Heat Management 101
Jun. 30th, 2005 01:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pphaneufI hear a lot of whining around me about heat and how it's killing them, while I tend to scoff at them often. Okay, some people (like ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
azrhey!) just have weird bodies and simply do better, but I'm no heat-invulnerable superman. Just as I take some precautions in the winter to stay warm, I take some precautions to stay cool in the summer.
Have a heat budget. Find out what gives out heat in your living quarters, and try to avoid them. You can't really turn off your fridge, but you can make sandwiches and salad more often rather than use the stove or even the microwave (and that's probably more appropriate anyway). Do you really need that computer running at all time? That monitor? Incandescent lighting is also pretty bad, be it conventional or halogen.
Never just open the windows. Only open them if it is cooler outside (in the evening and through the night, most commonly). If you do open the window, consider basic aerodynamic, try to have about the same surface area of window open at two opposed sides of your apartment (you also need to get rid of that hot air to leave space for the cool air!). If you use a fan, find out the natural direction the air flows and set it up in the same way, rather than having it fight nature.
Avoid the sun, both in your apartment and outside. Leave your (preferably white and rather opaque) blinds closed, other than what's needed to let air in or out if the window is open. When you walk around, walk on the side of the street that's in the shade. If possible, when you stop at a street corner waiting for cars, stop in the shadow of something, anything (like a traffic light). It helps more than you think.
Don't be afraid of sweat. It's your body's temperature control system, don't screw it up by wiping yourself or trying to get rid of it (other than by drying). Less clothing helps here, because clothes tend to absorb the sweat and have it dry away from your skin, mostly foiling the system. It works rather simply: to evaporate water, it takes energy, in the form of heat. The sweat takes away heat to evaporate.
If you're not sweaty or wet, a fan doesn't help (it doesn't cool you much and it puts out heat!). Heat transfer between your body and air is not that effective, it's the sweat that makes it really good.
That makes the only two uses of fans to be either blowing on a sweaty/wet person, or pumping air to/from the outside with the windows open. In neither of these cases are the oscillating modes useful, in my opinion.
The evaporation process is slower when the air is more humid. A dehumidifier can be useful, but in bad cases, I have had excellent result with a home-grown setup using a salad bowl, water with ice, cookie tins (the flat metallic things you use to cook cookies) and a fan pointed at the setup. Can bring humidity down by as much as 20% in a small room, if done right.
Our skin is mostly only sensitive to differential of temperature. Meaning that we can tell if something is warmer or cooler than us, but not much else. When you take a shower, you'll feel better right then by being in the water (body to water heat transfer is rather effective), but make sure you feel the water is cool, do not just set it to be comfortable. You don't have to give yourself hypothermia either, you just have to feel it being cool.
When you take cool showers, cool off you head much. Somehow, this makes a big difference, much like wearing a hat in winter makes your whole body appear warmer.
Do not be afraid of sweat, but be very afraid of dehydratation. When you feel really icky when it's hot, it's most likely because you're getting dehydrated. You sweat a lot, so you have to drink a lot. Be careful what you drink too, alcohol is a diuretic for example, and water that you pee isn't going to go in your sweat. Just drinking a lot of water (a couple of liters per day, I'd say) will keep you feeling much better and will make the difference between suffering in the heat wave and scoffing at those suffering!
There are some well known tricks, like going to the shopping mall (or other places where they have A/C), but this doesn't help with sleeping well at night, for example.
Although, in conclusion, I still think Primus said it best.
azrhey!) just have weird bodies and simply do better, but I'm no heat-invulnerable superman. Just as I take some precautions in the winter to stay warm, I take some precautions to stay cool in the summer.Have a heat budget. Find out what gives out heat in your living quarters, and try to avoid them. You can't really turn off your fridge, but you can make sandwiches and salad more often rather than use the stove or even the microwave (and that's probably more appropriate anyway). Do you really need that computer running at all time? That monitor? Incandescent lighting is also pretty bad, be it conventional or halogen.
Never just open the windows. Only open them if it is cooler outside (in the evening and through the night, most commonly). If you do open the window, consider basic aerodynamic, try to have about the same surface area of window open at two opposed sides of your apartment (you also need to get rid of that hot air to leave space for the cool air!). If you use a fan, find out the natural direction the air flows and set it up in the same way, rather than having it fight nature.
Avoid the sun, both in your apartment and outside. Leave your (preferably white and rather opaque) blinds closed, other than what's needed to let air in or out if the window is open. When you walk around, walk on the side of the street that's in the shade. If possible, when you stop at a street corner waiting for cars, stop in the shadow of something, anything (like a traffic light). It helps more than you think.
Don't be afraid of sweat. It's your body's temperature control system, don't screw it up by wiping yourself or trying to get rid of it (other than by drying). Less clothing helps here, because clothes tend to absorb the sweat and have it dry away from your skin, mostly foiling the system. It works rather simply: to evaporate water, it takes energy, in the form of heat. The sweat takes away heat to evaporate.
If you're not sweaty or wet, a fan doesn't help (it doesn't cool you much and it puts out heat!). Heat transfer between your body and air is not that effective, it's the sweat that makes it really good.
That makes the only two uses of fans to be either blowing on a sweaty/wet person, or pumping air to/from the outside with the windows open. In neither of these cases are the oscillating modes useful, in my opinion.
The evaporation process is slower when the air is more humid. A dehumidifier can be useful, but in bad cases, I have had excellent result with a home-grown setup using a salad bowl, water with ice, cookie tins (the flat metallic things you use to cook cookies) and a fan pointed at the setup. Can bring humidity down by as much as 20% in a small room, if done right.
Our skin is mostly only sensitive to differential of temperature. Meaning that we can tell if something is warmer or cooler than us, but not much else. When you take a shower, you'll feel better right then by being in the water (body to water heat transfer is rather effective), but make sure you feel the water is cool, do not just set it to be comfortable. You don't have to give yourself hypothermia either, you just have to feel it being cool.
When you take cool showers, cool off you head much. Somehow, this makes a big difference, much like wearing a hat in winter makes your whole body appear warmer.
Do not be afraid of sweat, but be very afraid of dehydratation. When you feel really icky when it's hot, it's most likely because you're getting dehydrated. You sweat a lot, so you have to drink a lot. Be careful what you drink too, alcohol is a diuretic for example, and water that you pee isn't going to go in your sweat. Just drinking a lot of water (a couple of liters per day, I'd say) will keep you feeling much better and will make the difference between suffering in the heat wave and scoffing at those suffering!
There are some well known tricks, like going to the shopping mall (or other places where they have A/C), but this doesn't help with sleeping well at night, for example.
Although, in conclusion, I still think Primus said it best.
