Topic: Jesus H. Christ

[angrykeebler]

113 here today. It is currently 12:15 a.m and its still 100 FUCKING DEGREES OUTSIDE


W
T
F

[gpw11]

OMG, how are you not boiling right now?




Oh.

[Cobra951]

Farenheit.  (Jeez.  Foreigners . . .)

[idolminds]

What does the H stand for?

[Quemaqua]

I'm with you, dude.  It's over 100 in my apartment right now and the sun's been down for hours.

[scottws]

It's punishment for your state being full of complete whackjobs.

[Ghandi]

It's punishment for your state being full of complete whackjobs.

Damn right. It's punishment for all the hippies and homosexuals. By contrast, it's about 82 here and gorgeous. I'm sitting on the screen porch sipping some coffee before work.

[scottws]

Yeah, it's about the same here.  The nice thing is very little humidity.  That's a rarity around here when it gets warmer.

[Quemaqua]

If I sacrifice some homos, do you think that will help?

This thing is horrible.  It isn't even 9 AM here and the house is already to the point where you'll sweat just sitting still doing nothing.

[Cobra951]

You got yourself a big HDTV.  You got yourself a PS3.  You get yourself new $40-60 games all the time.  Explain to me why you can't get yourself a $120 window AC.

[Quemaqua]

You know, I never really thought of that.  How do those even work?  I mean, we've got screens in all our windows and the windows are huge, not to mention ridiculously flimsy (this building is old).  I have no idea how I'd even fit one in anything.  I understand you can get ones that aren't permanent and stuff, but I don't really know anything about them or how the apartment management would feel about it.

I've never needed an AC unit before this.  My mom lives just about as close to the bay as we do, but our area is situated so that we get absolutely zero breeze, where she almost always gets some, and her place is far, far better insulated than ours.  And our last apartment was perfectly fine.  Here, nothing.  This is the first time a fan hasn't gotten the job done.

[TheOtherBelmont]

You know, I never really thought of that.  How do those even work?  I mean, we've got screens in all our windows and the windows are huge, not to mention ridiculously flimsy (this building is old).  I have no idea how I'd even fit one in anything.  I understand you can get ones that aren't permanent and stuff, but I don't really know anything about them or how the apartment management would feel about it.

The unit I had at one time had an air intake that fit snugly with the window part way open that you put above the unit itself and I was able to leave the screen on, I wish I could be a little more descriptive but my memory is a little foggy since it was about 3-4 years ago and I only had it for a week.  I was given one by my apartments office when I lived in Phoenix when my central A/C went out in the middle of summer.  It worked great and I couldn't tell the difference in my small studio apartment from the central A/C.  I would check with your owners first though, also if you buy one at a hardware store or something I'm sure one of the employees there could help explain how to install it, the guy who installed it at my place did it in like 5 mins with a screwdriver and a hammer.

[Quemaqua]

Hmm.  I may have to look into this, if only so my rat doesn't die from heatstroke.  Also, depends on whether or not we move with my job moving.  I don't really want to, but I also don't know that I feel like spending my entire life commuting.

[Cobra951]

The easiest ones rest on the sill, sticking through the window, and have accordion-like side panels that open out to the sides of the window (so you don't need to use wood boards or anything else).  You can screw in the expandable panels to the window frame, or go crazy with strong adhesive tape (like the transparent 3M stuff used on moving boxes).  All you need to do is make a halfway decent air seal around the unit.  Inside air can't mix with outside air except through the AC (else you're wasting your time and money).

Your building and zoning policies are another matter.  I'm living in a somewhat uptight residential area now, and zoning would prevent me from having an AC stick out a window here.  In my old house, I got a window unit for the room with all the electronic toys.  It's not just people you have to think about.  Computers hate heat.

[Quemaqua]

I know.  I'm very worried.  I won't use the 360 in this heat, and there's a slight chance that our PS2 slim has overheated (though I don't think this is the case... Julia isn't sure, but she's had problems running Okami a few times -- we think we narrowed it down to some dirt on the disk, though, since it doesn't really sound like heat... but I haven't seen the problem firsthand).

EDIT - How do you create a seal anyway?  These windows are very tall.  I'd have to take out the screen first of all, which I don't know how the hell I'd do (we're on the second floor), and I have no clue what I'd do to fill the huge gap above the AC.

[Cobra951]

You close the window down on the AC.  It helps steady the unit.  You really have never dealt with this, have you?

Wait, do the windows go up and down, or swing out?  That's a problem.

[sirean_syan]

Que might have the same issue I do. Our windows don't open up and down, they go side to side. Most of these coolers I've seen are designed for the traditional up-down windows.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, edited above as you posted.  Heh.

Edit:  In that case, it would be time to play carpenter, I guess.  Need a board cut to the right size and a way to attach it.

Edit 2: And if you're going to do that, then may as well cut out a big notch at the bottom to fit the AC unit through the board.  Sounds like a project.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, thats' not gonna' happen.  Who the fuck even has up-down windows now?  I haven't seen them in years.  Every window in every house I know of is side to side.  My mom used to have a few in her house, but she replaced them.

