living like an American

[rainbowgardener]

Heat wave finally got to us and we closed up the house and turned on the central air a couple days ago, for the first time since 2007 or 2008...

So I'm discovering what it is to live like an American. The central air makes you hate the outdoors. We keep the thermostat at 83 so it's not like it's really cold. But even going out at 6 this AM, when it was actually cooler outside than in, it felt awful setting foot outside the door, because so humid and muggy outside while the air inside is all dehumidified.

The house is quiet as a grave inside with no bird song and still air. I feel bored and listless, watching too much TV and reading and time on the computer. Totally disconnected from the natural world. I have made my honey promise that we will turn the A/C off again and open up the house by Sun, even though next week it will still be in the 90's all week.

[Orenda]

I am an 'open the windows' person too. My Husband is not

We have had the air conditioning on for about a week now and I miss hearing the Cicadas and Birds. Yesterday I made myself have the early morning coffee on the Patio but quickly got myself inside.

Apart from picking the Cucumbers and Beans, checking on the rest of the veggies growing, and watering, there has been little gardening done.

This morning we have had a thunderstorm and yes ~ the windows are open at this moment but I think we will be 'closing up' pretty soon.

It seems to have been a year of extreme weather, probably not but it seems so. A few weeks ago we had too much wind and rain and Texas was having fires and drying up!

I wish those that need rain get it and I wish those that need the sunshine get that too. Ah for an ideal climate for us all.

[Charlie MV]

103 here today, real feel 115. No AC, you can die. We were 95 degrees at 11PM last night. We usually sit outside at night. Not now.

[hendi_alex]

I was a little late getting in my 3 mile slow run this morning. Must have been 85 by the time I left around 9:45. Has been over 100 degrees for 4 days now and has been 92-102 degrees for almost two months. The garden is still putting out produce but the heat and humidity are taking their toll. Seems I lose a couple of tomato plants every week or two and watering is a twice a day chore in this extreme heat. At least we do have an abundance of water, and in this sand the aquifer gets recharged during the wet winter most years.

[cherishedtiger]

We cant decide if its going to be hot or tolerable... my garden doesnt know what to do either!
I have to wait to do anything in the garden until its shaded by the fence... I am a leave the windows open type of person too, but in this heat we have got to shut the windows and blinds and kick the a/c up. Cant wait until fall when we can open them all back up again!

[pickupguy07]

So I'm discovering what it is to live like an American. The central air makes you hate the outdoors. We keep the thermostat at 83 so it's not like it's really cold. But even going out at 6 this AM, when it was actually cooler outside than in, it felt awful setting foot outside the door, because so humid and muggy outside while the air inside is all dehumidified.
.

Welcome to the "Southern" United States. What you stated happens here EVERY year. I never gets any better, and most never get used to it.
(Actually over the last couple years it has gotten worse.)
Honestly I don't know why I don't just move....

Oh yeah I do.... The Government has everything so screwed up NO ONE can sell or buy a house... so we are stuck in the situation we are in. ggrrrr
I better stop now before I get started on a RANT

[thanrose]

Those of us in the southeast know heat with humidity very well.

We can be fresh air fiends, but we pay for it with moldy books and limp upholstery. When I lived a bit more inland, I had to powerwash with bleach my house exterior to keep the mold down yearly. Is chlorine bleach toxic? Sure it is, but the HEAT caused the chlorine to offgas and dissipate before it hurt anything on the ground.

If you want relief from the heat, you leave trees growing all around your house. If you want relief from the mold, you cut the trees down. If you want relief from the bugs that will come in when you cut the trees down, and they will, you move to another state.

[tomf]

I sweat real bad so I do not think I could take the humid heat, Boston was bad enough when I grew up; I cannot imagine the deep South.

Charlie are you on your boat? I would be some place where I was in the water most of the time; I am a water dog.

[Charlie MV]

Tomf, we're on the boat but we worked all day. Seems like we work the garden and work the boat.

We decided to paint the galley cabinet interiors white along with the counter top. Took the sink out on the aft deck to clean off the old plumber's putty. My wife blistered her finger on it. You can't leave any tools outside or they will burn you.

We're too sore to put all the junk away in the cabinets. It will be there tomorrow. I gotta say that this heat is sucking the life out of us. It's hard to breathe outside.

