th. It came back on at 2am on Tuesday. We were very happy. I live basically in the country and are all electric, so I have a 5600W portable generator with hard-wiring from my garage to a disconnect panel in the basement.
5600W will not power eveything, but enough to keep things going: well pump, sump pump (we have a lot of ground water so it runs more than I would like, and there is a battery backed sump pump as well), some lighting/outlets, garage door openers, refridgerator, I had to run a power cord to the freezer that we just bought, I had to run a power cord to my office as I had moved it since installing the disconnect panel. But no air conditioning, water heater, any kitchen appliances, clothes washer/dryer. I missed the air conditioning the most, as I hacked the water heater to get the water hot every 2 days. Internet/cable was only out for 1 day. Cell phone (Verizon) was very spotty for the first day.
I live in New Hampshire, so our heat waves are shorter and less intense. That said it can get hot and has been into the mid 90's a few times this summer. I like to cool off in a 10'x30" Easy Set Pool setup inside a screen shelter.
Sheesh - everyone complaints about all that FREE HEAT during summer.
I own an 1840 stone house and barn built into the side of the Blue Ridge. Today, it was 99 degrees outside.
In the barn, it was 73.
Last winter, it was 0 outside. In the barn, 41.
They had this stuff figured out before the Millard Fillmore administration: don't build your house in the middle of a cornfield that still wants to be a cornfield.
Oh, and please quit making new humans. We've already got more than enough.
---------------------------------------
Rotate the pod, please, HAL....
You should plan on one minimum 3-day outage per year with the current electrical grid, on a national average. If you want to drop that to 8 hours per year, expect to pay about $1,400 per kW peak demand per year more. If you want to go to 45 minutes per year, it should be another $700/kW.
An interesting thing about that number is that it is actually cheaper to put in your own generator (or even solar with batteries!) than having the utility do it. The payback is only a couple years worst case.
The issue is that for higher reliability you need to limit distance effects and be able to tolerate maintenance activities.
Ideally buy your own house with an air conditioner that's overrated for your square footage.
Then you can laugh at 65 degrees when it's 105 out. It may cost some power but you can do it.
Sadly I am currently in a POS apartment with a BS air conditioner. Today it was 102 outside and 82 inside with it running full blast. I tracked down the outrageous heat, and it was coming from the plate glass of the sliding doorwall of the balcony. It was almost too hot to touch, basically becoming a 40 square foot surface heater.
Tomorrow I'm gonna slap the white side of my bedcover against it to reflect, then my comforter against that for insulation, and hope I can keep it mid 70s, the minimum required for comfort with a fan on me.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Unless you're one of the truly melanin-challenged (e.g., Irish, as noted below) you can develop a decent working tan in the lower latitudes. And it helps if you go out after 3 or before 10, as GP mentions he did, and if you treat the mid-day sun with a little respect. A little Mediterranean blood helps too, but it is not necessary.
I just let the AC keep cooling the house normally. There's someone at home all the time, so the setback thermostat is set to "Hold". I did change the filter not long ago, but that was because it was due. Power company hasn't asked people to do anything yet, so we're OK there.
Power was out for about 8 hours about a month ago, but that was from a lightning strike -- took out power to three houses. The worst part was the lack of water for my morning shower (we're on a well). No other problems.
Get the fuck out of here. How exactly does my use of an air conditioner in the summer contribute to extended post-storm power outages?
If distribution lines or distribution stations are damaged, then the load in the area may be too high to be supported. Grid operators recognize this and won't restore power to an area if it will cause a grid blackout. If people would reduce their power consumption, some areas might be able to be restored earlier.
O rly? I had the "luck" to attend a meeting in Raleigh (I know, NORTH Carolina, they have glaciers there, right?) when it dumped 21 inches on them. Pretty awesome. Got diverted to Greensboro, seven of us rented a van (I got to drive, since I had most recent snow driving experience), had to keep it extra days till the airport opened. Hotel the meeting was at, the staff could not get home, and were sleeping in spare rooms. We had a supply of decent food; people stuck at a different hotel had nothing but beans-N-weenies for three days. Took several days to open the airport, there was one lane in, and the runway was still full of ice lumps (the takeoff was clumpity-bump-clumpity-bump, faster and faster, all the way till the wheels left the ground).
