I am from Eastern Europe and this is the hottest summer on my memory. For at least 3 consecutive years the heat is breaking all records.
This stuff is unbearable, I can’t even play video games on my laptop, because it warms up very fast and the keyboard becomes uncomfortable for me to use.
So, could you please share any useful tips on how do you survive the summer?
Indian here, so experienced with hot climate.
- Wear loose cotton clothes (long-sleeved if stepping out in the hot sun)
- Keep yourself hydrated.
- Avoid soft/ aerated drinks/ soda & coffee as they’ll dehydrate you. Stick to cool water, ice chips, fresh lemonade made with water, fresh fruit juices, melons, spinach-cucumber-onion-tomato salads, yoghurt,
- Eat light.
- Stick to well-ventilated rooms with good air-circulation (fans help)
- Cold water showers to cool down
- Sweating is good. It’ll cool you down. This is also why Indians eat spicy food and drink hot tea even in hottest summer. Get sweaty then take a quick cold-water rinse.
- If you have to step outside in the hot sun, umbrella, hats, caps etc are your friends.
- Wet towel on the back of the neck for a quick cool down.
ETA: When it gets so hot that we lose our appetite, then our go-to meal is to mix up cooled cooked rice with unsweetened yoghurt and a pinch of salt. its variously called yoghurt rice/ curd rice/ thayir saadam / dahi bhaath / dahi chaawal . This is an easy to make & easy to diges meal that is guaranteed to cool a person down.
thayir = dahi = curd = yoghurt
saada = bhaath = chaawal = cooked riceGood luck.
Ok but what about the uncomfortable keyboard? WHAT DO WE DO???
comfort it :P
USB attached keyboard?
Hydrate it with water, that should help.
Get a laptop cooling stand.
I’d make one exception: cotton wants to hold water. Evaporative cooling needs water to evaporate. There are synthetic materials that will hold much less water, so they’ll weigh less from sweat and evaporate more quickly, providing a tiny bit more cooling. Plus many have protection from the sun reducing the amount of sunscreen that has to be worn.
There are a line of shirts known as “fishing shirts” that are made to be big, and they have vents to encourage air to circulate inside them. They work great.
its hot, water will evaporate no matter what the cotton wants. the longer the fabric stays wet, the longer the wearer will be cool.
Why cotton instead of linen? At least in Spain, linen is more popular as summer clothing, and definitively feels fresher.
Cost. Cotton is less expensive than linen, easier to maintain, and more widely available. Banana fiber is also quite cool but is not widely available.
North africa here, we are between air conditioning, fans, drink water and pray it ends fastly, in my country our problem is more energetical, more demand less production.
Close the windows, curtains and shades during the day, at around 8-9AM. When it’s very warm outside, open windows are your enemy.
Open windows, curtains and shades during the night when temperature is lowering.
This is good advice to follow even if you do have air conditioning. Keeping the heat out makes the AC work less. Maybe invest a nice set of thermal curtains.
This is not good advice for poorly insulated houses, which most are that live in temperate climates. The sun will heat up the house almost immediately, making it an oven.
Agreed. If you live in an ovenhouse, ventilation is your friend. You can’t keep the heat out, but your can keep it moving
Like all advice obtained on the internet, YMMV.
I do construction work in Alabama. I basically bitch and complain all summer long and hate every second of it. There’s no relief unless you’re in the AC. I’ve been thinking of ordering a liquid cooled vest actually. They look weird but I’ll try anything. The humidity here is killer. Sweating doesn’t help like it does in dry climates. Every time I walk outside my body shuts down and I have literally no energy. I think i had a heat stroke last summer.
If someone above me tells me to go work outside all day and doesn’t offer me a substantial amount of money, I tell them to go fuck themselves. It isn’t worth it.
As a European, what is this AC you’re talking about.
Houses in Europe usually don’t have AC, but more and more people are getting one now.
