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My apartment is a goddamn oven
Fats
Corvallis, ORRegistered User regular
Corvallis, ORRegistered User regular
Allow me to share with you a picture of the thermometer I have hanging in my bedroom, circa 6:30ish this evening when I got home:
The high outside was 108, so between the black roof cooking in the sun and the units below me I guess I collect all the heat. I thought closing all the windows and blinds in the morning would help, but, well, it didn't.
Anyway, I have two fans and three windows, what's the best way to cool this place down? Blowing in or out? Bowls of ice water? Should I pull everything out of the fridge and climb in?
Do those stand-alone air conditioning units work well? I never thought I'd need A/C in Oregon, but this sucks.
The high outside was 108, so between the black roof cooking in the sun and the units below me I guess I collect all the heat. I thought closing all the windows and blinds in the morning would help, but, well, it didn't.
Anyway, I have two fans and three windows, what's the best way to cool this place down? Blowing in or out? Bowls of ice water? Should I pull everything out of the fridge and climb in?
Do those stand-alone air conditioning units work well? I never thought I'd need A/C in Oregon, but this sucks.
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Open windows on opposite sides of the room to create a cross draft and begin crying when it doesn't work.
The floor is cooler than the bed so get some cardboard and do it up hobo-style in the living room.
That's how I've spent the past few days.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
Talk to your landlord about air conditioning.
If you have a chest freezer go sit in that.
Satans..... hints.....
Personally I don't like the stand-alone air conditioners. You'll have a big, ugly exhaust tube running out of a window, and the units are pretty bulky. I would get the most powerful window air conditioner I could afford for the bedroom, and give up on the rest of your apartment. If there's anything in your place that could be damaged by excessive heat, move it to the bedroom.
And i find it gets even hotter there if i leave the window open during the daytime... I only open the window on the shadowy-side of the building, unless there's a good breeze, in which case i'll open windows on opposing side to creat a lil' draft.
edit: plus its 108 outside, thats fucking hot as it is. 8 degrees warmer is not that crazy. i mean its hot when its that hot outside, but its isn't out of th eordinariry
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Depends on how you feel about wasting water.
The other thing to do is focus not on keeping the whole apartment (or a whole room) cool, but on keeping yourself cool. The best thing I found for this is a big bucket of cold tap water. Put your feet in it, and it'll keep you pretty comfortable for a decent amount of time (how long depends on the size of the bucket and how cold the water is). Cold showers are good, too, but you can't spend all your time showering. The portability of a bucket is its greatest advantage. Even that only goes so far though. Since you can't take the bucket to bed with you, when you want to sleep, take a damp washcloth and put it over your face. You can use more than one on other parts of your body if that's not enough.
http://lifehacker.com/search/keep%20cool/
ASK YOUR LANDLORD ABOUT ANY RESTRICTIONS ON AC UNITS! I had to spend 200$ for 6 months of renters insurance because it was required. Still worth every damned cent.
Go get a big block of ice, Or better yet get some dry ice underneath the big block of ice to extend its usefulness for a time. Get some sort of soaking tub like they have to soak peoples feet in for drainage when the ice melts and then place a fan on it. I know the fred meyers in (hillsboro at least) carries dry ice. Baskin robbins also usually carries it.
So Block or multiple blocks of ice with dry ice on the bottom and a fan. That should help a bit. Fans are in high demand right now too so hopefully you have something to at least circulate the air.
I too feel your pain though. I knew what was going to happen come summer and went out and bought an AC unit in june. You will know for next summer.
If you have a water-safe floor, lay wet towels down, or hang them from the walls. There are guides to building your own air conditioner out of a fan, a cooler of icewater, some rubber/copper tubing, and a pump, though that might get expensive.
You would need a pan or a some sort of shallow bucket because ice doesn't exactly last very long at 100+ degrees.
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that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Living in that much heat cannot be healthy. Good lord do I ever feel bad for you.
Repeat as often as necessary and definitely take one immediately before bed.
Also remember that cooling your feet will cool the rest of your body. If you don't want to take a full shower, just soak your feet in ice water for a while and you'll feel cooler.
I have a small window AC unit (was like $89) in my upstairs office, and if I crank it full blast the entire house (2 storey, 3 bedroom) is noticeably comfortable, instead of sticky and humid.
Mind you, it's not nearly as hot here as it is where you are. Still, grab a window unit for under a $100.
Try spritzing a few shirts with water and freezing them. You can suspend a towel with one end in a bowl of ice water and position a fan blowing across it while you sleep. A quick cold shower does wonders as well, especially before bed.
Are you dealing with humidity or dry heat?
Yep. Even a cheap unit can help immensely. I bought a ~$100 unit a couple years ago, that doesn't exactly keep my apartment frosty, but it does keep everything about 10-15 degrees cooler than outside, as long as I keep all the windows drawn, and close up the bedrooms to reduce the amount of space it needs to cool.
I went with the 250$ energy saving unit. I don't regret going with that at all. Has a nice remote so I can use that while I'm laying in bed. Also, another roommate was moving so I told him I would buy his unit for what he paid for it. I slapped that into the living room and it again, was worth every damned cent. Without that living room unit my apartment would be an oven also, except for my room.
If you think about it, your house dosen't need to be cool, you need to be cool. Rather than go wild trying to cool down your house in a place where this level of heat is not the norm, I'd focus on cooling yourself. Wear light clothes while you are lounging about, preferably light cotton. Have damp bandannas or scarves in (damp, not sopping) in your fridge. When you feel hot, wrap one around your neck and one around each of your ankles (if you have leg or wrist warmers, these work great.
The cold bandannas will cool your blood, and make you feel cooler. It's much cheaper, and works better than a swamp-fan rig (which can cause electrical fires) or buying an unnecessary AC unit.
This is what we use in Florida when our AC goes out in Summer. This and cheap $5 desk fans creating circulation.
I did this, with a fan to keep me from floating off in a pool of sweat, and it was surprisingly comfortable.
Anyway, I got some mylar this morning and covered my windows, which made an almost immediate difference. The wet bandana I stuck in the fridge smells like left-over lasagna but feels awesome. Thanks all for the great suggestions.
Enc, I agree with you, A/C still strikes me as a luxury. Still, I'm going to go look at window models this weekend. I've been interviewing at schools down in California as well as the east coast, so having one I could take with me would be nice. I thought a stand-alone model would be simpler to set up, but the window mounted ones don't look too hard to deal with.
Thanks again all.
The small units can be cumbersome to move, and window units can be easily stolen, keep that in mind when you buy. Swamp coolers (at least the non-nice ones) are dangerous too and wont work if there is high humidity anyway.
Best of luck to you!
Window units can be stolen? I'm not sure how you install your window AC units, but you'd have to rip out my window frame to take it. You screw them in at least two places for safety.
That, and they're plugged in.
You haven't moved a lot have you?
flexible ice packs
It doesn't solve your complicated oven room problem but maybe it'll help out with the result