So I think 5 inches in SC is a possibility. I've seen one inch in Houston, that was a real party.
It's as if a bunch of people were brought up to believe human beings aren't adaptable to some moderate temperature hikes. We are, only stupid ones aren't.
It sounds like the Exxon CEO: . Fossil fuels will warm planet, but humans can adapt Therefore, no problem for people rich, young and in good shape. Just too bad for the others and wild animals! I've found indecent and immoral to read these disconnected comments.
The "enviro" nuts forced rules upon the world preventing nuclear power from increasing. These same "green" idiots promoted the use of solar, wind which only works when the sun is shining & the wind is blowing. These same clowns also have convinced the current administration that coal is bad, so no more coal plants. We haven't built up the power generation capacity in this country, to handle the load caused by our ever increasing demand for comfort. People say, oh just do without AC. Sorry, that WON'T happen without a lot of deaths in the United States (and the world). For lack of a better term, we are "spoiled" by comfort. When I was a child, back in the early 60's, we didn't think much about temperatures in the 90's, we just turned on a fan. Well, back then, the only places that had air conditioning were the grocery store, the movie theater and a very few business & the country club. We were ACCLIMATED to the heat. With the advent of central AC, cars, businesses, we are acclimated to the AC. And why would we force ourselves to be uncomfortable? "oh, but we must save the whales, prevent (man made) global warming, the rain forest and all the other catch phrases that the left uses to make us feel bad. Sorry...not buying it because I live in REALVILLE. Not this hollywood/scientist/earth first fantasy world that the hand wringers live in. You want to eat nuts & berries? Fine, not a problem. Go live in a cave and leave the rest of us alone. One good volcano spews more garbage in the air that all the smog released by cars anyway. And that "smoke" coming from smokestacks at power plants? That's just condensed water vapor anyway.
Easy:
Gin + tonic + ice + slice of lime. Drink. Repeat until cooled off or don't care that it's hot.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
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I agree, but in a region where higher temperatures are normal, there isn't (to my knowledge) any difference in mortality rates. The people's normal behavior in warmer regions probably already accounts for the warmer climates. That may mean the old and sick already have a way of life which naturally limits their exposure, or that parents pay more attention to children because they're aware of the effects of the heat.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Hot and humid requires AC. However, vast areas on US are hot and *dry*
A "water based cooler" or "desert cooler has its called in third world countries" works really well in such locales.
It uses around 200-300W, and can cool down a 1600sqft apartment in a matter of minutes.
Since electricity is scarce in India, and expensive too(when you see incomes of middle class families), often for most of the day, desert coolers do the job, and then at night people use AC.
As monsoon approaches, and air gets humid, it has to be AC all the way.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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excuse but the Midwest normally gets a High pressure front over it which prevents any change in weather for the remainder of the summer. It normally gets to just under to just over 100 so the midwesterners ARE used to this you dumbass!
down here in texas its not considered hot until its over 100 unless our humidity is low like last summer which stays 50-60% usually.
I find your personal inability to tolerate the heat of Ariz laughable-its a pleasant dry heat which at 110-115 feel as like DFW at 100-103-you might appreciate it more if you visited here and your sweat does NOT evaporate hardly at all.
summer here in the city becomes misarble when the nights begin staying above 80 over night as you never get cooled down and at dawn its already unpleasant outside.
i just moved from an old apt building built in 63 to an even older pier n beam house divided into a duplex-how old you ask->I do NOT have a vent or the gas stove nor in my bathroom. I just started using in last 2 weeks a 5K BTU window ac unit in the bedroom and a 12.5K BTU unit in the living room and my elect bill for June was under $50 -maybe the hardwood floors help.
