The hotness [status]

[rebeccmeister]

When I got home yesterday evening, most of the house had gotten up to 88 degrees, although it didn't feel quite as hot as the day before, I think because the humidity was lower?

We had managed to install a window AC unit in our bedroom a week before the heat arrived, so the bedroom has been cooler. In every new heat/housing situation, it takes some time to figure out where to set the thermostat, and in this case the threshold seems to be at 75 degrees. That's pretty low compared to the 79 degree nighttime setting in Arizona. It could also be related to getting older and losing heat tolerance. If I overheat at night to the point where I wake up, I become filled with rage, which is not pleasant to deal with.

But I'm also wondering about hypercapnia. At some point earlier in the pandemic, a friend of mine got a CO2 monitor and found that if there wasn't good air circulation in her bedroom, the high CO2 bothered her. In general I leave the bedroom window closed, out of respect for S's suspicion that neighbors on that side of the house have a pesticide habit. Because this house has radiators for heating, that turns the room into a blind-end box. Far from ideal.

The CO2 monitors still cost around $200, but I might just go for it at some point. The pandemic really did shift my mindset on indoor air quality.

I woke up at around midnight, turned on the box fan in the back bedroom window, and opened up as many other windows as I could. It's now almost 6 am, and the temperature in the house has cooled off to...85 degrees. With an overhead ceiling fan going, it doesn't really feel all that terrible. Probably not a great day to bake a cake, however.

I can only wish the basement in this house didn't have its special blend of asbestos and mold. Otherwise I'd totally turn into a basement dweller in this weather.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Yah, it must be possible to survive in this kind of heat without AC because people did it for most of history. But, I've had the AC on full blast when I've been in the house since Sunday.

[rebeccmeister]

The trouble with AC is that it impairs the ability to acclimate to the heat. I suspect that historically, people retreated to basements, somewhere up in the mountains, or somewhere in a stream. And probably didn't try to maintain a grueling pace of work in the heat of summer.

[twoeleven]

I suspect that historically, people retreated to basements, somewhere up in the mountains, or somewhere in a stream. And probably didn't try to maintain a grueling pace of work in the heat of summer.

All true. Historically, there were a lot fewer days with heat like this (pdf).