In the American southeast, especially in a river Delta, you can’t live in a house long without AC or a dehumidifier. Mold will grow to toxic levels quickly in a house that’s left without electricity for very long in areas around me.
We have trouble opening our front door in the summer when the temp gets above 38 due to the humidity causing the wood door to swell. The heat index reached 47 last week due to the high humidity so there’s a ton of water in the air.
This is what killed around 700 people during one heat dome event in Canada a few years back. So much humidity in the air that sweating wasn’t helping cool people. You body can’t cool so you overheat and die. Not all people died from that but they were attributed to heat causes.
Those vests can be very effective. I use a coolshirt system in my track car, and I can be in the car indefinitely on a 100F day with no a/c, as long as the pump is recirculating ice water through my suit.
fan and cooler during dry heat, onlyfans during humid heat after rain, get cotton vest for upper body and cotton bermuda shorts, get external keyboard and a laptop stand with fans for laptop.
honestly i wouldn’t masturbate during humid heat after rain
Before it I would say, so you can wash all the cum away.
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Don’t wear pants! It amazes me how people from colder climates don’t dress for the heat.
You must wear loose-fitting closes that allow breezes to pass through the material. In the sun, you must cover your skin and keep your clothes open.
AZ here, Get a cheap low power desktop for work shit, it will heat up less and you’ll be able to ventilate it better.
Otherwise, a/c, thermal curtains, insulated reflector layer in front of that, make sure your weather seals on your doors are good. Drink water all the time, carry water with you all the time. Good luck with all the heatwaves and welcome to the club.
Thank you for the all the advices but my laptop is already the “low power” option. The other one is a desktop, which produces way more heat. Although still less than most modern “gaming stations”
The club, is sadly, not the one I would like to be in. I have always been a fan of winter but it seems like with each year it’s going to be harder to enjoy it
You can do a suprising amount of stuff on a raspberry pi, they also run ARM meaning they heat up less than a desktop CPU
Most heat gets in through windows facing the sun. I cover the worst with aluminium foil (tin foil).
Also bans all the evil rays! Pew pew pew…
damn that’s pretty genius, although, doesn’t the tin foil or the pocket between the window heat up?
Works best on the outside, but also on the inside it’s a very effective cheap solution.
Would recommend to fix with painters tape.
Yes. Foam or bubble wrap underneath the foil is best for performance over time, even just cardboard can be a meaningful improvement.
Genuine question, does this affect your phone signal at all?
No, never had any issues with GSM, 4G and 5G.
Cool, thanks :)
wouldn’t that blind passerbys? i already suffer enough from people hanging CDs to spook pigeons. I think shutters would be best here if you’re not in a rental
Yes. True. Depends on the angle.
Have central air conditioning in all buildings.
Have a place to swim.
I’m in the US and it was 40C (104F) yesterday, which is normal for my area. I spent the whole day either indoors or in the neighborhood pool, and it was perfectly comfortable.
Soon people are going to be working in pools. Working from Pool (WFP) becomes the norm because of the heat.
Soon we will evolve to go back in the water. Water levels rise.
Years pass, emissions go down, we evolve to go back onto the land.
The cycle repeats.
Soon we will evolve to go back in the water. Water levels rise.
Two drifters meet. Something needs to be exchanged.
this is underground morlock burrow erasure
Both AC and pools have a horrible upkeep cost.
So does winter heating.
Unlike winter heating, at least you can power the AC by the very sun that burns on your roof.
I can get about six hours of free heating during the day from the sun over winter in Australia, using solar and a split system. Only if the sun is unobscured though.
Summer is better of course, due to the longer daylight.
Thats why I wear jackets indoors
I mean, I bought my window ac at least 10 years ago, the only upkeep is cleaning the filter. no issues. I bought a house with an AC from the 70s or 80s in the wall, also nothing but washing the filters. Sure I’m using electricity, but I wouldn’t call that upkeep.