Tomorrow we will do som serious swimming and floating but remember the water temp is in the mid to high 80s. We usually go for a ride at night but it's staying near 90 degrees until 11 PM.

The AC systems feel goooooooood.

[ButterflyGarden]

It's been around 100 here for a while (I know, I'm not in America) and we don't have AC or a pool(they are both considered a luxury here). Summer lasts from May until September or October. We open all the windows and keep a good supply of cold water and ice pops on hand. I do my errands in the morning and I give the kids their baths around 3 or 4 in the afternoon when it's really hot out to help them cool off. Other than that we just try to stay out of the sun as much as possible. Good luck staying cool.

[hendi_alex]

I can remember those 100 degree days as a child, before we had an air conditioner. With cold a person can add layers. But with hot, once you have taken most everything off, there is just no escaping it. Makes a person tougher I guess, but that one I can do without.

If I couldn't afford a/c would definitely consider some version of a home made swamp cooler. A fan, a moderate sized pump, and some material to use as a wicking membrane and you are in business. They work remarkably well, especially in hot areas with relatively low humidity.

[rainbowgardener]

My point was not about how hot it is, but how much I hate the A/C and closing the house up. Since I hadn't done it for the past four years, I forgot what it was like.... the house feels dead and I feel trapped inside it. Today is the day we open everything up and go back to living in the natural world.

Yesterday we had a woods restoration work day at my Quaker Meeting (church). Heat index 95, very high humidity, sweat POURING off me, doing heavy work in the woods, but I felt wonderful afterwards, just glowing and so glad to have been out in the woods for a little while (admittedly after two hours of that I came back home to A/C and cleaned up!).

Trouble with our very high humidity is that sweat doesn't evaporate and cool you, just runs off, and evaporative (swamp) coolers don't work so well either. What we use is a whole house attic fan to suck heat out of the top of the house all night and window fans at the bottom to pull cool night air in. In the daytime all that goes off and just ceiling fans to circulate the air. It works great as long as there IS cool night air to bring in. When we get a heat wave and it doesn't get below 80 all night, doesn't work nearly as well. But the worst of the current heat wave is past us and our night time temps are going to be back down in the 70's, so I am eager to open the house up!

[hendi_alex]

I guess that it just boils down to what a person is used to. During the day I leave the a/c on about 81 upstairs where I'm on the computer generally for 3-4 hours. Downstairs I swing the a/c between 78-80 depending upon what it takes to feel comfortable. Outside, I don't particularly mind the temperature up to mid 90's or so, but inside, in the stale air as you say, a moderate input of a/c improves the comfort level for me. We rarely open the house as the tree and grass pollen and other allergens are best left outside.

When I was teenager up to leaving home, my dad had this notion, [room temperature is 72 degrees.] So whether winter or summer, the thermostat was set at 72 degrees. My wife and I took on the same habit after setting up our first home in 1969. After the first oil embargo, we started looking for ways to save on energy, to do our part. At that time we started creeping the a/c up until we got to between 78-80 degrees. After an adjustment period, interesting thing was that we were as comfortable or were more comfortable in the new temperature range than we were at the old one. And as you and others have pointed out, before we were addicted to inside the house during the summer, as the shock of going from 72 to much over the mid 80's was almost unbearable. The new temperature setting opened an entirely new world for me, as ever since I've never minded getting out in the heat during the summer months. I must admit however, that when the temperatures reach near 100, I mostly spend my time indoors.

[Charlie MV]

Rainbowgardener, sweat dries?????

[gixxerific]

I was a little late getting in my 3 mile slow run this morning. Must have been 85 by the time I left around 9:45. Has been over 100 degrees for 4 days now and has been 92-102 degrees for almost two months. The garden is still putting out produce but the heat and humidity are taking their toll. Seems I lose a couple of tomato plants every week or two and watering is a twice a day chore in this extreme heat. At least we do have an abundance of water, and in this sand the aquifer gets recharged during the wet winter most years.

Please be careful Alex. My mid 20's neighbor who does 7 min miles or something and comes in first or close in most of the marathons he runs became over heated on Sat. He was running 7 miles and on the way back was overtaken by the heat. Luckily one of his friends was driving by saw him and picked him up. He was in bad shape even though he is normally in awesome shape. This was at about 7 am.