I find drinking revive flavor of Vitamin water helps as its got a lot of potassium in it.
It's never hot for more than a couple of days a year over hear.
QUIT CRYING, AND PLAN + INVEST $$$ BETTER.
As an accident of geography, my town has three power companies. In my corner, luckily, I have the power company that does preventative maintenance and when there's a bad ice storm, we lose power for usually a couple of hours, once nearly a day.
This,
Approx 80% of my power bill goes to infrastructure. I cant even remember the last time I had a brownout and even in the worst storm in Perths history, power was restored to all affected places within a week. Australians, especially Western Australians like to whinge and bitch about high power bills but as per god damn usual fail to see how lucky we have it. You guys are expecting regular brownouts/disruptions, we dont.
Also It's a chilly 16 degrees C here today, so that's one solution to beating the heat... live in bloody Australia (of course this is offset by our 40 degree C summers).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
1) somewhere between 25 and 30 (C obviously) is where it gets "too hot" for me ... last week we had a high of 36 and this week we are around 34 (so I really hate it outside atm). Luckily I live in a good old solid brick building which is nice and cool most of the time (5 below outside at least in the summer). ... meds are obviously in a cabinet in the hall and if I get too hot there is always a wet towel to drape over one's shoulders, feet (not very stylish, but _really_ nice) ... and it's also not common in my country except for offices and public buildings and such, simply because most buildings are well-insulated (which also helps in the summer) and ppl have the right cooling strategy (windows open at night, closed during the day, shades down, etc) which are surprisingly effective
2) Nope, because we have decent electricity here in Europe
3) None
4) It's not
5) Not prepared at all, but I couldn't remember a power outage in my life (which is 24 years).
6) Drink much (not too cold though), use wet towels for heat relief if it is really too much to bear.
7) USV for my NAS, no heat protection (but I guess it will shut down itself when it should actually overheat)
8) Staying indoors
I think it's about time to sue the power companies and see if we can't force them to be more prepared for extreme weather.
In many other countries the high tension distribution system has been buried - literally! - Gone are those rather ugly power towers marring the landscape and gone are also the outages from toppled towers. As most residential (and industrial) power lines are in the ground as well, a storm will not disrupt the supply.
Why hasn't this happened in the US? - It costs money?
Who cares! - Force the power companies to move into the 20th century and drop those vulnerable raised power lines in favor of underground cabling. It can be done and it has been done, so there's no excuse except the greed of the share holders.
Underground cabling also makes it harder to steal power which might be an incentive as well.
Here in Denmark, about 80% of the high tension infrastructure is underground now, and most non-rural cities has had all raised power lines removed. Everything is underground - gas, water, sewers, electric (consumer and street lights) and fiber/copper for communication.
You have to dig when something fails but then it rarely does. Except when someone digs for one thing and cuts something else... Fortunately the fines for doing that are steep enough to make everybody actually care and take care when they dig. Of course if they dig into a high tension cable... I've seen the aftermath of a small excavator hitting a 50kV line... looks like a bomb went off. There's a LOT of power in such a line!
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
We had a time a few years back when the offices at work were getting close to 40 degrees C. These babies work quite well if it's not too humid. You can even put them in a fridge for an extra cooling effect. Turning on the fan helps the evaporation.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Roman air conditioner. Basically a pipe buried underground with air forced through it by heating it at one end. The air drawn in is cooled by the surrounding earth. In winter it will work as a mediocre heater since the temperature about 15-30 feet underground stays relatively constant year-round at around 50-55 F (not as effective as a fire, but this would work even in the absence of firewood). Would work in high humidity too, though you'd need to add some sort of drainage system to remove water which condenses out from the temperature change.
for gaming that pulled less than 110W idle. that did include an LCD screen but on low brightness. That's an intel i5 with a copper cooled GTX550Ti and one HDD, no ethernet port and two sticks of 2G ram.
Doing nothing, but not in a suspend state.
