Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with heatwave

Would hanging a wet sheet somewhere in the room help?

halogen — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:01:26 -0800

Another West Coast heat wave question. Beside eating ice cream and drinking ouzo straight from the freezer, what are some good ways to cool down? I'm in Seattle, and temperatures this week are likely to reach 102°F/39°C. This is the first time I've lived in a home without A/C, and since I don't have a place of work yet to go chill or a lot of money to spend on outside activities, I'm mostly stuck in a hot apartment. Even the building pool is unpleasantly warm to swim in, and the ice cream machine is failing me because it's so hot and humid! The library is nice and cool, but it closes at 6pm, and since the outside of our apartment is mostly made of windows and faces the north and the west, late afternoons and evenings are almost unbearable despite the blinds. Showers are nice, but the "cold" tap water is tepid at best these days.

So, hive mind, what are your secret yet brilliant ways to cool down?

Curtail computer use during the current heatwave?

Auden — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:18:13 -0800

West Coast Heatwave! I'm worried about my computer's hard drives, should I curtail my downloads and turn some drives off for the next few days until things cool down? So...it's 105 degrees Fahrenheit outside today - with a repeat performance set for tomorrow and thursday. In my non-air conditioned apartment, (with several fans running) it feels at least that hot.

How worried should I be about my computer and its hard drives?
I've got a well ventilated case with plenty of internal fans, but it's record-breaking hot...

Should I turn off the external drives for the next few days? Stop running torrents and video/music downloads? When I poll my internal drives with SpeedFan, they range from 48C to 56C; it worries me, especially since a 2.5" portable drive I was using for back-up sang its click of death swan song yesterday (I've since created a new back-up)... anyway.

Advice?

All around, people looking half dead/Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

SassHat — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:40:35 -0800

Yet another air conditioner question...please hope me. So I buckled today and bought a window air conditioner after a week straight of near-sleepless nights in my second floor apartment. Bought a 5000 BTU window unit, the kind meant for a window to shut down on top of it. My neighbor (in my building) has the same windows, same window a/c unit, and said it didn't cause him any problems. So I lugged the stupid thing home, nearly got heat stroke installing it, then hit a brick wall. Well two.

The first (and most important) thing is that the outlet nearest the two windows which would fit it (incidentally, in the kitchen) does not seem to have sufficient power to make it work. To test it, I set it on the edge of the counter and stretched the plug across to the outlet the fridge is plugged into...worked. This was fine to make sure the unit itself worked but there is no way the cord will reach that far, and if it did it would span the length of my kitchen.

So now I'm stuck with a unit that I can't power. I live in a bachelor apt and vaguely remember my landlord explaining to me that there wasn't an oven because there wasn't an outlet to plug it into and that she was going to have an electrician in some day (this was last sept). So now what? I put in a peeved voicemail with the landlady, she will likely take her sweet time on this, to the tune of me getting air conditioning some time next fall. My neighbor suggested an extension cord but that seems like a sketchy proposition at best. I've read the previous air conditioning askmes, but they were mostly about playing with wiring (something I will not and am not allowed to do). Any other workarounds you can suggest?

Secondly, should I ever get the power source issue taken care of - the window is a slide-sideways kind of window, the panes of which pop right out for easy cleaning. So while the unit fits in there, it's got about five or six inches of "head room" which covered up with cardboard for the time being. What's the best way of permanently (or at least seasonally) blocking off this area? And how to seal it up so cold air stays in and warm air/hornets/squirrels stay out?

Thanks in advance!

Let's all chill out...

Shoeburyness — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:05:29 -0800

TooDarnHotFilter: Since most of the U.S., including me, is having a broiling heat wave right now, I thought it would be useful to share suggestions on keeping cool. Particularly, what are the best recipes? What I'm looking for are things that heat up the kitchen the least. I tried the slow cooker today, but it's still making things hotter than I like in the kitchen, and tomorrow's forecast is 102. There is always grilling, but that requires (eek!) going outside. Other suggestions for keeping cool for the under-A/C'ed (like myself) or the A/C-less?

Keeping Cool

drezdn — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:51:12 -0800