The temp hit 108 today in Missouri and the forcast calls for tripple didgets for the next several days. Installed a forward bimini on a pontoon and modified the cover to fit with the new top, I was wiped out. Can't wait to get back out there tomorro! 8)
At least tou wernt installing a enclosure Burning up inside tim
Whaton the advenda for tomorow.
Not that hot here at all ive got to make a cockpit cover ill be in the ac and cut some plywood.for some os xbairs. But i eont. Be baking.
That's not just hot, that can be dangerous. I was in the south and they were stessing the importance of drinking enough water, exercising in the coolest hours, and using care when out in it. Wowza!
Tell me about it. :(
Recorded temp was 40'C yesterday, so in the sun ???? Humidity was 84% last night with 29 / 30'C :'(
You can't possibly drink enough to keep up with the sweating.
Nasty time to be working outside.
Suzi
Quote from: bobbin on June 29, 2012, 02:38:27 am
I was in the south and they were stessing the importance of drinking enough water, exercising in the coolest hours, and using care when out in it.
Until I was about 12 years old, we had no A/C.
At night, I would arrange 6 box fans in a circle on the floor, all plugged in to
one extension cord, which practically glowed (these weren't those cheap plastic piece o' crap Wally World fans). Then I would soak a bed sheet in cold water, wrap it around me, and lay on the floor between the box fans. Looking back, I realize that the wet bodywrap surrounded by an overloaded extension cord was a recipie for disaster.
Some say that if you grow up in hot weather, you get used to it. I
never got used to it.
If I could pick Texas up and move it some place cooler I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Last year, on a Carribbean cruise, they kept warning us about the intense heat at ports such as Cozumel. It isn't any hotter there than it is in Texas, it's just hotter year-round.
Last week it got up to the mid to high 90's here, granted nothing like 108, but it went up from the 50's over night. It really wiped me out.
Sofa., when I lived in VA I noticed that older homes all had porches that ran all around the home. They were two storey affairs with a big overhang on the rooves. Several of them had trellises that supported vines (Aristolochia durior, aka"Dutchman's Pipe). Most of those older homes were ringed with tall, overarching shade trees, too.
I worked with two lovely older women who grew up well before the advent of AC. They told me that style of porch was called a "sleeping porch" and they would hang wet sheets from the ceilings near the railings and they'd sleep outside the house on the second storey of the porch. In the morning, they'd take them down, close the windows, draw the draperies or close the inside shutters, and capture the cool inside the house. I was impressed with the practicality of such a simple solution. But they assured me it was still pretty hot!
We do not have AC (but I have considered it for my shop). I added awnings to the south side windows of our home in 1994-5 and was surprised that they can drop the interior temperature by nearly 10 degrees. The addition of the deck canopy on the west side of the house improved interior comfort on the days that are oppressive here (90+). I think the simple low-tech. solutions are being lost. Not that I think AC is bad, but if you can use the low-tech stuff to improve comfort for several weeks the overall cost of AC will be cut dramatically. I do know that the use of awnings can cut an AC bill by as much as 30%. That "ain't chicken feed" these days!
Don't like awnings so I planted trees.
I am a big fan of whole-house attic fans. Put one in both current and prior homes. I turn them on in the evening to exhaust the attic and draw cool air into the house during the night, then shut it off when cool or in the morning. the other day it was 63 at night and 90+ during the day. I chilled down the house at night, closed the windows and it never got above 75 all day long, with no A/C on. I would highly recommend for a shop or home. If your shop is away from home, you can always run it on a timer.
In the desert SW, they have what they call "Swamp Coolers" I was in Juarez for a week when it was 115+ and it kept the sleeping quarters somewhat comfortable.
"Don't like awnings"??? Heresy, I say! Awnings say, "summertime" to me. Funny how things like that say different things to different people, huh?
You have the glass that reflects sunlight, I hope...
I have often wondered about whole house fans, Hammer.. We don't have one and the husband has mentioned it but we've never really "moved on it". Good to read your experience with it.
Awnings, attic fans, and swamp coolers are all just "pretty playthings" in Texas.
They work OK.....as long as you have a big ass ozone-depleting A/C unit cranking with them.
The oldest, tiredest, most overused phrase is "It's not the heat, it's the humidity".
While that phrase may be run into the ground, the bottom line is....it's true.
Awnings and attic fans do nothing to reduce humidity, and swamp coolers actually RAISE it.
