No doubt you all heard about the “Heat Dome” that brought so much misery and death (I kid you not) to the PNW about a fortnight ago. Well, nothing you read or heard was in any way an exaggeration. It was without doubt the worst heat I’ve ever endured, although that’s not really saying a great deal, considering I lived in Northern England for the first half of my life.
Anyway, when the news of the impending furnace conditions first broke, I was not as sceptical as I would have been in the past, having lived through quite a few hot summers. We endured the first couple of days, sort of, by opening all the windows at night and sleeping under only a sheet and an empty duvet cover and then buttoning up the house mid-morning in order to trap at least some of the cooler air in the house. My wife works at home, and even though the office is the coldest room in the house, even with a fan, the temperature was in the mid-eighties, which is too much when you have brain work to do.
I was somewhat better off in that the store was kept reasonably cool, but not chillingly so, so as not to put too much of a strain on the power supply. My wife, who does even worse in heat than I do complained about the conditions in the house on her Facebook page, as she is won’t to do. One interesting response from a friend of hers in New York was “Well, the Realtor should have noticed that the house doesn’t have air conditioning”, in what seemed like a rather snarky tone, only for my wife to inform her that only about one third of homes in the region even have a/c at all, as it normally isn’t needed. I suppose that if you live in a part of the world where a/c is considered a basic amenity you might be surprised by this, but I guess some people don’t even think about such things.
However, there was a response at the other end of the scale: A friend of hers who lives nearby told her that as she and her family were out of town, she would give us the code and we could stay at her house, which has a/c. Acts like this do a lot to restore my faith in human nature, and we couldn’t have been more grateful. We packed bags and dog into the cars and headed off as soon as we could.
The two nights we spent there were the hottest of the period, and I never imagined I would be grateful for a house cooled to 75F. Yeah, the temperature at which I begin to fade felt like bliss. To be able to sit without creating a puddle was a delight I shall not forget easily. Of course, we departed each morning, as we both had work to do, but at least we were able to get a decent nights’ sleep which wouldn’t have been possible had we stayed at home. To give you some idea of how bad it was, when I arrived home from work on June 29th, the thermometer in my car read 110F. Insane.
We had talked about getting a/c during last years’ hot spell, but didn’t due to the cost involved, however this summer made up our minds for us. We are determined not to have to put up with the discomfort of living in a sweat box and so are going to have a/c installed as soon as the contractor can fit us in. We got a couple of quotes and as the price is unlikely to go down, decided that waiting until autumn or next spring just isn’t a viable option.
I know this is very much a First World problem, and that burning fuel to mitigate the effects of burning fuel isn’t exactly an ideal solution, but at some point practicality has to win out over principal. I really wish there was another solution, but having a fan blowing in every room for twelve hours a day just isn’t viable either. Thankfully the weather has eased now, and the daytime highs are no worse than the night time lows of two weeks ago. I’m just glad that we can (just about) afford the cost of the new system, but I’m not sure our sanity could have afforded the cost of NOT installing it. No zinger at the end of this one, I just hope you all managed to stay cool and are able to cope with whatever nature is throwing at you.
notesfromasingledad 