We can't hang clothes here, so when it gets hot I save the drying for late at night. We had a heat wave here. Our house was 86 degrees upstairs at night....too hot to sleep well! We have only one fan, since it's normally not that hot, so we were all quite warm! DH and I are up early, so when it's hot we go around and open up all the windows while it's still cool and get the starting air temp as low as possible before it heats up and starts getting hotter in the house. Our windows upstairs are up and down windows, and I haven't seen locks for those. But we got thick wooden dowels to put in our downstairs slider, and ones for our slider windows as well.
:wink: Living without air con over here could never /would never been done. Im sure those with family who have toured in the ME, will tell you it is toooo hot not to have it on. For June, July, August and most of Sept, ours will be running 24 hrs a day...the rest of the year it also runs (though we didnt need it for most of Jan this year), though we run 1 at a time (ie lounge one during the day, bedroom 1 at night)... But for now, they both have to run day and night. In August, the temp will sit around 50 deg (122)
To this day, the hottest I have felt was 130 in Bullhead. It is normal for them to get into the 120s. At first I found it odd that most of the homes in that area had two AC units but once the sun came up, I knew why!LOL
We were up at the house (under construction)today and yesterday and I was pleased that it was not hot inside despite the high temps outside. The basement was even cooler. I figure that is the house was tolerable with no electricity connected, then it would not take much when we choose to use it. I tried to select a floor plan and building materials that would help with this and so far so good. Now a question for those in the know. We have double hung windows which are new to me. It would seem that opening one side of the house windows such that the opening is high on the wall and the other side so the opening is low on the bottom window, that you would encourage more air flow than opening all windows at the bottom. Is there any difference?
Our windows have double locks on them. One locks the window completely and the other is kind of like what you are describing, except it is built into the window. It allows our windows to slide open a bit but I find that it is not secure enough.
sgilli3, is Dubai near the Persian Gulf? If I am correct my pastor and his family are living in Dubai. All this time the name sounded so familiar to me and I couldn't figure out why.
I am pregnant, live on the 4th floor (heat rises) and it has been in the 90's here with tons of humidity for weeks now. No, we don't have AC. Noone here does, except for in the car. It is NOT fun. I wear support hose and even then my legs are like logs. I can't wait to move to NM with no humidity.
Hi there, Yes we are on the Persian Gulf (now known as the Arabian Gulf) Dubai is 1 of the 7 emirates (states) that form The United Arab Emirates. Dubai is probably the most well known (Burj Al Arab, Burj Dubai-worlds biggest building, palm islands etc) Abu Dhabi is the actual capital of the UAE. There are a group of churches here including St Mary's, Baptist, Seventh-Day Adventists, Arab Evangelical Church, Christian Church, St Thomas, St Francis of Assisi and Mar Ignatius Church
When I was younger we didnt have air conditioning and I live here in South Texas. I remember only the rich people had central air and if they had it in their car they were really rich! When I was a teenager we finally got one air unit in one room, which was most the cases of my friends too. They would all hundle in one room to get air in the afternoon or at least turn it on at night to be able to sleep. When I was collage age I became a counslor at a GS camp every summer and we didnt have air anywhere just fans. Talk about being hot and sweaty all the time. I always felt so dirty and uncomfortable. When I go to bed now at 42yr.... at night I go to sleep feeling clean from after my shower into my clean sheets with the ceiling fan on my face and the air on I am in heaven I remember how it used to be and I DONT want to go back. This is just me. I would rather skip any other luxurys then be without my air! Sam
AEMN Sista! There is no possible way I would willingly turn off my air in Southeast Texas summer heat. Plus my husband would think I lost my ever lovin mind if I did.:wink:
Amen Girlfriend that is me too, I could live without going out to eat or driving around more but don't take my a/c away not in Texas...
