How are you handling the Summer heat?

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I live in a tropical island. When its not raining, everyday is a summer heat.

 

[Leg End]

When you respond to most of your thread

Due to being in Texas and after surviving a superbug that permanently damaged my lungs, I have to stay in air conditioning most all the time in the summer. I start to have difficulty breathing when the air temperature rises above 70F or 21.1C and considering it is already well above that by now, I am trapped indoors for the time being. I pretty much sprint from indoor air conditioning to car air conditioning back to indoor air conditioning and have to have my car cooled down before I can get in it. It sucks to have to go to those extremes, but at least it keeps me breathing. If the power goes out I have to evacuate until it is restored now just to stay alive.

...And here I thought I had it bad in just existing in triple digit temps. I wish I had better tips for you, but the best thing I can think of is getting something like thisin the event that things go very pear-shaped and you need at least some time to be bought to get into a cooler environment. There are a lot of coolers like that one popping up, but a solid one that accepts USB is a major component for SHTF situations, and power banks are quite cheap that could power something that potentially intensive for a few hours. Needs ice water to be most effective however, but a freezer will last a while with it's ice, and there are even some USB fridge solutions to try and preserve the ice as long as possible.

You could make a bubble fort with a fan and a duvet cover

Ooh I've always wanted to try that, though with the temperature here and how dry it is, I think fans are mostly just generating more heat. Thanks though!

Aww man- I was all ready to barge in here and be all like 'Did you just assume my Hemisphere!?'

But I see you've played Upsie-Downie before. Well played.

You guys should be arrested for stealing the cold!

So, I recently moved to Western New York, near the Canadian Border heading up toward Toronto. I'm Twenty Minutes away from Lake Ontario.

I don't remember temperatures above 78. Which sucks, because I like the heat. It's constantly breezy, cool is the norm. But it's clean air, people are outside in their shorts (which I think is crazy because I'm freezing).

How am I dealing with the Summer Heat? I'm wishing for some.

I will fucking trade you, dude. Reaches mid-high 110s at peak here. I've loved summer heat before, but that was before moving to an actual desert.

For tips, I guess that depends on your housing situation, really. I would look for any East-facing windowed room and set up shop there. Keep the drapes drawn, cross ventilation if you can, but find an area where you live that you can focus cooling efforts.

More or less have, which is sadly not a room I'm able to spend most of my time in.

Now to the pets, cooling pads seem to do well for most Pet families. This [https://www.amazon.com/Pet-Products-Coolin-Elevated-Large/dp/B01CHMGKHU/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=amazon+cooling+pads+for+pets&qid=1560388337&s=gateway&sr=8-10] has a decent review, but one person said it wasn't for chewing pets. But hopefully it will help.

Hot damn, these things are perfect. I have cats though so they're probably kill within minutes, but I'll find a workaround. Thanks for this.

Several years back I bought some evaporative cooling towels [https://www.amazon.com/Original-Cooling-Towel-Extreme-Relief/dp/B00VSH7LEM/ref=asc_df_B00VSH7LEM/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=194838933099&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3242858423112271258&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011954&hvtargid=pla-312621469428&psc=1] for my parents. The idea being you soak them in ice water, ring out most of the excess, and hang it around your neck. The evaporating water, when in proximity to the major blood vessels in your neck, will supposedly cool you down. I don't know if they work, I never got to use them. I think my folks just threw them in a bucket thinking they were for washing cars.The containers they arrived in were really nice though. They came in handy for storing pencils of the Derwent and Strathmore variety.

Huh. Think I saw things like these at the front of my local dollar store. For much more than a dollar of course. Might just pick them up.

One favorite thing in the summer is making my own, err, soda? Take a very large cup, like a ridiculous 'only in America' size cup and fill it entirely with ice. Then fill 70-75% to the top with club soda. It's just cheap, carbonated water, not tonic water, which contains quinine. Fill the remainder almost to the top with a strongly sweet juice like orange or pineapple, and mix loosely with a crude implement like a butter knife. The more crude the better. The super-sweet diabetes juice will dilute just enough to the point where you don't notice it's been watered down. And the ice helps immensely. Feel free to fill up on two.

This I'll be looking into as well. I'll be barbecuing over the next few weeks, so might as well make the drinks too. Thanks.

Does that make you pan-tempertural?

I prefer the term TransClimate

The term is actually Temperature Fluid.

Shoe will be on the other foot in six months time. Ask me then.

An eye for an eye, cold thief.

