There was a museum in a small town I used to live in. On a brutally hot summer day I decided to finally visit it. It was so nice and cool inside and had no ac. The design was a shotgun home, popular in the south in the 19th century. Front and back doors aligned, all other doors closed and one long hallway from front to back. Remember when people were smarter because I certainly do.
We save water. We take a good shower in the morning, with shampoo and all, then rinse. Then wash the bath tube and rinse. Then plug the bath tube and fill it half with 28 celsius water. each time we need in the day or night, we go in the bath tube. that to keep our body temperature low enough to keep focus. Then on the following day, we empty the bath tub with buckets, for gardening, and repeat all the process again.
I’ve got a good and simple way for you to cool down your body when the heat gets too much.
Since I live in Texas, I’ve used this working outside on boats , in the garden, out in the desert, working outside to cool my body down when temperatures are getting too too much to function.
It’s simple. You get a bandanna and fill the center with ice or a cold object. This presumes you do have ice close by. Roll up the bandanna diagonally into a sausage and tie it with the ice roll resting on the back of the neck around and tie a knot in the neck front. You don’t need much ice either.
You want the ice roll to rest on the joint between the bottom of your neck and the top of your spine. This is a spot on the body where the nervous system is very close to the surface of the skin.
Apparently, this is how you warm my baby up blowing heat on the back of its neck there. Same principal with adults.
You’ll feel your body temperature drop & stay cool, and so you can function in extreme heat. It literally cools, lowers and relaxes the nervous system throughout the body.
A side benefit is you’ll get cold water going down your back and soaking your shirt which is not so bad.
Works like a charm.
Used for years.
If you don’t have ice or a cool pack, handy, a wet cloth on the back of the neck will do.
Also, if you’re an extreme cold weather, the reverse works too with heat.
Good, practical tips. Too bad our basic home designs are wildly inefficient. Orientation on the lot, thoughtful placement of windows and plans that take advantage of cross ventilation make a huge difference. Simply having a center hall arrangement with doors front and back encourages an all day breeze. Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial (how appropriate the moment) in the Berkshires featured this layout and was remarkably effective when I toured the site on hot days a couple of times. The air flow was remarkable. And I was always intrigued by earth berm houses which never took off. Oh, well. Let's enjoy our vinyl clad imagination free colonial developments and plastic fences. I wonder what the melt point of those fences are?
A small source of heat that could be dealt with comes from the fridge and freezer. Every unit of heat that is removed from the inside of them is dumped out the back via a radiator. You can feel the warmth rising from the top of the back of a fridge. If it is feasible to vent that heat outside through a duct, it would only require a small solar or battery powered fan.
Excellent article. Important to recognise that cooling (or heating) the person is often the most efficient way of achieving thermal comfort, alongside passive structures (natural shading, ventilation, insulation). Good advice Jessica.
You probably heard of the trick of putting a wet towel on a beer keg to keep the beer cool. Works by evaporation.
I built a small wooden cabin just big enough to sleep in, in the yard under a tree in total shade. I super insulated it with one foot of insulation (hemp), creating an external and internal structure. The roof (rubber membrane) has one inch of soil on top. In hot weather I soak it with a hose pumped from water butt attached. Evaporation in the day cools the space inside, critically the inside structure. Works well up to 35°c. At night I open rooflight to let in fresh cool 20°c air.
Lots of good science in this article, Jessica, in addition to practical tips. Readers can also google for evaporative air coolers (oddly also called swamp coolers) that work by passing air over a screen with water trickling down it. They use about one-fourth the electricity as a compressor-based air conditioner of the same capacity, though the output air is not as cold, so it is somewhat apples and oranges. They also add some humidity to the air, which may not be desired. I think the principle is the same as the terracotta coolers you described.
We've used swamp coolers forever. They're called that because they're wet and swampy inside. Some people say it's because they were used in Army tents, and the tents were swampy.
The area has gotten progressively more humid in the las 10 years. It reduces the effectiveness significantly.
This is all such great advice. Last summer, we moved to mid-Missouri and were without AC for a couple of months in July and August. We were up to 88 degrees inside the house. Obviously we survived, and we used a number of these tips, but I wish we'd known all of them!
Reluctantly, I have to concur with your conclusion that we shouldn't assume in the future there will sufficient AC or the power to generate it. Many of us will need to use and learn these skills and knowledge to survive.
Glad you already know a lot of these, and glad I added a few to your list. :) Yeah, some people will have air conditioning, and others won't. It's already kind of like that in many parts of the U.S.
