People from the "hotter" regions, how do you deal with the heat?
I am from Eastern Europe and this is the hottest summer on my memory. For at least 3 consecutive years the heat is breaking all records.
This stuff is unbearable, I can’t even play video games on my laptop, because it warms up very fast and the keyboard becomes uncomfortable for me to use.
So, could you please share any useful tips on how do you survive the summer?
wouldn’t that blind passerbys? i already suffer enough from people hanging CDs to spook pigeons. I think shutters would be best here if you’re not in a rental
Use to take ice packs you freeze to then use to keep your lunch cool in whatever you carry lunches in. Also had a couple hard-plastic small rectangular packs that went into mini coolers that could be frozen …anyway, we’d put them under our Nintendo deck back in the day, to keep it cool, because it’d be summer and back then we didn’t have air conditioning, and a lot of games we played didn’t have saves, so we’d keep that Nintendo deck on for hours & hours and it would run hot like that.
Also, this sucked but it works; put on a bathing suit, while in doors, & get a cold shower, and then surround yourself with some electric fans. Then as soon as you start to feel hot again, go get another cold shower. Again, it sucks, having to constantly get wet, but it was some relief.
Honestly I’d live in my bathtub chin deep in cold water if I ever lose the ability to have AC now, I’m too old to deal with the g.d. heat anymore.
In the Philippines, Filipinos usually go to malls for free air-conditioning since electric bills here in the country is not very friendly in terms of the costs. If you are lucky enough to be in the middle class, running the AC during afternoon for some hours is enough already.
Brazilian here, to be fair I’ve read so many good tricks here that I am not sure what I have to contribute, but yeah, light clothes with bright colours or white, don’t dress dark as your clothes you heat up. No shoes if you can, but also not barefeet lol sandals and flip flops havaianas styles. If you live close to the beach obviously go take a swim, otherwise swimming pool or AC at home or car or go to store random stores with AC too lol. Drink cold stuff, keep hydrated. Fans, and cold shower.
Air conditioner… After moving to Europe I’m amazed by how people are so miserable and complaining every day for 1 to 2 months, then just repeat it over and over every year.
If you’re without an ac in Europe I highly suggest getting a simple window unit for your room. They are easy to install. Be sure to seal your door so the air doesn’t escape. Portable ac units are known to be very inefficient, be wary of those. Cold showers help in extreme circumstances. Block all sources of light. Blackout curtain or just some covers over the windows. Keep humidity below 60% if you can, dehumidifiers will help but larger ones will rack up your electric bill quick.
The problem is that the windows might not be suitable for window units. For instance in the Netherlands our windows typically tilt or turn (like a door) open, they don’t slide up. The walls and ceilings are usually solid brick or concrete, so you can’t hide ducts in there for central AC. That leaves a split unit in one room or a portable unit.
Blocking the light made a huge difference in my house. I have are 3 small skylights on the south side that now have sun shades on the outside. They still let in some light, but it’s at least 5c cooler on the top floor.
Oh well, that sucks. Guess a portable unit would work in this case. Could just jimmy the pipe and make a diy block for the window itself. It’s just a simple tube that sticks out the window. Good to know a bit about them before getting one.
Wear loose cotton clothes (long-sleeved if stepping out in the hot sun)
Keep yourself hydrated.
Avoid soft/ aerated drinks/ soda & coffee as they'll dehydrate you. Stick to cool water, ice chips, fresh lemonade made with water, fresh fruit juices, melons, spinach-cucumber-onion-tomato salads, yoghurt,
Eat light.
Stick to well-ventilated rooms with good air-circulation (fans help)
Cold water showers to cool down
Sweating is good. It'll cool you down. This is also why Indians eat spicy food and drink hot tea even in hottest summer. Get sweaty then take a quick cold-water rinse.
If you have to step outside in the hot sun, umbrella, hats, caps etc are your friends.
Wet towel on the back of the neck for a quick cool down.
ETA: When it gets so hot that we lose our appetite, then our go-to meal is to mix up cooled cooked rice with unsweetened yoghurt and a pinch of salt. its variously called yoghurt rice/ curd rice/ thayir saadam / dahi bhaath / dahi chaawal . This is an easy to make & easy to diges meal that is guaranteed to cool a person down.
thayir = dahi = curd = yoghurt
saada = bhaath = chaawal = cooked rice
I’d make one exception: cotton wants to hold water. Evaporative cooling needs water to evaporate. There are synthetic materials that will hold much less water, so they’ll weigh less from sweat and evaporate more quickly, providing a tiny bit more cooling. Plus many have protection from the sun reducing the amount of sunscreen that has to be worn.