Still living in a country where basically no home and barely a workplace have air conditioning. Because it would be seen as decadent and is not really needed.

Yes, a couple of the last summers were quite hot, but when climate change enters the equation, people are always reminded of how much energy air conditioning uses and how bad it is for the climate to use it. So many people see it as immoral now.

Evaporative Coolers are bae. The small one I linked to Devils at the top of this post or bigger ones will do wonders for you. Proper huge-ass units take up little power compared to their AC cooling brothers, and work just off of natural evaporation. Good luck with that heat.

Southern Germany is surprisingly bearable so far. Not like last year. Last year was a fucking death march.

And for everyone currently experiencing biblical floods, I'd trade for those too as long as they actually last that long, because if it rains one day here, the next day is pretty much like drowning in boiling water. Video related and a shout out to everyone here that is going to be pushing 110-115+ degree temperatures. We're in this hell together.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

By living in England where, even as I type this comment, it is pouring with rain

 

[Erttheking]

MA is at the point where I?ve only needed a fan so far.

 

[EvilRoy]

We're in the standard cycle of hot day followed by severe thunderstorms at night, so I just try to ride out the days and open up the house at night.

Something you could consider is a hacked together low-tech air conditioner, which basically consists of filling a metal bowl with ice and pointing a couple fans at it. It does mean you will have to keep a steady stream of ice in the freezer (I fill 2L jugs with water, freeze them then cut the plastic off and use the cylinder), but I found that it can make an appriciable difference as long as you keep the shades and windows closed.

Which is what I'm doing anyway since the pollen is at all time levels right now, and it feels like I smoked two packs and sucked off a lava monster just breathing the air.

Small animals love this since they run up and sit near the ice and try to lick it. So if you have cats the air will smell slightly of cat-breath, but it may be worth it.

 

[Squilookle]

Aww man- I was all ready to barge in here and be all like 'Did you just assume my Hemisphere!?'

But I see you've played Upsie-Downie before. Well played.

You guys should be arrested for stealing the cold!

Come down here and see what the Summer is like- you'd be stealing the cold too if you were here!

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I live in Cumbria - we do not have this summer heat of which you speak. We do, however, have slightly warmer rain.

 

[Agema]

British Summer. 13oC and pouring with rain half the time. Dear god please let's not have another 2010. Still, now I'm going to the gym again, it's nice to be able to cool off more easily afterwards.

 

[Worgen]

(This of course only applies to people that are currently in Summer. Damn Aussies and their upside-down weather.)

I'm not handling it at all, besides frequent cold showers and an evaporative cooler that does not seem to work at all. Sometimes sit under a tree while hosing myself, but that does very little besides increase my water bill. Got no ideas for my pets besides windows and said cooler. Anyone want to share their experiences? Tips? Maybe send me an igloo?

Due to being in Texas and after surviving a superbug that permanently damaged my lungs, I have to stay in air conditioning most all the time in the summer. I start to have difficulty breathing when the air temperature rises above 70F or 21.1C and considering it is already well above that by now, I am trapped indoors for the time being. I pretty much sprint from indoor air conditioning to car air conditioning back to indoor air conditioning and have to have my car cooled down before I can get in it. It sucks to have to go to those extremes, but at least it keeps me breathing. If the power goes out I have to evacuate until it is restored now just to stay alive.

Damn, that sucks.

I'm also in TX but that means I'm in a house with AC so as long and that doesn't breakdown, heat really just impacts my ability to work out outside at certain times of day. I have had the AC breakdown before though, when it did it got hoooooot. It wasn't too bad during the day when I could put some water on myself to keep cool but getting to sleep was really rough, my fan couldn't turn up high enough.

 

[Asita]

Weather hasn't been too bad around here, but one thing that has had surprising benefits was putting in some real effort to lose weight. Might be the loss of fat, might be the low calorie intake (might be both), might be the fact that I'm eating ice cold smoothies for my lunch, but my heat tolerance seems to have been tweaked. It's not a huge difference, but thus far I've had to adjust my thermostat up about 4 degrees because I've been finding my prior comfort zone too chilly.

 

[Catfood220]

As someone who has just returned from Download Festival (heavy metal/rock music festival) which featured lots of rain, mud and cold nights. I can tell you the British summer is in full effect. In fact the first nice day was yesterday, on the way home.