Heat pumps + solar = efficient heating and cooling for the house and enough to share with neighbors who cant get solar. Problem is, the solar is too expensive for most, and heat pumps are expensive too. I think with support, these projects could be subsidized and prioritized but big oil lobbies too hard against it to gain any traction. We got the heat pumps this may and they are fantastic and havent moved our electric bill an inch. But it was 16k just for the upstairs (that unit failed, still have central air downstairs, which has hardly had to kick on at all). And our home is perfect for solar but the quote for that was higher than we could afford (trying not to take loans) and then some other repairs and expenses came up so that project is on hold. But we could power our entire home, AC, and a car with it and still have some left over to power the grid.
I like the way you think! With luck, solar will be more affordable for you soon--perhaps a subsidy or two from your correct-thinking city council or state legislators.
If I can chime in…anecdotally, it’s worked well and made a difference in a south facing room. Even better when paired with a curtain or blackout curtain. (It’s been enough on its own most days up to the 80s, but during temps over that, will double up with closed curtains.) One word of caution - cover the entire window, otherwise the temp difference in the glass can cause cracking.
We use blackout curtains on south and west facing windows, a large evaporative cooler in the front window, and strategic opening of other windows for targeted airflow. Then, fans placed to maximize cooling. We live in a metal box, so we applied white sealant to the roof. Replaced carpet with tile.
We keep frozen cloths in the freezer, especially in summer. Also half full water bottles can be frozen and placed under the back of the neck (put it in a sock). The bandana roll trick shared by the lady from Texas works in California, too.
Metal carry cups can be frozen, and will quickly chill any liquid put in afterwards.
Most of us probably have a “portable” generator parked in a garage or driveway. A simple converter can leverage a car engine’s electric generation. You’d need a long extension cord, of course. And yes, I’m well aware of the environmental impact, but we’re talking about the immediate need to survive extreme heat….
There was a museum in a small town I used to live in. On a brutally hot summer day I decided to finally visit it. It was so nice and cool inside and had no ac. The design was a shotgun home, popular in the south in the 19th century. Front and back doors aligned, all other doors closed and one long hallway from front to back. Remember when people were smarter because I certainly do.
We save water. We take a good shower in the morning, with shampoo and all, then rinse. Then wash the bath tube and rinse. Then plug the bath tube and fill it half with 28 celsius water. each time we need in the day or night, we go in the bath tube. that to keep our body temperature low enough to keep focus. Then on the following day, we empty the bath tub with buckets, for gardening, and repeat all the process again.
I likey!
I’ve got a good and simple way for you to cool down your body when the heat gets too much.
Since I live in Texas, I’ve used this working outside on boats , in the garden, out in the desert, working outside to cool my body down when temperatures are getting too too much to function.
It’s simple. You get a bandanna and fill the center with ice or a cold object. This presumes you do have ice close by. Roll up the bandanna diagonally into a sausage and tie it with the ice roll resting on the back of the neck around and tie a knot in the neck front. You don’t need much ice either.
You want the ice roll to rest on the joint between the bottom of your neck and the top of your spine. This is a spot on the body where the nervous system is very close to the surface of the skin.
Apparently, this is how you warm my baby up blowing heat on the back of its neck there. Same principal with adults.
You’ll feel your body temperature drop & stay cool, and so you can function in extreme heat. It literally cools, lowers and relaxes the nervous system throughout the body.
A side benefit is you’ll get cold water going down your back and soaking your shirt which is not so bad.
Works like a charm.
Used for years.
If you don’t have ice or a cool pack, handy, a wet cloth on the back of the neck will do.
Also, if you’re an extreme cold weather, the reverse works too with heat.
Good, practical tips. Too bad our basic home designs are wildly inefficient. Orientation on the lot, thoughtful placement of windows and plans that take advantage of cross ventilation make a huge difference. Simply having a center hall arrangement with doors front and back encourages an all day breeze. Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial (how appropriate the moment) in the Berkshires featured this layout and was remarkably effective when I toured the site on hot days a couple of times. The air flow was remarkable. And I was always intrigued by earth berm houses which never took off. Oh, well. Let's enjoy our vinyl clad imagination free colonial developments and plastic fences. I wonder what the melt point of those fences are?
Thanks a lot for this.
The frozen towel today was a life saver in Berlin at 40 degree with a body just slowly recovering from a health hiatus.
Glad it helped!
