Rather than AC, which just deepens the problem by increasing our energy burn rate, we need more passive solar design. Plus more mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods.
Also: Reduce upholstered furniture, books and similar, take trash out more regularly, remove all cardboard from groceries as soon as you get them home.
> Also: Reduce upholstered furniture, books and similar, take trash out more regularly, remove all cardboard from groceries as soon as you get them home.
What? I don't understand what any of these things accomplish, let alone a common element between them.
Perhaps. But if you don't want to be a statistic counted among the dead in the next heat wave, I recommend taking your trash out, getting rid of cardboard, etc to make the temp and humidity in your space more bearable.
During my divorce, I and my two teenaged sons moved in with relatives and the three of us occupied a single bedroom for nearly a year. We slept there, we kept all our possessions there and we stored SOME of the food we ate in that room, separate from the kitchen pantry for the rest of the family.
This was in Georgia, which is very hot and humid in the summer, and initially we had trouble sleeping because the room just stayed too hot and humid, especially when it was warm.
I have no idea why we did this, but one day we took all the cans of sodas out of the cardboard boxes and threw the boxes out and took other food items out of the cardboard boxes and repackaged some of it in Ziploc bags. And suddenly the room was cool and dry enough to be comfortable.
We thought we were imagining this. Like "Noooo, that can't be."
But there happened to be a thermometer in the window of this room and on subsequent occasions we were able to determine by repeating this that the temperature consistently dropped five degrees Fahrenheit whenever we removed all the cardboard from the food supplies stored in our room.
So it eventually became policy to take everything out of the cardboard box and throw away the cardboard box right after we got all the groceries home. We still do this.
Removing cardboard, etc, drops the temperature and humidity and most likely it is because cardboard et al is more or less slowly rotting. Kind of the same reason hay bails catch fire.
That's... fascinating. I'm immediately sceptical (I mean... insta-rotting cardboard causing a localized 5 degree temp increase? Really?) but I absolutely love that you and your kids found at least a small scientific outlet in what sounds like a rough time in everyone's lives. Practical real-world demonstrations of how you can use your brain to make your own life better are invaluable, especially in those teenage years when it seems like the entire world is trying to get them to conform into one thing or another.
You sound like a truly great parent and role model. Best of luck to you and your family.
No, you're right. This is the internet, and I should know better. Absolute cynicism and utter disregard for your fellow humanity is definitely the way to go. Thank you for teaching me the error of my ways - I'll try harder to be a worse person next time.
Silly me, I thought you were one of those well-meaning but misguided fools who imagined a girl needed vacuous pats on the head while not being taken seriously at all in order to encourage me to stay and add to gender diversity here, and never mind that I've been a member for 14 years and seem to probably have the most karma of any openly female member here.
I'm reasonably sure I couldn't even raise the temperature of the room by five degrees if I straight-up burned all that cardboard, but who knows. More testing needed.
Agreed. It reads like they opened the fridge for awhile to remove the cardboard and that cooled the room down. Problem being that the fridge will then heat the room more to cool itself back down.
Also: Reduce upholstered furniture, books and similar, take trash out more regularly, remove all cardboard from groceries as soon as you get them home.