Pretty sure that’s what that commenter meant. Running AC is a huge energy expenditure and is contributing to the long-term problem.
AC is absolutely necessary where I live. We don’t have the option of not using it to help the environment. I have my thermostat set to 80°F (26.5°C) most days, but without it we would likely have very a high heat-related death rate.
The best option is to have our grid use as much renewable energy as possible. I have solar panels on my house, which covers about 60-80% of my usage on these hot 104°F (40°C) days.
It’s necessary where I live too (inland Los Angeles) and we also keep our thermostat at 80 all summer. The summer power bills really hurt, but we have to. We’re unfortunately not in a position for solar financially but I really wish we were!
But it’s either this or hospital. Human body can’t cool down in very hot and high humidity environments, for example 40 degrees and 90% humidity. My mother was sent to hospital due to heat stroke, AC is life-saving. It would be better if there were better ways.
Right. I don’t think individuals can or should do much beyond setting their AC at reasonable levels.
The responsibility is on governments to heavily invest in renewables so that we don’t continue on our current trajectory. If governments don’t act, the earth will inevitably force some sort of reduction in energy usage and it’ll be far less comfortable than higher taxes.
Exactly. The issue is with the source of electricity, not with the AC itself. Not to mention that leading by example is nice, but it’s not always the best course of action. An individual avoiding AC is a drop in the water, and not going to save the planet, while suffering immensely. Hell, even if every single individual stopped using AC at home (which isn’t even close to reality), that wouldn’t have a significant effect, compared to what corporations, factories, etc. are doing.
In this context, corporations and factories are people. Their energy expenditure is a consequence of providing good and services to consumers.
There’s no “them” to point fingers at here, unfortunately.
The price of electricity in my country (the UK) has gone stupid high right now. We don’t have AC in our homes normally in the country. But I bought a 2nd hand portable unit about 7 years ago when my first son was born cos I was afraid of him gettin too hot at night. I have a 2nd son now and we have had some record high temps last month and o could only afford yo keep this AC unit on for a like 2 to 3 hours at night time in just his room and only on the hottest days. Anymore than that and we woild struggle to pay the energy bill that follows.
It’s not maintenance cost that’s the issue. It’s energy cost.
We bought a cheap above ground pool that we put out in the summer. It helps that we have super cheap abundant supply of water.
In a lot of hot weather countries people don’t have air-conditioning. 40C is also not comfortable in the slightest when the humidity is 90 percent.
I agree. I have lived in hot, humid places without air conditioning. The only solution is to find cool places (in the shade, in a cellar), stay wet, drink lots of water, and avoid physical exertion until the sun goes down.
I am spoiled now. I live in a region with cheap, low-carbon electricity (almost entirely from hydro, nuclear, and wind) and modern infrastructure, so air conditioning is standard practice. I wish the whole world could have the same.
No where on earth is it 40c at 90% humidity, that is explicitly deadly and quickly.
Where I live it is that hot and that humid, but not at the same time. In the morning we will have 95% humidity at 80°F (26.5°C). But later in the day, when it is 104°F (40°C), the humidity usually drops to 40% or lower.
It’s not always, but from where I live (a place beside the sea), humidity is always high, and we had multiple days of 40 degrees last year.Indeed, many places are 40 and 90% within a day, but not simultaneously. You can see in your image how the peak humidity was at 00:00 and the peak temp at 13:30.
Indeed, many places are 40 and 90% within a day, but not simultaneously. You can see in your image how the peak humidity was at 00:00 and the peak temp at 14:00.
Most of the world does not have central heat and central air.
In many areas, pools can be difficult due to a number of economic, social, and other factors.
Additionally, running AC constantly also puts more heat outside and, depending upon your power source, increases emissions further contributing to global climate issues just making things worse.
Lots of fans.
So many solutions and yours is Onlyfans?
Its effective and relatively cheap.
Only fans.