Around here, I've observed that any energy savings realized by awnings is quickly offset by the cost to install, and repair them every year or 2.
Is that comment about the time frame for awning repair based on your own experience? It sounds like a lot of baloney from a struggling awning company who hasn't bothered to diversify their offerings. JMO. The awning industry is full of companies who struggle (and whine) rather than figure out how to find niche markets and market their awning line to the general AC addicted public.
None of what you've said is in synch. with what I have heard and read from other trade sources. Installation/take-down is pretty "down and dirty"; it ain't "brain surgery" and for installers it's simply about "time". As for maintenance of awnings: when constructed with UV poly. 138 lapped seams should do 3 yrs. before restitching is required (5 yrs. in NE where the season is shorter). If the seam is stitched, turned and topstitched a restitch is forestalled by another 2+ yrs. (if you even want to bother since the important seam is not in direct contact with the sun; I would restitch in an area with a longer awning season!). If the seams are heat welded the fabric will wear out before the "seams" do. With care seaming (and one restitch) will span the guarantee on the fabric.
I think you misunderstood me, Sofa.. My comments had nothing to do with "humidity" they were about temperature! In NE, 90+ is always about humidity. No way to abate humidity without AC! But humidity is more bearable when the ambiant temperature is lowered, and that was the point about wet sheets hung around the perimeter of a sleeping porch.
As the price of energy rises the more people use the "old" technologies to off-set discomfort in more "manageable" seasons (what we call the "shoulder season" with respect to using a wood stove) the more they will be able to afford AC at the height of the seasn when it's most important (when we pay big bucks for heaiting oil). My point is more about how to "suck it up" when it's marginally uncomfortable so the cost of comfort in the most important season is offset and less crippling financially. Along with the "energy drain"!
For me, is the opposite. It's really cold here for a lot of months. It's nice to be able to load a couple of splits and take the chill off a cold, clammy evening when it's not quite/just past "boiler season". But I wouldn't waste wood and get a big fire going any more than I'd flush dollar bills down the commode!
I think that one reason that some of you realize a more significant savings with awnings and such might be the electric bill itself. I'm sure that in areas with high electric rates, you have to conserve everywhere you can.
My shop electric bill tops out at around $100 during the hottest part of the summer. So if awnings saved me 20% during the summer months, you're looking at maybe $100 a year.
It's rare for an awning stitch job to last 3 years around here. So factoring installation, and periodic repair, it would be several years before awnings would even begin to pay for themselves.
My only personal experience, is from fielding phone calls from local businesses asking me to re-sew the awnings that they just had installed less than 2 years ago.
Much the same way that you "tough it out" during the summer months, I do the same during the winter.
I've always said "It's never been so cold in Texas that I couldn't get warm......but it's been so hot that I couldn't cool off" :D
Bobbin. Dont you use tenara on awnings?
And on the humidity it is fight ad s mid i gree up in southern cslifornia abd although it got bit it was a dry heat the. At 20 i mived to massachuesettes and it was nit as hot but humid in the summers making sleep with. O ac as a kid tuff i was always turning my llos to the cool side.
Im thinking of making window aenings for my gouse cor looks. Ut it would be cooler slso. Locking thr morning sun on the front of my home.
No way, Mike. We have panels heat welded together on big lateral arms. On smaller awnings we use standard 92 poly. (I don't agree w/that I'd use 138; I do on my own projects). For the life of the product, Tenara would be overkill.
Here in SW Ohio, a guy down the sidewalk from my studio came by with a thermometer. Outside in the parking lot in front of my studio, it said 110 degrees.
We had a brief storm roll through late this afternoon - winds of 90 miles per hour. Not much rain. That thermometer dropped to 82 degrees.
gene
Quote from: sofadoc on June 29, 2012, 10:17:41 am
The oldest, tiredest, most overused phrase is "It's not the heat, it's the humidity".
While that phrase may be run into the ground, the bottom line is....it's true.
I have to agree, and where the humidity is already REALLY high I don't see where making it more humid helps at all. I've made a few bimini tops for people with extra holes along the outer bows because they wanted to install misting systems on the boat and needed openings for the nozzles along the frame. Kool idea, but I truly don't think it works when our average humidity in summer hovers around 90 percent. Evaporative cooling only works when water evaporates and it's not really going to unless the air is a bit drier.
June
hmmmm.. the spell checker doesn't like "evaporative"...