Pakistani poster here.
It's ~45 deg Celsius here, with ~50% humidity, no electricity 12+hrs out of 24, no AC, just fans when (if!) the light comes, else it's God's mercy.
Oh, and horribly built houses (building codes, what are those? What do you mean the back wall can't be at a 30 degree angle? Insulation? Airflow?)
Beat that! ;p
Btw, out of sheer curiosity, how they hell did *you* guys end up in this mess, you are supposed to be a 1st world country, the land of milk and honey :)
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
I'm in the UK and have seen nothing but rain this summer, you insensitive clods!
We taped aluminum foil over west facing windows, drastically reducing heat gain at the end of the day. Our whole house air conditioning unit is twenty years old and weak. We added a 6,500 btu window unit to supplement it on the north wall. When it hit 104 the other day we set the yard sprinkler to wet the very hot west wall and part of the roof.
I am working from at home in Vienna, Austria, and don't have air conditioning in my appartement. Had had 30Celsius in my living room for the last four days.
My tip: Put a wet towel over your back, it cools you down continously - and I haven't yet caught any cold from it (a common fear).
Go down to the basement. Quick, cheap way to drop the temp by 10 degrees or more.
Can I just suggest if you don't like the heat you take a "summer" holiday here for a month or so?
Don't forget your brolly and wellies or whatever you call them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Fairfax County, Virginia (just west of Washington D.C.). We lost power Friday night around 10:30, and didn't get it back until Tuesday afternoon. Our neighborhood lines are buried, so obviously something upstream took the hit.
On Saturday, I had the last gas powered generator available at Costco on a cart. Not realizing the extent of the damage, or how long it would last, my wife and I decided to give it up ($1k for a brand I'd never heard of) to one of the other folks who asked if that was the only one remaining...probably could have sold it for double right in front of the store (but that's not me).
We slept in our basement the first night, and decided to look for a hotel on Saturday...no such luck (and our platinum status at Marriott was useless). We were lucky enough to get a room on Sunday, and the line at the hotel registration was about 30 people deep for the two days we were there.
My recommendations (note: I haven't read the other posts yet, so please forgive any duplicates)...
Stay low...heat rises, so the basement can be your friend.
Keep hydrated...obvious, but worth repeating
If you have kids, a little time playing at a pool, lake, or even in your own water sprinkler can be refreshing.
Cool showers
Go to the movies, library, or even to work if they have power.
If you need to exert yourself, take frequent breaks...pace it.
Just another day in Paradise
100+ degrees in the summer is normal for us. We often go weeks with temperatures in 105+ in Tucson and 110+ in Phoenix, and sometimes there are outages with electricity during the summer when a transformer blows up in a fireball of light, knocking out power for a few hours. So buckle up buttercup for those of you who are now experiencing what we call normal, you will survive!
Just got the power back on yesterday afternoon. Several large trees came down in the yard during Friday night. One taking out the power lines and snapping the top 3m off the pole at the back of our property.
We had a small generator to keep the fridge and some fans going. Cooked on the gas BBQ for the last 5 days. Used box fans to circulate air in the house, although we live on ½ acre covered in mature trees so have a lot of shade which keeps the house heat down.
Was entertained all 4th July by watching the power guys put up a new pole and connections while I sat in the shade on the porch and drank cold beer (strictly to keep cool of course!). After which I took the opportunity to climb up on our shed and completely remove the cable company wire from our house! (Previous owner had it I guess) ;-) ... Still waiting for the fibre & copper to get reconnected though so only 3G net until then :-(
Honestly it always been this hot people just complain too much. Its been over 100 degrees nearly every day for two weeks. We've done nothing different but fill up 3 gallon jugs of water for our dogs incase it turns off. People seem to forget that electricity and the internet aren't necessities! As far as staying cool, there are swimming pools and creeks to goto, stay in the shade; it's a 10-30 degree temperature drop normally depending on the breeze etc. Also, the only people who think it is too hot to function are people who sit inside all day, get acclimated to the heat and it wont seem so bad, a/c will feel cooler, and it raises your metabolism.