Sleep during mid-day
Houses are built differently in hot areas. Very few windows facing south. Shutters on all windows. All windows deeply recessed. Channel the wind, ie have a deep through channel that spans across the house so any pressure differential causes air to exchange. Tiled floors. No/low insulation.
In Northern Europe, we live in sweat boxes designed for letting in maximum light and keeping heat inside the house.
Sweat box gang woo!
In the southern US we have air conditioning everywhere. People avoid going outside except for very early or late in the day when the sun isn’t on you. I try to get any yard work or anything outside down before 10am and avoid going outside the rest of the day.
Yesterday was actually a “nice” day where I’m at because the high was “only” 34C. People were outside enjoying it, but still avoided the sun and were mostly out in the morning and afternoon in shaded areas.
The weather has been so bad lately here in Texas. I was actually happy when I saw it was only 96 degrees outside which meant I could use my long sleeve shirt today lol.
Multiple days over 103+ degrees weather has been torture. It’ll be back to that in 3 hours lol.
Brazilian here, to be fair I’ve read so many good tricks here that I am not sure what I have to contribute, but yeah, light clothes with bright colours or white, don’t dress dark as your clothes you heat up. No shoes if you can, but also not barefeet lol sandals and flip flops havaianas styles. If you live close to the beach obviously go take a swim, otherwise swimming pool or AC at home or car or go to store random stores with AC too lol. Drink cold stuff, keep hydrated. Fans, and cold shower.
The one thing I don’t see mentioned enough for keeping your apartment cool is to close all windows and draw all curtains during the day and open them when the temperature outside is lower than that inside (normally ~an hour after sunset).
Heat reflects off all surface, so it’s not just about keeping light out.
Blinds on the outside of your windows help significantly too.
I wish the temperature outside dropped below my house temp. If I run AC at even a money saving 83 degrees inside, the exterior doesn’t drop below that until around 6am.
I mean if you have air conditioning, then most tips here are irrelevant and the only tip would be “put your air conditioning on”.
Almost all areas on or north of the Alps in Europe don’t have AC (cos they never needed it) and buildings are made to keep heat in.
Totally. Blows my mind that people can’t seem to understand that if it’s hotter outside than inside, the inside won’t get any cooler by opening windows.
Last summer in London (42 C!!) we became a box of shadows during the day. Keep the cool inside.
If AC isnt an option, the way Ive gotten through summers without is opening one window on one side of the building, then another one on the opposite side. Then point a box fan facing outward of one window, and do your best to seal the gaps with some cardboard or whatever you have. This will create negative pressure in the building, drawing in a bunch of air from the opposite window.
Actually it is better to put the fan a few feet away from the window pointing out.
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would be nice with a test for a sealed fan like I described. the problem with that setup is that the negative pressure will try to pull from both windows, competing with the fan trying to blow out and not getting as much flow
I live in the southern US, and my house basically has this built-in. There’s a big fan in the middle of the house that blows air into the attic, so if you open a few windows and flip the fan on it creates a breeze through the whole house.
Make sure your sewer traps haven’t dried up though. I turned it on with the house closed up one day and it sucked in air through the shower drain in the guest bathroom that hadn’t been used in a while…
Yeah, a whole-house fan. You turn it on in the evening and it expels hot attic air from the top while sucking in cool fresh air through open windows. It actually works really well and is much more energy efficient than AC. When it gets super hot you still need AC though.
Attic fans are great. We’d run it when the sun went down to draw in the cool night air. After that we shut everything up and drew the blinds. The house would stay very cool until late the next afternoon. On super hot days we might have run the AC for a few hours in the late afternoon or evening.
But won’t you draw in a bunch of hot air?
it’s the same reason a breezy summer day feels cooler, the air is still cooler than your body temp and draws away heat better than sitting in still air, plus its more evaporation if you’re sweating hot. also indoors without AC during summer is an insulated oven.
You turn the fan off during the day and on at night, I assume