We're going on 20 hours without power at home. Coverage is spotty and we're cooling off at the library just a couple of miles away. I hope we get power back before THurs or Fri as some have predicted. Shooting for 98F today. http://www.wvxu.org/news/wvxunews_article.asp?ID=10178
My work output is running about 60% of normal! I need some inside jobs :)
"Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." To Kill a Mockingbird
Sorry to hear about no power, Keith. My lights at my studio flickered yesterday during the storm but never went off completely.
gene
Tou have to be carefull working in the heat.
A few weeks ago i was laying some sod in the heat
I push it a bit snd when i came in snd cooled off i went i to the batroom to sile my cace off snd my
Legs just shut down and i went to the floor in slowmotion trying to hold myself up sith ny hands on the sink.
I thiugh i was having a second stroke. Ut my do tor said is was prop ly just somthkng sith my bloodpeeasure and the heat.
Quote from: byhammerandhand on June 30, 2012, 10:50:30 am
We're going on 20 hours without power at home.
I hope we get power back before THurs or Fri as some have predicted.
I don't get it. In all my 54 years living in Texas, I don't ever remember a power outtage lasting as long as 24 hours. I guess you guys have more homes on the same grid?
Take care of yourself, Mike.
My guess would be that the large towers and major transmission lines sustained heavy damage. A friend who is a lineman says that it's just a time issue when it comes to repairing downed lines and in Ohio's case those guys will be working in oppressive heat.
Several years ago we encountered a similar issue with a massive ice storm that followed on the heels of a snow storm. The quick change over to rain soaked accumulated snow and put too much weight on the lines and towers. Predictably, they collapsed. People in the northern part of my state and Quebec were without power for nearly two weeks. A local wood stove manufacturer used to have several testimonial letters on their site that referenced that storm.
(I find it sort of sad that people have to be reminded to look in on their neighbors. It's not just "instinct"?)
87 degrees on Sanibel Island, Fl.
97 degrees here in SW Ohio
71 degrees in Copper Harbor, MI.
What did George W. screw up to cause this weird weather?
gene
Aside from the fact that he convinced every uninformed fool that he was a "Texas Boy" when in fact he's just another rich, trust fund beneficiary of the oil industry? Nothing! what we're seeing now in climate change (if you believe in it) was set in motion in the go-go '50s.
90 degrees in So. Me.. Not sure the sea change will happen today and it'll prolly get hotter, but not a lot. I can tell because the sky is "too" blue for it to get too hot. When it's brutal here the sky is not bright blue, it's milky.
It can be hot here and very oppressive, but not usually for more than 5 days in a row. And it rarely gets to a threshold that could be considered "dangerous". Cold, however, can be a different story. But not usually.
Got power back after 24 hours. Fortunately, there's a sub station two doors down from me, so that was near top priority. Unfortunately, a tree branch flow off onto it (I could heat two loud pops when it happened). They predict 95% of people will be back by midnight Monday (78 hours later). If your tree fell down and landed on your line feed, you're just bottom priority.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing was the #*)Q@ idiots that go plowing through intersections with the lights not working instead of treating them like a 4-way stop that they legally are.
Quote from: byhammerandhand on June 30, 2012, 10:50:30 am
We're going on 20 hours without power at home. Coverage is spotty and we're cooling off at the library just a couple of miles away. I hope we get power back before THurs or Fri as some have predicted. Shooting for 98F today. http://www.wvxu.org/news/wvxunews_article.asp?ID=10178
Hammer I feel for you. After Hurricane Hugo we were without power for over two weeks. A tree fell on our power line and we were on the bottom of a long list to restore.
Friday was our first day out of our neighborhood after TS Debbie. 4 days behind impassable water bogs. There are people deeper in the neighborhood who still can't get out and major state roads are still shut down. We are babysitting a neighbors dog who's property, including house is under water. Hopefully they will get some relief from FEMA.
SR 129, a main artery through Suwanee County has several places where the water is 5' deep with cars submerged to there roof.
I'm supposed to travel to Gainesville tomorrow but the way to get there is to cross the Santa Fe river that is already at flood stage and expected to crest today. There are other ways to get there but those routes are all flooded.
Don't drown turn around. Frustrating for sure.
Quote from: JuneC on June 30, 2012, 07:09:15 am
Quote from: sofadoc on June 29, 2012, 10:17:41 am
The oldest, tiredest, most overused phrase is "It's not the heat, it's the humidity".
While that phrase may be run into the ground, the bottom line is....it's true.