in other words get over it!
http://www.ehow.com/how_5455382_make-own-cool-neck-wrap.html Soak these in water, and put them in either the fridge or freezer. Once they're cold, tie them around your neck. They REALLY help, and they're really cheap to make. If you don't want to make them yourself, you can buy them pre-made for around $5 on eBay
True, temperatures can be over 100 but at 15% humidity or less at least you don't get muggy. You can also put up a mister line to cool the local air and sit in the shade. It works even better if you are a nudist, or near nudist.
Side note:
It has always seemed funny that some people have to dry off with a towel after they go swimming. Getting out of a pool when it is 100 degrees and the humidity is low is refreshing. You are cool, even cold, as the water evaporates and you'll be completely dry in just a couple of minutes. Three cheers for low humidity!
Cotton clothing is pretty terrible compared to technical fabrics made from synthetics when it comes to breathability and evaporation. Once the cotton fibers get soaked after the first 10 minutes it stays that way for a long time, canceling any benefits. Polyester all the way. Just stay away from those open flames...
Don't forget to tell all of our food crops that they are adaptable and that it's only a few degrees. Last time I checked, humans don't do well without food. I think another way to look at it is that it's stupid to support a policy that forces us to pay for the mess that is created by big business. If you think it costs a lot to enforce pollution regulations, wait until you get the bill that is going to be caused by massive drought.
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...with 15" thick walls at 8000 feet.....
;)
So I don't feel the heat much, fortunately.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
For long term heat-proofing your home, air sealing is one of the most cost effective measures. Most energy loss does not occur through windows or doors. Even if the attic is properly insulated, if there are air leaks then hot air is infiltrating into the living area.
Many local utilities will do a blower door/infrared camera test on your home. When I did this, the "aha" moment was seeing that my kitchen walls were reading 100 degrees F. The reason was that the interior walls were open to the attic at the top of the wall, and hot air was circulating inside my walls. This made the kitchen extremely hot in the summer.
I hired a contractor to seal the air leaks as identified by the IR imagery, and the leakage of my house was reduced by 33%. My house now holds a more constant comfortable temperature. The next step was adding insulation, but this should only be done once the air leaks are sealed. Adding insulation to a leaky house does not stop the leaks. My city rebated about 40% of the cost of this work (it cost about $1700 combined).
Un-closed chimneys, dryer vents, and fan vents all leak energy. Try to seal your chimney when not in use, and install one-way dampers on other vents where possible. It makes a huge difference.
I live in a climate where it can reach 100F during the day, but it cools to 60-65 at night. I use a whole house fan at night to cool the interior down very cold, then shut all the windows in the morning. Last summer I went the entire season without needing A/C. I recommend AirScape fans because they are quiet, small, easy to install, and efficient (just a customer).
Don't think that just because your home is new that it is not leaking energy. Our local utility audited the leakiness of many homes and found that the most leaky ones were built in 1999. Before spending five digits to replace windows or upgrade your A/C, get your house energy audited. Otherwise you could be wasting money.
Guys you should stop complaining intead enjoy it as myself - I love it - love it - love it
It's been hot and humid here (today was a high of 30C = 86 F with 86% humidity). I have curtains in my apartment that make a huge difference, I'll be buying some blinds on the weekend though to cut down on the morning sun (my windows all face east). I've lucked out the past two days since it's been cloudy in the morning so less sun has been shining directly on my windows. In general, I close the windows during the day and open them at night. I also put a fan on when I sleep or work at the computer and I drink lots of fluids and try to avoid using the stove and oven (it's gazpatcho and sandwiches week).
I have two cats so I make sure that they have plenty of water and I've been brushing the fluffy one a lot more lately to help him get rid of the extra fur he's shedding. They're pretty good at finding the cool places in the apartment to hide out and haven't shown any signs of overheating.
What heat wave?
