Summer Cooling Strategies/Log

[AxelHeyst]

Like the Winter Heating Challenge thread, and somewhat related to sedentary indoor wear thread, but for summer. I didn't use "challenge" in the title because I don't want anyone's death by heatstroke on my hands.

(Two relevant blog articles, how to deal with heat and dealing with heat waves on a budget.)

Right now it's 106.7F (41.4C) outside, and the temp inside my studio where my computer is is 100.0F (37.8F). Humidity is 10% RH. This is about as hot as it gets up here at QH (down in town it's about 116/118F right now).

I don't have AC or a swamp cooler. I have a desk fan blowing on my chest/face, and a smaller blower fan in between my legs. I'm wearing short cotton shorts.

Outside, I have a bag of water hanging from my shade pit. Every once in a while I go rinse off and the evaporative cooling (10% RH!) feels lovely. There's a hammock in the shade pit (thanks again @grundo), but the underside of the solar panels are quite hot so that could use some improvement.

I've been either here or in Utah since the winter, so I'm acclimatized to the heat. I can still think clearly enough, write, do computer work, etc. It feels close to my upper limit though, I doubt I could still cognitively function at 105F indoor air temp without improvements to my system.

Improvements in rough order of ease:

• Get a bead seat cover. Sitting in a normal chair is like strapping insulation to half of your body. Bead covers let air circulate.
• Get a mister bottle to spray myself with. Dead simple evaporative cooling. These two things would probably get me up to 105F indoor air temp without much issue.
• Burning man style swamp cooler in a bucket.
• Put a radiant barrier under the solar panels, ideally that doubles as a drip-pan so we can shelter under the shade pit in a rainstorm.
• My west facade gets blasted by late afternoon and evening sun. An external shade to the west would help my indoor air temp not skyrocket from ~5p-8p. The studio remains too hot to sleep in at night, partly because of this evening blast. Part of the issue is that the breeze tends to die with the sun so cooler night air doesn't naturally flush the studio.
• High Volume Low Speed (HVLS) fans set up to night flush the studio. Once the sun goes down the air tends to cool off rapidly, with early morning temps in the high 60s. With fans to force night air through the studio I'd be able to sleep in it and it'd stay cooler longer the next day.
• Outdoor sleeping platform. There's actually no reason not to sleep outside, it's lovely, except the mice are next level this year and I don't fancy being woken by mice running over my beard. I was sleeping on the rear deck of Serenity, but the mice figured out how to hop up on to it and try to raid my pantry, so at the moment I'm sleeping inside Serenity with the rear deck half open. This is fine, but it'd be nicer to be fully under the stars but protected from the mice expeditions. Soon I want to build a pergola over my main courtyard, and I'll aim to build a good sleeping platform up there. None of my other roofs are pitched for sleeping.
• Go underground. Build a room/studio/space almost entirely below grade with a super-insulated roof.

[ffj]

Underground for the win if you don't use conventional AC or the like. A fan blowing hot air on you only does so much.

If I lived in that described hellhole I would be creating as much shade and airflow as I could. Anything to keep the sun from superheating your home. Plus I would have a tank of water I could immerse myself into every hour or so. What you don't have is high levels of humidity so be thankful for that, but 116F is obscene. The most we have gotten here in the South has been 104F with the heat index, humidity being the key.

You might look into air tubes also but if you are going to dig I would have a real underground house to escape the heat. Or at least a couple of rooms.

[Sclass]

I picked up using misters from a southwest tourist spot. You can put these fogger hoses on your garden hose and they’ll just fog all day using very small amounts of water. I think mine were 5 gallons per hour. They are likely designed for horticultural setups and resold as climate control for those without AC. In my old place that didn’t have AC I put them on my patio arbor. It really cooled the zone down. It’s hell on electronics and books but it beats getting roasted. Not really for indoors.

When we weren’t having a drought out here I put a sprinkler on the roof. Did the trick. we had tar and gravel roofing. The little pebbles get really hot. Originally I thought it was evaporative cooling. But I put my hand under the rain spout and felt the hot water flowing out and realized it was just convective cooling. I ran the water to our rose garden.

I stopped caring about this stuff a few years ago. I calculated that AC costs me $13/day in summer. I gladly pay it with power generation dividends. Say the summer here needs one quarter of AC at $13/day. Takes about $25,000 invested in power generation stock to make this go away.

Same thing with running my AC in my car. I use AC during the summer. I have this ancient R12 system in my Mercedes that can make the cabin into a meat locker. But it makes my mpg go down 20%. Say I spend $2000 on diesel every year. I run my AC for one quarter so that’s an extra $100 of fuel. That takes about $3000 of integrated oil stock shares to passively pay off.