Still, could be worse. My friend had to be evacuated from Wainfleet as his home was in danger of flooding. So yeah, British summer is great.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

It's not quite summer here yet, but it is raining an awful lot.... so there's that.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Rains a lot in Connecticut so it's been nice so far outside of a couple of days that were insanely hot. Summer kicks off late here and spring seems to last an extra month. Around mid July do you need an AC daily.

 

[gorfias]

I stayed in Caribbean waters up to my nose and did not move.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

So my weekend went like this...
Saturday night the AC went out. Went to the store and bought a small ac unit to try and help me survive it. After I get back, the power goes out entirely for the area due to storms so that was pointless and I instead evacuate to my car AC and try to wait it out a bit in the car to see if the power comes back on. It didn't for a while so I went and got a hotel room for what was left of the night, but in reality it was already almost sun up so I keep the room and sleep in and stay most of Sunday. I come home Monday night and the Internet was out...

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

A fairly nice A/C unit in our bedroom for when the nights get above 75F (rare before July). It usually doesn't get too hot where I'm at (Seattle), but both me and my husband sleep much better while cool. Got the unit for free from a "giving away" board that he's part of with a few thousand co-workers.

During the day when I'm working from home, I just open a front window and the back sliding door and let a breeze through when it gets above 80.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Welp, knocking on wood in my previous post didn?t help; North Texas is starting to kick into its summer self: currently +90 degrees (F) with a real-feel of +100, humid as SHIT, and if you stand still quietly in the intense rays of the suns, you can actually hear your flesh sizzling like bacon on a skillet. What?s worse, due to all the rain we?ve had recently, our pool hasn?t been able to warm up enough for us jump in comfortably yet (wow, that is the most first world problem I?ve ever personally uttered.)

BTW, does anyone have any tried and tested remedies for mosquitoes?!? They are by far and away the WORST part of summer; heat be damned! Our nightly ritual is to sit outside under our awning with a cocktail and cigarettes and watch sports programming, and the mosquitoes have their way with us; it?s a wonder we?ve not gotten West Nile or malaria by now. We?ve tried citronella candles, spray-on repellants, those coils you burn and give off that noxious scent, etc., but nothing seems to really keep them away; I?m losing about a pint a night to those literal blood-sucking bastards!

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Welp, knocking on wood in my previous post didn?t help; North Texas is starting to kick into its summer self: currently +90 degrees (F) with a real-feel of +100, humid as SHIT, and if you stand still quietly in the intense rays of the suns, you can actually hear your flesh sizzling like bacon on a skillet. What?s worse, due to all the rain we?ve had recently, our pool hasn?t been able to warm up enough for us jump in comfortably yet (wow, that is the most first world problem I?ve ever personally uttered.)

BTW, does anyone have any tried and tested remedies for mosquitoes?!? They are by far and away the WORST part of summer; heat be damned! Our nightly ritual is to sit outside under our awning with a cocktail and cigarettes and watch sports programming, and the mosquitoes have their way with us; it?s a wonder we?ve not gotten West Nile or malaria by now. We?ve tried citronella candles, spray-on repellants, those coils you burn and give off that noxious scent, etc., but nothing seems to really keep them away; I?m losing about a pint a night to those literal blood-sucking bastards!

If you are able to do so, remove anything possible around the yard that holds standing water and treat with water tablets anything you cannot remove, even those puddles forming in ruts in the grass and that does help quite a bit. Also using something like yard guard around the area can help reduce them as well, as well as reduce chiggers if they are also an issue as is common here in our region. If your city is not doing mosquito spraying or it does not reach your area or you live in an area that is too large to treat, your only option in the end may just have to be mosquito netting. In some areas it is so bad there is no other real option, and it only works as well as you do to make sure they cannot get inside it.

I know this is probably not what you want to hear but as our climate changes, we can only expect the mosquitos to get worse. When we do not get good freezes over winter they get out of control and before you know it will be like living in the rainforest with the amount of mosquitos and diseases they bring. When I used to work the stand out at the racetrack for my Dad they were unbearable due to all the ponds and open untreated land out there and I made myself a mosquito netting suit.. sort of like a beekeeper but with mosquito netting to keep the mosquitos out. (Before my father passed away he used to design, build and race prostock cars so I pretty much grew up around racing and numerous track owners in Texas are close family friends.) Hey you don't have to sew your own like I did they sell them on Amazon now! XD

https://www.amazon.com/Lixada-Repellent-Ultra-fine-Protective-Gardening/dp/B01I5AX9UO/ref=asc_df_B01I5AX9UO/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198093803401&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1220078593514089447&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9026890&hvtargid=pla-349444348000&psc=1

If you don't like that one though just look up "mosquito net suit" and you will find other options. I see I am not the only one that thought that was a great idea haha!