I haven't read all the posts yet but I wanted to post my thought on this. We are also in Texas. We have only one window refridgerated a/c that don't work worth squat!! But hubby insists on having it on anyhow. We also use celing fans in each room. We have 2 oscilating fans and 2 box fans as well.To cook I use the crock pot A LOT!! Or hubby cooks outside on the grill. Our average temp in the house stays at about 90 degrees. And that's with the energy sucker (a/c) running. I think we are going to start turning it off during the day and hubby can use it when he gets home from work. We do open the windows at night and sometimes we open some of the doors. Especially when we have thunderstorms. The wind feels so good and the rain is nice and relaxing. Anyhow.. I told my husband the other day that back in the pioneer days there was no air conditioning and those people survived it and so could we. He said that we are spoiled. We wouldn't know what to do without it. Oh and as far as the evaporated coolers go, we opt not to use ours. We have vents all through the house and a unit on top of it. But the humidity is AWFUL with it and it doesn't feel any cooler in here. And it does cost about the same to run that big thing as it does for this 2,000 btu window unit.
My DH is convinced that a heat pump is what we need. That plus the $6,000.00 to pay for it. WHAT!?? Apparently, as he explains it... A heat pump preforms the same basic service that an air conditioner does, only it cools the air by running it over coils that have been cooled by way of water that is cooled by running through pipe ran down into the ground and back up again. So what powers it, though? Isn't that electricity? He says yea, but you could run it off solar... Ok, but isn't that expensive as well?? Well relatively but once you get to about two or three years of ac bills it has paid for itself... Well, can I take two or three years to pay for it? ahhahahaha! Anyone with experience on this type of thing? Oh and our soil is pure CLAY.. not sure if that matters, but for our garden we have to add dirt to raised beds, because it is a potters dream of clay reserves..
Living in Arizona I don't think we could survive the summers without ac. I usually don't turn mine on until mid June, but this year the heat came early so it's been on since around Mid May.....but I keep my ac set at 80, and we don't have a dryer in our house...all of our clothing is air dried. When it's cool enough I turn off the air and open the upstairs windows. Also when we are gone all day long like on Friday's and Saturdays I'll turn the ac up to 86 and then turn it down when we all get home.
My parents have a heat pump. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I know it runs their heat and AC with water. They live way out in the middle of nowhere and it drains into their pond. I think it runs off of their well. I can't say how much more effective it is.
I haven't read everyones reply, but want to add, my hubby does manual labor and so he looks forward to coming home to a cool house, that and he makes the money to pay the bills, so who am I to argue that we shouldn't be using our A/C. Everyone has to save in different areas, for us, it's not going out to eat or spending money going to see movies/ nights out, etc. We have humid summers here in Indiana, so I'll stick with my A/C, Kristine
WOW!!! This is interesting! We have AC, but only run it when it's 95+ for several days. (As stated by someone else, also when I was pregnant, lol, and when we brought a baby home from the hospital!) We will also turn it on 24 hours before we know my mom or Carl's dad is coming over, because they have health issues. We have LOTS of box fans. We have a ceiling fan in my bed room, and in the kitchen and family room downstairs. As I type, Carl is installing them in the kids' room and our library (trying to, at least ). Upstairs windows are open pretty much 24/7, but we do not leave downstairs windows open at night. Someone else said that, if the AC was on, the kids wouldn't be outside. I ABSOLUTELY agree with that!!! Also, I believe the increase in asthma, etc. is largely due to people going in and out of AC environments so much. Jen, I'm intrigued with your "bloomers"!
Kristine my husband works all day out in the southeast Texas heat and humidity so I understand. He always has to take extra shirts to work to change into thru the day because he sweats thru them. He loves his air conditioning for sure! If he came home and I had the air off and windows open he would think I lost my mind! We too have cut down on other things. We all have to make choices where to sacrifice.
My kids could care less. We always have our ac on and they are always outside. They spend most of their time climbing the neighbors tree, riding bikes or rollerblading. They will come in for a drink or permission to have a popsicle from the outside fridge but they never ever stay in because the air is on. BUT I think because it is always on it is no big deal to them just normal.