Perhaps roof solar is just another way of looking at this. Invest tens of thousands in solar panels. Get free AC. Charge a Tesla and get free AC.

I know, not quite what you’re looking for. But it is passive income from investment. Aside from the guilt it’s a lot easier than building a DIY wind farm in my backyard or a subterranean heat pump system.

[AxelHeyst]

Yeah, if I lived on grid I'd just use AC (also because if I lived on grid I'd likely be in the middle of heat island effect). The number of days it's this hot up here is actually pretty low (4-8 weeks?), so not worth the hassle or expense to get full AirCon. (Although, if I keep serendipitously accumulating free salvaged solar panels at my current rate, it won't be long till I'll be able to run one of those DC AirCon units I've been hearing about...).

I've designed enough massive and complex bespoke 'green' hvac systems to know that sometimes the very best solution from all perspectives *including* what's 'green'.... is just a bunch of minisplits.

The hacks are useful to know anyways just in case your grid goes down in the middle of a heat wave.

[theanimal]

What about sleeping in the hammock? I figure that should be mice proof and a lot cooler than sleeping inside Serenity.

[loutfard]

if I keep serendipitously accumulating free salvaged solar panels at my current rate, it won't be long till I'll be able to run one of those DC AirCon units I've been hearing about...).

Looking at the middle east, underground is a popular traditional way of doing it.

Quoting the splendid low tech magazine: "Traditional buildings in hot climates kept solar radiation out by using heavy construction materials, big eaves, reflective tin roofs, and growing shade trees around the house." It also mentions underground elsewhere.

If you want to keep cooling as low tech, maintainable, cheap and efficient as possible, some form of evaporative cooling might be in order, to be used in conjunction with air flow directed at your body. See low tech magazine's little brother for inspiration.

I do get what you are saying about used solar panels though. It's temptingly easy.

I wonder if you might be able to use solar heat directly in some way to run an ammonia based cooling system.

A somehow unrelated mad max idea of mine might also inspire you. We figured out we could use industrial waste heat from our neighbours freeze drying foraged food at our place to heat it in winter. Probably not practical, but we haven't ruled it out yet.

[Ego]

[*]Outdoor sleeping platform. There's actually no reason not to sleep outside, it's lovely, except the mice are next level this year and I don't fancy being woken by mice running over my beard.

Just before we left, our neighborhood had a massive infestation of mice and rats. We had never had a problem in the past. A rat had eaten holes in two of my gamma seal lids in the basement.

My pest control person explained that the state had passed a law banning the most effective rodenticides for both personal use (2014) and professional use (2020), with a third, more stringent ban last October. She said that those square black bait boxes that we see everywhere are now basically useless because the bait no longer works. She expects this to be a big issue in the future with rodent/human disease transmission. With a wink and a nod she said that people visit the reservations to stock up on the banned stuff.

https://www.pctonline.com/news/californ ... -ban-bill/

[delay]

There's actually no reason not to sleep outside, it's lovely, except the mice are next level this year and I don't fancy being woken by mice running over my beard.

Mice have a strong incentive not to walk over humans. I think you can trust them to avoid your beard!

When there's a running event in the heat they have water sprays you can walk through. It's amazing how much that helps. I'd guess dipping your head in water does the same thing.

Spaniards have a mid-day sleep called "siesta". I think from twelve to three. They go to bed later, so it's not all lost time. In this way they avoid activity when the day is at its hottest.

[2Birds1Stone]

Dietarily you can keep yourself cooler by restricting calories during the hottest parts of the day, or limiting the sources to lower glycemic ones.

I would also be strategic with macronutrient timing and have carbs (especially larger quantities and/or fast digesting ones) to when it's cooler like early morning or after the sun is down.

Similar to how @thef0x suggest downing 500 kcal in the middle of the night, whilst too cold tent camping.......the same effect is present when you're already warm/too warm.

[Scott 2]

You live in the desert. The heat is going to get worse. AC with full redundancy is a necessary safety precaution, IMO. Other adjustments to reduce demand are great, but heat does kill.

I've found the productivity gain that comes with climate control far outweighs any costs. My house is 71 all summer. So, bias noted. If my wife could tolerate it, I'd go even cooler.

[7Wannabe5]

A cooling hat might be helpful. How do the mice stay cool? How do the larger mammals in your neck of the woods stay cool?