Seriously, South Carolina has always been hot and humid, even in winter. This past Saturday (it was 105 degrees) we spent all day outside.
Easy for you to say. Doesn't have South Carolina a law that forbids summers to be hotter than average?
its been a comfortable 75-85 F here , like it pretty much always is.. still I have been meaning to paint my roof white for sometime, mostly to blind the tourist helicopters.
That's an interesting phrasing; you must be a professional on the power end. Most people don't think of this stuff in cost per watts of capacity, but in cost per kwh.
A quick check shows that I can get a diesel backup generator for ~ $250 a kw(and I'm using prime figures for the generator). Doing a proper install will probably cost more than that. Call it $750 a kw, plus fuel costs when you need to operate. Still almost half that of what you quoted.
I don't read AC A human right
That is exactly the point. If the utility company does it for you it is more expensive and ultimately less effective. Say your utility currently has 99% availability at your home. That can be done with a network that has 99.5-99.9% availability-- to improve at your home, they need to make their core infrastructure have 99.999% reliability to get 99.99% reliability to your neighborhood and 99.9% to your home.
If you put a generator at your home, all you need out of it is to have 90% reliability for the 1% utility unavailability to get you 99.9% availability. Mathematically there are some caveats-- if the utility is unreliable inthe hot summer, you need to make sure your generator has a cooling system that is designed to accommodate worst-day ambient temperature. If they go out inthe cold of winter, you need to make sure your fuel doesn't gel and that you have a reliable starting system and block heater. If you go natural gas or propane, you need to make sure those would be available for your expected outage cases.
As for your cost, you might not be including a transfer switch and adequate fuel storage in your number, but $1000-1200 per kW should get you a pretty good system installed. I think I remember seeing a propane/natural gas 17 kW Generac unit being quoted for $25k, which would be somewhat high-end.
Well, I specified a diesel, which puts it on the 'top end' for houses, most of them are pretty big units, but I want one because my house is heated with #2 fuel oil, which you can use in a generator(just be careful with the fuel filter).
I was looking at $18k for a 90kw prime* diesel generator. 375A@240V. $2.5k for a transfer switch. The generator is basically 5x4, but let's go with a 10x12 shed so you have room to put it in and the ancillerary equipment in, do maintenance, avoid classification as a confined space, etc... Some research for that says $3k for a good shed. Let's say $6k total to put in a good intake/exhaust system. People aren't supposed to spend time in the shed with the genset running, but it's good practice to have clean air, the generator will run better anyways. Other tasks include handling the cooling properly - my generator building has the radiator build into the side of the shed, the muffler/exhaust above the roof, and pulls the air from another(filtered) panel to the outside.
Generator, 90kw: $18k
Building for Gen: $6k
Transfer switch: $3k
Fuel Tank(1000 gallon, installed): $3k (90kw at ~90% should be around 7 gal/hour, should give you ~6 days.)
Wiring, install, misc other: $3k
Filling said tank: $3k, fuel use estimated at $1.5k/year at the 3 days of outage per year estimate. Plan on spending a couple hundred a year monitoring the fuel quality.
Total cost: $36k for 90kw. $400/watt. If the wiring/hooking up the generator doesn't run that much, spend a bit more on the building.
*For those that don't know, generators are actually rated as Standby, Prime, or Continuous. Standby is only intended for short periods of times, Continuous is expected to run all the time at full rated power, and Prime is expected to run all the time at variable loads. Standby generators are generally built 'cheaper' or 'overrated' for their capacity and as a result don't last nearly as many hours as the other two.
** Rules state all over the place is 'don't run a generator inside, and there are good reasons for this. However, what we're doing here is basically building a custom building for the generator with provisions in place to toss the exhaust outside. Much like how mechanics shops in cold areas will have ventilation cones that go over the exhaust pipe so they can run the car safely inside where it's warm. Except in this case we seal it even better. I'd still install a carbon monoxide detector and leave the door open when I have to go inside.
I don't read AC A human right