A small source of heat that could be dealt with comes from the fridge and freezer. Every unit of heat that is removed from the inside of them is dumped out the back via a radiator. You can feel the warmth rising from the top of the back of a fridge. If it is feasible to vent that heat outside through a duct, it would only require a small solar or battery powered fan.
Good idea!
Excellent article. Important to recognise that cooling (or heating) the person is often the most efficient way of achieving thermal comfort, alongside passive structures (natural shading, ventilation, insulation). Good advice Jessica.
You probably heard of the trick of putting a wet towel on a beer keg to keep the beer cool. Works by evaporation.
I built a small wooden cabin just big enough to sleep in, in the yard under a tree in total shade. I super insulated it with one foot of insulation (hemp), creating an external and internal structure. The roof (rubber membrane) has one inch of soil on top. In hot weather I soak it with a hose pumped from water butt attached. Evaporation in the day cools the space inside, critically the inside structure. Works well up to 35°c. At night I open rooflight to let in fresh cool 20°c air.
'Natural' cooling. Sleep well :)
Lots of good science in this article, Jessica, in addition to practical tips. Readers can also google for evaporative air coolers (oddly also called swamp coolers) that work by passing air over a screen with water trickling down it. They use about one-fourth the electricity as a compressor-based air conditioner of the same capacity, though the output air is not as cold, so it is somewhat apples and oranges. They also add some humidity to the air, which may not be desired. I think the principle is the same as the terracotta coolers you described.
We've used swamp coolers forever. They're called that because they're wet and swampy inside. Some people say it's because they were used in Army tents, and the tents were swampy.
The area has gotten progressively more humid in the las 10 years. It reduces the effectiveness significantly.
This is all such great advice. Last summer, we moved to mid-Missouri and were without AC for a couple of months in July and August. We were up to 88 degrees inside the house. Obviously we survived, and we used a number of these tips, but I wish we'd known all of them!
Reluctantly, I have to concur with your conclusion that we shouldn't assume in the future there will sufficient AC or the power to generate it. Many of us will need to use and learn these skills and knowledge to survive.
Glad you already know a lot of these, and glad I added a few to your list. :) Yeah, some people will have air conditioning, and others won't. It's already kind of like that in many parts of the U.S.
Heat pumps + solar = efficient heating and cooling for the house and enough to share with neighbors who cant get solar. Problem is, the solar is too expensive for most, and heat pumps are expensive too. I think with support, these projects could be subsidized and prioritized but big oil lobbies too hard against it to gain any traction. We got the heat pumps this may and they are fantastic and havent moved our electric bill an inch. But it was 16k just for the upstairs (that unit failed, still have central air downstairs, which has hardly had to kick on at all). And our home is perfect for solar but the quote for that was higher than we could afford (trying not to take loans) and then some other repairs and expenses came up so that project is on hold. But we could power our entire home, AC, and a car with it and still have some left over to power the grid.
I like the way you think! With luck, solar will be more affordable for you soon--perhaps a subsidy or two from your correct-thinking city council or state legislators.
what do you think of heat reduction window film?
If I can chime in…anecdotally, it’s worked well and made a difference in a south facing room. Even better when paired with a curtain or blackout curtain. (It’s been enough on its own most days up to the 80s, but during temps over that, will double up with closed curtains.) One word of caution - cover the entire window, otherwise the temp difference in the glass can cause cracking.
I heard from a few other people that window film can work well. I think it's worth it based on others.
We use blackout curtains on south and west facing windows, a large evaporative cooler in the front window, and strategic opening of other windows for targeted airflow. Then, fans placed to maximize cooling. We live in a metal box, so we applied white sealant to the roof. Replaced carpet with tile.
We keep frozen cloths in the freezer, especially in summer. Also half full water bottles can be frozen and placed under the back of the neck (put it in a sock). The bandana roll trick shared by the lady from Texas works in California, too.
Metal carry cups can be frozen, and will quickly chill any liquid put in afterwards.
Meant thank you, dear Jessica instead of what AutoCorrect decided to say❣️
Just read this and passed it on before your incredibly useful poignant Substack came in
Thank you, dear dear Sarah, and take good care of yourself
https://sentinelintelligence.substack.com/p/how-to-survive-the-hottest-summers-566?r=3zl38&utm_medium=ios
Thanks!
Thank you for this. Sharing this one widely.
Looks it some people are already benefiting. I'm glad. :)
Most of us probably have a “portable” generator parked in a garage or driveway. A simple converter can leverage a car engine’s electric generation. You’d need a long extension cord, of course. And yes, I’m well aware of the environmental impact, but we’re talking about the immediate need to survive extreme heat….