[ffj]

For the mice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHwvVPT202Y

This guy has tested thousands of mice traps and this is his favorite. Simple and automatically resetting. He feeds the dead mice to other animals.


Thinking more about your problem I would definitely be sleeping in the cooler outdoors at night while simultaneously finding ways to cool your home. You could build a sleeping platform that kept the mice, snakes and bugs off of you while killing the mice and blowing cool night air into your home to flush out the heat of the day. A simple frame with hardware cloth for example. Low tech and effective.

Again, preventing the sun from over penetrating your home is the first step. I don't know what the wind situation is like there but a large tarp (they make them as big as you could ever want) suspended over your house would block the sun and still allow air movement. Shades in windows, walls (this could be anything handy and available) to block low angle sun penetration are also effective. Earth berms could also work. You want to prevent the sun from shining directly into and onto your home while maximizing any wind movement available.

Long-term if you choose off-grid I still think underground would be the solution.

[7Wannabe5]

The mice that attempted to burrow into my old camper for the winter all died because the glue in the particle board poisoned them. Mice avoid light, so if you created a strip of light underneath your sleeping platform that might be effective. They also instinctively avoid snakes, so a fake snake might deter them.

[theanimal]

Mice have a strong incentive not to walk over humans. I think you can trust them to avoid your beard!

Unfortunately, as someone who had mice run across his head a handful of nights last summer (including in California), I can confirm this is a legitimate concern.

[AxelHeyst]

How do the mice stay cool? How do the larger mammals in your neck of the woods stay cool?

All small desert critters shelter from the heat underground, which is reason #1 why it's such a good idea. Do what the locals do. It's a longer term solution, though, because from a building science perspective building underground/earthsheltered spaces for humans is involved and easy to f up. (@theanimal and I already began excavating The Burrow, what will be my first underground shelter here at QH. After consulting my building science nerd friend on construction details, I decided to backburner that project until I'm in a better place to give it the methodical attention it deserves and have tested some of the building techniques I'm interested in using.)

The other observation-based strategy is to adapt daily schedule, aka be inside/underground during the day and active at night. Siesta is part of this. I'm still working on this strategy - phase-shifting sleep is proving difficult for me to pull off. But so far I wake up ~430a to write, work, out, and work on my motorcycle, and stay up till 2200/2300p working on my moto (my typical bedtime is 2100).

About the rodents: they are next level gangsters up here, they DGAF. The solution is not to try to reduce the population, that'd be like emptying the ocean with a bucket. The solution is to build indoor spaces that keep them out, with traps as backup in case one or two sneak in. We live in their world, not vice versa. Populations fluctuate based on rainfall and predation patterns, but there have always been a ton of rodents. Their bodies do well in this ecosystem vs, say, large mammals, of which we have few. (Coyotes, a couple deer, and a very small population of bear and cougar which mostly stay up higher during the hot months).

[ducknald_don]

An alternative option is to move to a cooler part of the country. This problem is going to get worse over time and you will find it harder to deal with as you age.

[Jean]

Is the river dry? I just dip in the river for about a minute when i get too hot, it lowers my body temperature enough for making 30 celsius (85 farenheit?) feel comfortable for a couple of hours.

[AxelHeyst]

Is the river dry? I just dip in the river for about a minute when i get too hot, it lowers my body temperature enough for making 30 celsius (85 farenheit?) feel comfortable for a couple of hours.

If it hit 85F here I'd be scrambling for my hoodie. Yes, the creek is dry. It almost never makes it past May even after heavy winters.

...

So I goofed on this thread. I wasn't actually looking for advice for *my* situation; I like it up here and there Is No Actual Problem. I wasn't 100% clear in my OP, my bad. I was just sharing the strategies I use, and my ideas for improved comfort in the future. I was interested in other people's strategies and adaptations to heat in their areas, and having a space for general information/ERE-praxis for Not Dying When It Gets Hot/maintaining basic function.

All the ideas and advice are appreciated though.

[Gewie]

One option is to use a small window unit AC to cool only one room which is closed off from the rest of the house. In my area (northern US), it costs around 20 cents an hour to run a 5000 BTU AC (~1.45 Kwh), which may end up totaling something like $2-300 for the year if I run it a lot. It does a great job of lowering the temperature around 25F maximum in my 150 sq ft bedroom. You can also use curtain rods and blankets or magnetic door seals to further close off the room and help minimize drafts.

[xmj]

Three nutritional cooling strategies I've found helpful:

- buttermilk
- Mast-Khiar (yoghurt with cucumber slices, sliced mint & cardamon)
- tea (black, green) with lemon