Real World Event Discussions

In the garden, and RAIN!!!!

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
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6IXSTRINGJACK

Friday, July 19, 2019 7:18 PM

Yep. The rear of my house in the morning is probably where a lot of that heat comes from. I've got 4 large maples in the front of the house that don't do much good for my lawn, but make mowing the front much more enjoyable on a hot day than the back where there is zero cover on the lawn or house. The neighbors across the street all have large trees in their front yards too, so once about 2PM hits there really isn't much of an issue of direct sunlight on the house.

Fortunately for me, that's what happened yesterday or it could have been worse than it is. Thunderstorms all morning and clouds into the early afternoon. By the time the sun was out in full force my attic was shielded from it. So even though the "feels like" temperature was over 100 for around 5 hours yesterday, my attic never felt that hot after being able to really cool it off the night before.

I could probably stand to do something to my windows on my rear walls that is similar to what you're talking about on the porches. My current setup (more accurately my lack therof) is not doing me any favors. 2 of the 3 windows are not covered at all and just let the sunlight straight in during the first half of the day until the sun goes overhead. The third window has a black trashbag over it because I blocked out the sunlight totally in that room for sleeping during the day. I wonder what's worse? No cover or black cover that sucks in all the light and heat with it?

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When it comes to daily heat cycles, even this far inland we often get an ocean breeze starting anywhere between 3PM and 6PM, for about an hour and a half. Sometimes it's earlier, sometimes later; sometimes cooler, sometimes not as cool; sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker; sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Still, it cools the house down as long as it's breezing and the windows are open. But when it stops, the temperature inside the house can go up as much as 10F because the structure itself is really warm. And that heat radiates in from the ceiling and the walls. The other thing I've noticed, like in this last heat wave where temps were always above 95F and never below 75F, is that the structure builds heat day by day. So every day the house starts out warmer, and fails to cool down quite as well compared to the previous day.

Yeah... if there is no breeze overnight before I put this fan in, I was dead in the water. Almost zero cooldown overnight. But even when their is a breeze, it doesn't accomplish much. There's not enough windows, and the stupid tri-level floor plan leaves almost zero crossbreeze I could never even fit a box fan properly in any of the windows either, so there really wasn't any solutions.

What you explained about the house not ever cooling down as much at night is what I tried (and probably failed) to explain before. There's not much that can be done when it gets THIS hot, but even when we're talking highs in the high 80s or low 90's and lows at night around 65 to 72, I still was never able to cool the house so it was always just kind of miserable, and the effect was cumulative. Once it did get hot inside to where it was uncomfortable, it just kind of stayed that way until we had a week or so in the low 60's at night to start cooling it down again.

Without actual A/C, the next two days aren't going to be all that great, but it would have been a lot worse if I hadn't been able to do a real good cool down the first night I installed the thing. After this heatwave is done, I imagine, this new fan is going to feel like A/C for the rest of the summer if we don't have any more serious heat waves like this. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to seeing what this thing can do when we start getting back down in the low to mid 60's at night over the next week. :)

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At some point I'm going to have at least an attic fan installed, but I'm hoping to have a solar one with battery and thermostat, to avoid having to run wir

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6IXSTRINGJACK

Friday, July 19, 2019 8:00 PM

Oh... BTW.

82 degrees in my house this morning at 9AM. It rose to 82 from 81 somewhere around midnight last night and has held steady there since. Outside temperature did dip to 79 for a few hours, but the "feels like" temperature never got below 88 degrees and the humidity was like a thick coat of fog, so I never put the fan on.

I'd imagine the house is going to get quite warm today with the high of 98 and the heat index pushing 110. With the same lows tonight, I won't get much reprieve, but I imagine I will be using the blower to at least vent out the attic since the inside temps in the living area probably won't be much different than the outside temps.

Just two more days to go of this crap and we're golden.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, July 20, 2019 9:50 AM

86 degrees on the 2nd floor right now. Hotter in the attic, but not as bad as it usually would be after two days in the high 90's with heat indexes well over 100. If I hadn't cooled it off two nights ago, it would be 90+ on the second floor right now.

This is pushing well into uncomfortable territory now though. Took a little nap earlier today with the fan on me and woke up sweating.

I still can't open everything up yet. 84 degrees outside with the heat index at 93. I'm going to stay up a few more hours though and get it started for a while before i sleep. It won't be as much releif as that first night, but I should be able to cool it off somewhat before the last hot day and it will probably actually be more comfortable tomorrow than it was today as a result.

