Dealing With the Heat

A week or two back we had a hot spell that stretched over a few days, which I took to portend a long, hot and brutal summer. To help make the summer heat more tolerable I have this whole routine whereby I put window fans in the upstair windows and blow the hot air out while opening the downstair windows to let in the cooler air. I also go for the "tomb effect" whereby I close the blinds upstairs, which faces south and gets sun all day long, thus minimizing the scorching effects of direct sunlight. The key is air circulation, and we have a ceiling fan the can reverse direction and draw air upstairs. It actually works pretty well, and once the sun goes down and the temperatures cool, I simply reverse all the fans.

We have two window fans that wedge perfectly into the window creating a fairly good seal that minimizes the amount of turbulence, thereby maximizing the efficiency of airflow. One of the fans, however, has frayed wires and seems like a bit of a fire hazard, so I'm reluctant to use it. I went out and got two new ones on sale at Walmart and now we are all set for summer. As an added bonus, they were even on sale. I gave the old fan to N to play with and he proceeded to dismantle it and toy with the wires.

Oddly enough, now that we're set for the heat, the weather has changed and now it's cooling off. The days are pleasant, if not downright cold. Mind you, I'm not complaining, I like the cooler weather, it's just a little odd to be burning wood this far into June. During N's LAX tournament this past weekend, it was rain and cold and I froze my buns off. Crazy.

Oh well, what are you going to do? It's going to get hot, no question, so at least we're prepared for when that heat comes. For now I'll just enjoy the pleasant temperatures and stare at our new fans collecting dust.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Doug Mahugh for the pic.