I have to agree, and where the humidity is already REALLY high I don't see where making it more humid helps at all. I've made a few bimini tops for people with extra holes along the outer bows because they wanted to install misting systems on the boat and needed openings for the nozzles along the frame. Kool idea, but I truly don't think it works when our average humidity in summer hovers around 90 percent. Evaporative cooling only works when water evaporates and it's not really going to unless the air is a bit drier.
June
hmmmm.. the spell checker doesn't like "evaporative"...
I hate those misting things, ok fine if you can guarantee the water is 100% clean/fresh. We used to have a bar in the marina with that fitted under the awning, now what is one of the best ways to spread legionnaires disease Hmm.
Nice topping to your drink / meal :-X .
Suzi
I installed solar screens on the back part of the house. This area gets the sun from noon on. It used to heat up the kitchen, dining room and my shop terribly. The solar screens really helped out alot. In the fall I take them down, roll them up and store them till next spring. They are the same solar screens I make for coaches.
Bobbin, all I do anymore is awnings and slide toppers. I can look at a used slide topper and tell which part of the country the customer is from. I can also tell by the date of the slide topper or awning. If it is NorthEast they will be 5 - 7 years old. If they are CA, NM or AZ they are 3 years old and if they are 100 % Florida they are 2 - 3 years old. The tell tale sign is always the stitching. The poly thread is almost always gone in them. I have seen Florida awnings that were 3 years old with the Poly thread disintegrated. I have had two calls this year from coach owners who had thread breakage. Their coaches were manufactured in 2011.
When I do inspections at Rallys I sometimes will get on the roof of a coach, inspect the slide toppers and then try and guess which part of the country they are from. When I get down I ask the customer where they spend alot of their travel time. Most of the time I am dead on with the regions but have been fooled a few times by owners that keep their coaches under cover.
The poly thread issue I see is why I only use Solarfix ( Tenara ) thread. I make my awnings/slide toppers, ship them out and I never want to hear from my customers again for 7 or 8 years. :) If I used Poly thread I would probably have to limit my 3 year warranty. tenara would probably be overkill for your region but for my region it is a must unless I want to go broke doing repairs.
Chris
Quote from: byhammerandhand on July 01, 2012, 10:04:40 am
Perhaps the most dangerous thing was the #*)Q@ idiots that go plowing through intersections with the lights not working instead of treating them like a 4-way stop that they legally are.
[/quote]Back after charly hit here all the Traffic lights were out. I know what you meen the. Atilnsl guard was here directing traffic was one of the things they did.
It doesn't take a power outage.
A few years ago a lady who told me that when she gets angry/depressed, she will get in her car and drive around town running red lights hoping someone will hit her.
I have always driven more cautiously since she told me this. I'm sure she's not the only one who needs profession help who is out there driving around.
gene
I'm thinking I should really get a generator just big enough to run the freezer and refrigerator on a 1/4 duty cycle. The BBQ works for coffee and cooking. But on the other hand, a year and a half ago, for Xmas, I got an LED lantern for blackouts. First time I've had to use it. Horror Freight has a small generator for small money, but people either love them or could not get them to work.
You think you have it bad? Check out this weather forcast.
http://www.firecold.com/videos/interesting-weather-forecast
gene
Quote from: gene on July 02, 2012, 07:19:42 pm
You think you have it bad? Check out this weather forcast.
http://www.firecold.com/videos/interesting-weather-forecast
gene
;D Well if we can just make it through the first part of the week..........
Quote from: byhammerandhand on July 02, 2012, 11:29:08 am
I'm thinking I should really get a generator just big enough to run the freezer and refrigerator on a 1/4 duty cycle. The BBQ works for coffee and cooking. But on the other hand, a year and a half ago, for Xmas, I got an LED lantern for blackouts. First time I've had to use it. Horror Freight has a small generator for small money, but people either love them or could not get them to work.
We kept our portable genny from the boat, good job we did when we where first in the house ( 7 years ago) there where loads of power cuts. Used it a few times for freezer & aquarium.
And we always have the gas camping gear if we need it.
Suzi
Gene:
Just sent that to my daughter a few weeks ago who lives in Richmond. She got a huge kick out of it. :)
Chris
You know, Mojo, even with Godzilla in that video, I am sure there were still a few people who thought that was a real weather report.
The only problem with evolution is that it does not empty the gene pool out often enough.
I wondered what folks in that area would think about it. LOL
gene