Given that my apartment doesn’t have any form of air conditioning besides a wholly useless portable piece of crap, it might not surprise you to know that I haven’t really slept the last couple of nights. It’s been boiling in Sydney, and I haven’t coped.
So I want to ask you all: how do you deal with the heat, when the wonders of technology fail you or aren’t available?
Drinking a lot of water, staying hydrated, is usually recommended as a good option. I’m a fan of ducking in for a cold shower – twice or three times in an evening isn’t a bad idea if the mercury is still above 30c. There’s a beach 15-20 minutes down the road from where I live, although I’ve never been the biggest fan of salt water or beaches (thanks for all those stories about syringes in the sand and contracting AIDS as a kid, Mum).
What do you do? Walk around the house naked? Put wet towels into the fridge? Leave the house entirely and chill at the pub instead? What’s your answer to scorching temperatures?
Comments
16 responses to “Off Topic: Dealing With The Heat”
We’ve got a handful of heat wheats (fabric bags full of wheat that you can heat in the microwave). They make wonderful cold packs if you put them in the freezer. They’re even more wonderful if you can find a way to balance them on the back of your neck.
Other than that, I’ve been melting.
Dealing with heat is the easy part, it’s the humidity that comes with it that drains you.
I didn’t get syringe stories at the beach, I -found- syringes underneath a slide at a playground though when I was about 8.
Ice-cold beer helps with the heat.
Well the starting point is to live 900 km south of Sydney.
I have a little portable aircon but as you say they don’t work very well. I have found they are most useful to get air movement into the room when the temp outside has dropped to lower than inside.
Before I had an aircon, and when I was a student living on the 4th floor of a non air conditioned building, in the heat I’d get a towel, wet it thoroughly (walk into the shower under it) and then sleep under a pedestal fan with it on. You wake up a little clammy, but it will guaranteed keep you cool, real lifesaver.
Growing up we use to use wet chux clothes and tie them to the pedestal fan. Didn’t last long but cooled you down enough.
That’s why the towel is good- stays wet for ages. Also, if you put it on yourself, not the fan, you’re cooling the thing that needs cooling rather than the rest of the room
The portable refrigerated air cons (the ones with the big exhaust pipe that you stick out the window) can work ok in small rooms, but they can cost over $500 and will get you a bigger electricity bill
costing me about $40 per month to run 2 x portables. on runs all night in the bedroom, the other one runs all day & night on weekends, and just the evenings on weekdays. they work extremely well, but when temps reach high 30s or 40s, there is no hope…. then again if you switched them off, youd realise that they still make a HUGE difference.
Our rental home isnt airconditioned which sucks ass, and to make matters worse, the insulation is well below average. We have two portable air conditioners, one in the bedroom, and one in the office. During summer, we only travel between bedroom and office, with the occasional lavatory visit, and shower time, with a 100:0 ration of cold to hot water.
I had my PS4 give a message saying its too hot and to let it cool down last night.
I had to do what any rational person would do and turned the fan away from myself and onto the PS4.
The pub is the only option Alex, or if you have a missus, take her shopping – they are all air conditioned and you’ll get a gold star for being such a thoughtful guy.
Aircon on and can after can of Coca Cola, only occasionally taking the dog outside to spray her down with the hose.
I have a pool. Bomb dives FTW
back at my rents, I used to soak a Sheet or Towel and hang it from the windows as a curtain, it dries pretty quickly but you keep at it, it definitely makes a difference, that or I used to go down to the bottle’o and hang in their freezer until they asked me to leave.
It got to 44C in western Sydney yesterday and it’s hit 42C today. Yuck.
Luckily I have air con but this isn’t the type of weather you want when you’re moving house :/ The amount of water I’ve consumed over the past few days has been pretty ridiculous though.
That image. Crying every time.