There are a line of shirts known as “fishing shirts” that are made to be big, and they have vents to encourage air to circulate inside them. They work great.
AZ here, Get a cheap low power desktop for work shit, it will heat up less and you’ll be able to ventilate it better.
Otherwise, a/c, thermal curtains, insulated reflector layer in front of that, make sure your weather seals on your doors are good. Drink water all the time, carry water with you all the time. Good luck with all the heatwaves and welcome to the club.
Thank you for the all the advices but my laptop is already the “low power” option. The other one is a desktop, which produces way more heat. Although still less than most modern “gaming stations”
The club, is sadly, not the one I would like to be in. I have always been a fan of winter but it seems like with each year it’s going to be harder to enjoy it
In the southern US we have air conditioning everywhere. People avoid going outside except for very early or late in the day when the sun isn’t on you. I try to get any yard work or anything outside down before 10am and avoid going outside the rest of the day.
Yesterday was actually a “nice” day where I’m at because the high was “only” 34C. People were outside enjoying it, but still avoided the sun and were mostly out in the morning and afternoon in shaded areas.
The weather has been so bad lately here in Texas. I was actually happy when I saw it was only 96 degrees outside which meant I could use my long sleeve shirt today lol.
Multiple days over 103+ degrees weather has been torture. It’ll be back to that in 3 hours lol.
I live with no AC. First thing, all windows get blocked with blackout curtains or whatever you can find. Wear loose cool clothes. I like to wear linen. At night and early morning/dusk, open the windows and doors (if applicable) to get the cool air flowing through your place. If you can, keep them open all night and seal them up once the sun comes up. Use a fan to blow directly on you. Even when it’s hot, that air flow is a life saver. Misting yourself and standing in a fan is a very effective way of keeping yourself cool. All your physical labor chores you’re going to want completed early in the day or after the sun goes down.
As for your laptop, maybe pointing a desk fan at the keyboard may help?
If AC isnt an option, the way Ive gotten through summers without is opening one window on one side of the building, then another one on the opposite side. Then point a box fan facing outward of one window, and do your best to seal the gaps with some cardboard or whatever you have. This will create negative pressure in the building, drawing in a bunch of air from the opposite window.
it's the same reason a breezy summer day feels cooler, the air is still cooler than your body temp and draws away heat better than sitting in still air, plus its more evaporation if you're sweating hot. also indoors without AC during summer is an insulated oven.
would be nice with a test for a sealed fan like I described. the problem with that setup is that the negative pressure will try to pull from both windows, competing with the fan trying to blow out and not getting as much flow
I live in the southern US, and my house basically has this built-in. There’s a big fan in the middle of the house that blows air into the attic, so if you open a few windows and flip the fan on it creates a breeze through the whole house.
Make sure your sewer traps haven’t dried up though. I turned it on with the house closed up one day and it sucked in air through the shower drain in the guest bathroom that hadn’t been used in a while…
Attic fans are great. We'd run it when the sun went down to draw in the cool night air. After that we shut everything up and drew the blinds. The house would stay very cool until late the next afternoon. On super hot days we might have run the AC for a few hours in the late afternoon or evening.
Yeah, a whole-house fan. You turn it on in the evening and it expels the hot attic air from the top while sucking in the cool fresh air through open windows. It actually works really well and is much more energy efficient than AC. When it gets super hot you still need AC though.
This stuff is unbearable, I can’t even play video games on my laptop, because it warms up very fast and the keyboard becomes uncomfortable for me to use.
There’s a lot of good advice in here but I haven’t seen anyone tell you to just reduce the amount of heat being generated in your home. Almost every plugged in electrical device in your home is generating some amount of heat. Esp. if they’re in use.
So my suggestion to you is to flip off the power-strip or unplug unnecessary devices, and find something else to occupy your time. The consoles, PCs, the tv itself, they’re all hungry devices that generate a lot of heat. Those fans people are telling you to use? They generate heat too… so while I’m not saying, “don’t use a fan to stay cool”, I am saying, “don’t fill your home with running fans in rooms you aren’t in”.
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