There are also options for sprays you spray on yourself, lotions or wipes, but I wouldn't recommend those as they do tend to get into your bloodstream and could have possible long term side effects that have not been well researched yet.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Welp, knocking on wood in my previous post didn?t help; North Texas is starting to kick into its summer self: currently +90 degrees (F) with a real-feel of +100, humid as SHIT, and if you stand still quietly in the intense rays of the suns, you can actually hear your flesh sizzling like bacon on a skillet. What?s worse, due to all the rain we?ve had recently, our pool hasn?t been able to warm up enough for us jump in comfortably yet (wow, that is the most first world problem I?ve ever personally uttered.)

BTW, does anyone have any tried and tested remedies for mosquitoes?!? They are by far and away the WORST part of summer; heat be damned! Our nightly ritual is to sit outside under our awning with a cocktail and cigarettes and watch sports programming, and the mosquitoes have their way with us; it?s a wonder we?ve not gotten West Nile or malaria by now. We?ve tried citronella candles, spray-on repellants, those coils you burn and give off that noxious scent, etc., but nothing seems to really keep them away; I?m losing about a pint a night to those literal blood-sucking bastards!

If you are able to do so, remove anything possible around the yard that holds standing water and treat with water tablets anything you cannot remove, even those puddles forming in ruts in the grass and that does help quite a bit. Also using something like yard guard around the area can help reduce them as well, as well as reduce chiggers if they are also an issue as is common here in our region. If your city is not doing mosquito spraying or it does not reach your area or you live in an area that is too large to treat, your only option in the end may just have to be mosquito netting. In some areas it is so bad there is no other real option, and it only works as well as you do to make sure they cannot get inside it.

I know this is probably not what you want to hear but as our climate changes, we can only expect the mosquitos to get worse. When we do not get good freezes over winter they get out of control and before you know it will be like living in the rainforest with the amount of mosquitos and diseases they bring. When I used to work the stand out at the racetrack for my Dad they were unbearable due to all the ponds and open untreated land out there and I made myself a mosquito netting suit.. sort of like a beekeeper but with mosquito netting to keep the mosquitos out. (Before my father passed away he used to design, build and race prostock cars so I pretty much grew up around racing and numerous track owners in Texas are close family friends.) Hey you don't have to sew your own like I did they sell them on Amazon now! XD

https://www.amazon.com/Lixada-Repellent-Ultra-fine-Protective-Gardening/dp/B01I5AX9UO/ref=asc_df_B01I5AX9UO/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198093803401&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1220078593514089447&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9026890&hvtargid=pla-349444348000&psc=1

If you don't like that one though just look up "mosquito net suit" and you will find other options. I see I am not the only one that thought that was a great idea haha!

There are also options for sprays you spray on yourself, lotions or wipes, but I wouldn't recommend those as they do tend to get into your bloodstream and could have possible long term side effects that have not been well researched yet.

Lol! My girlfriend already thinks I?m a spaz; if I came home wearing a suit like that, I?d only confirm it! Plus, I can?t imagine relaxing on the patio would be so through that mosquito armor!

But thanks for the consideration. We don?t have any standing water save for the pool, but it?s treated and the pump keeps it circulating, so it?s not really ?standing.? I?ve thought about rigging some netting around the patio, but it?s not really designed in such a way that we could seal it in more than a nominal way; plus, we?re in and out so often swimming and grilling, we?d pretty much render the netting useless. And Plano, TX doesn?t spray for mosquitoes because that?d be too much like right. *grumble, grumble, grumble.* Our neighbors gifted us with electrified mosquito swatters last year, but they?ve since died on us. They weren?t the most efficient of preventative measures, but damned if it wasn?t cathartic swinging those things around and hearing that ZZZNAP! knowing you?d extinguished the life of yet another of Satan?s minions.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Where I live, actual temperature rarely goes over 90 Fahrenheit, but humidity pushes felt temperature into the 95-105 degree range consistently. Realistically, all we need to do is manage humidity. I have central air but I don't like keeping the themostat low; I prefer to just use it as-needed to reduce indoor humidity. When it gets bad during the summer's hottest months, I have a couple custom-built condenser rigs I like to use -- a floor version for bedroom air circulation, and a desktop version to cool and dehumidify my gaming hardware.