Can't really do shit in this weather. I did manage to bring down most of the stuff I had in the attic that wasn't newly packed into moving boxes so I could go through it and get rid of most of it. Just never got around to sorting through it. If I'm not directly in front of the fan I'm a sweaty mess.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SIGNYM

Saturday, July 20, 2019 11:50 AM

If I were you SIX I'd be tempted to be in the shower for the next 24 hours, yanno, take a pool floatie as a cushion and sleep in there with the water running!

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6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, July 20, 2019 12:45 PM

lol yeah...

I did take two showers yesterday. After that I really stopped doing anything because I didn't want to sweat up another storm and need to take a third one.

This would have been a lot worse without that fan though. It's been about 4 or 5 years since we had temps like this, but I remember seeing that thermostat on the 2nd floor hitting 99. I'm not sure if it actually shows 3 digits even, so it could have been hotter.

The hottest the temp has gotten since I put the new fan in is 86 tonight. I put the fan on and opened a few windows on the 1st floor about a half hour ago and it's down to 85 now. We're going to see 77 for a few hours this morning, so as long as I wake up early enough to close everything up at the right time, it shouldn't be bad in the house tomorrow. I started yesterday morning at 82 degrees already since I didn't even want to open the windows. Hopefully I start this morning out a few degrees lower than that.

It'll just be 12 more hours of the heat after that and then we've got highs in the 70's and lows in the low 60's for the next three nights after that.

86 really isn't bad. It wouldn't be so miserable right now if the gorram humidity wasn't close to 90%.

UPDATE: 6 minutes after I posted that and it's 84 now.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

BRENDA

Saturday, July 20, 2019 11:23 PM

Found my old coffee pot. It is in pretty good condition. It can be donated.

Laundry day. Later peeps.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, July 20, 2019 11:26 PM

Got it down to 82 by 8-9AM.

84 on the 2nd floor right now. 92 outside now. 109 outside with the heat index!

Not doing anything outside today.

By 8PM it will be cooler outside than it is on the second floor and this will all be over... at least for now.

Then it's back to work tomorrow. Nothing even close to the 90's predicted in the 15 day forecast.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, July 21, 2019 3:01 AM

85 inside on the second floor now. 94 outside. Heat index at 107.

Only 4 more hours left and it drops to 82 and I get that fan going again. They've dropped the overnight low a few degrees to only 72, and the high tomorrow is only 77 with a low the following night of 67. Going down as low as only 60 on Monday night. :)

I'm pretty sure for most of the summer this fan will be more than adequate, and A/C isn't even necessary at regular temperatures of 90 degrees or below during the day as long as it gets into the low 70's at night.

If plans change and I decide to stick around in this house for a while, I might invest in a single room A/C unit that I could use to just pull out the humidity on bad stretches like we're having right now. I'm perfectly comfortable with 85-87 degree temperatures if the humidity is reasonable.

Currently, it's not though. The ceramic tiles on my basement floor have darkened grout because of the excess humidity, and I'm damn near breaking my cigarette machine and can't get a good roll because the tobacco gets too moist in the humid summer and keeps jamming up the machine. (Both of these happen every summer).

Do Right, Be Right. :)

BRENDA

Sunday, July 21, 2019 4:23 AM

Top shelf in storage room reorganized. Found some things which is good.

1KIKI

Sunday, July 21, 2019 5:45 AM

Summer is in full swing here in SoCal.

At my place the high for the day was 86F, which is nicely cool compared to the previous AND upcoming hot spells. In the house is roughly 84F. The previous hot spell, the highs never got below 95F, and lows never got below 75F, with ~66% humidity. Then we got a nice 4 day break, today being the last day, with highs ~85F. The predicted high tomorrow is 93F, the 5 days after that are 95F and up, then 2 days at 94F, and then 92F.

Below 90F is OK, 90ish is bearable even though I slow down a lot, but over 95F completely halts me. From 85F to 90F goes from livable to manageable, from 90F to 95F goes from manageable to merely endurable. What a difference those measly 5F steps make!

In tune with the weather, my progress has been slower than I'd like, but I'm still getting things done day by day. My pattern is to start something, run into a problem that's been dogging me for years that I didn't have the time (and energy) to get to - derail myself and finally FIX the darn thing! - and then continue on where I left off. Aside from the weather, that's another thing that keeping me from making huge amounts of progress in a short amount of time.

But I'm also hiring people to get things done, like kill the darn gopher and install a screen/ security door in the side door. So that's a boost of progress, too.