[Cobra951]

It must be a geographical thing.  I've never seen anything *other* than up/down windows on a house here, even when they're modern replacement windows.

Edit:  Alternatives I didn't know about.

[Quemaqua]

That's so weird.  But yeah, it figures.  I like up-down windows, but nobody in California seems to have them.  Well, I shouldn't say that... my grandma down in Merced might, and you probably see them in more rural areas... and I think an old friend of mine had them in her old, funky apartment in San Francisco, but generally speaking they're very uncommon.

I gotta' get out of here.

EDIT - Nice alternatives!  If I can install that into an upright window slit, that could actually work.  The only question is how long the hoses stretch... doesn't look like very far, and we've got *lots* of furniture in front of every window in the house barring on in the living room, and the two rooms that need cooling are at opposite ends of the place.  Bah.

[Cobra951]

You know, I made it sound like a nightmare to deal with the opening to cover up.  Sorry.  If I understand your windows correctly, you could still partially close it against a boxy AC sitting through the window, except from the side instead of above.  That would leave a simple rectangle above it to fill up with a normal board.  But yeah, looks like AC design has diversified loads since last I checked.

[sirean_syan]

Looking around, it seems the feature Que and I would want to look for is called a "casement" unit. Supposedly, these work on side-to-side windows.

Edit: These are still window units though and not portables, that's useless.

The problem with the side-to-side windows is that the open space around whatever you put through the window is going to be bigger than with a traditional window. More or less and window Que and I would use for this sort of thing tends to be pretty big.

There are these air coolers I'm seeing now, which may be an option if you don't mind adding humidity to the air.

[Quemaqua]

Just like a swamp cooler?  I've found those to be of limited use, and to vary greatly depending on the model.  My mom has one, and it works well to cool the air immediately in front of the unit, but the humidity is insane, and any room it's in will turn into a fucking nasty sauna after a half hour of operation.

[Cobra951]

You can't cool the air without expelling the humidity.  That would be nuts.  Air holds boatloads more moisture when warm, and that has to go somewhere when the temperature drops.  I never heard of such a thing.  How does it work?  An AC with its exhaust inside the same room has a different name: dehumidifier.  I got one for the basement here after we got some water in it.

[WindAndConfusion]

You've never heard of (let alone suffered under) a swamp cooler, Cobra?

Truly, yours has been a sheltered life.

[Cobra951]

I guess so.  No, never heard of them.  Now I feel compelled to go read up on them.

Edit:  OK, this will do for starters.  Evaporative cooling.  Perfect for deserts.  Interesting.  I didn't know there was a practical way to cool other than squeezing the heat and moisture out of the air.  So this is an education.

[scottws]

I don't get why you would want to add humidity to the air.  Humidity just makes the air feel hotter.

[Cobra951]

Right, for our kind of air here.  But if you live somewhere with very low humidity, then adding some would actually be a good thing (up to a point).  You can dehydrate quickly in a desert.  That's what syrean meant by "inviting death" above, I think.  Heatstroke, dehydration.

[WindAndConfusion]

I don't get why you would want to add humidity to the air.  Humidity just makes the air feel hotter.

Evaporation is a cooling process, so if you spray a fine mist of water into a stream of warm dry air, the air gets a lot cooler. This works great in places like Arizona or Death Valley.

The problem is that if you do this with warm moist air, all you do is waste water and make the air chokingly humid. If the humidity gets over 100%, you'll have condensation. This is what happens along the coast in California.

But I'm curious, how does a dehumidifier work? Condensation generates heat, which seems like the opposite of what you want to accomplish.

[WindAndConfusion]

Oh, also, swamp coolers can cause Legionnaire's Disease.

This is not a joke.

[scottws]

Evaporation is a cooling process, so if you spray a fine mist of water into a stream of warm dry air, the air gets a lot cooler. This works great in places like Arizona or Death Valley.

The problem is that if you do this with warm moist air, all you do is waste water and make the air chokingly humid. If the humidity gets over 100%, you'll have condensation. This is what happens along the coast in California.

But I'm curious, how does a dehumidifier work? Condensation generates heat, which seems like the opposite of what you want to accomplish.

People usually use dehumidifiers in basements, at least here.  As far as I can tell they have these coils that just get really cold and basically they frost up.  Then the coils warm up, the frost melts and the resulting water drips down into a pan or bucket of some kind, and usually goes via hose to a drain.

As far as heating the air, I think the temperature increase is negligible.  Even in the summer without A/C on, basements are relatively cool and I've never noticed the air around my parents' dehumidifier feeling hot.

[Cobra951]

Yes.  A dehumidifier is basically an AC without a vent to the outside.  The heat generated by the refrigeration process (more than) cancels out the cooling, and the only real work done is to squeeze the moisture out of the air into a bucket.

[Ghandi]

and the only real work done is to squeeze the moisture out of the air into a bucket.

...which I had the honor of dumping out on a daily basis growing up as a kid. Pain in the ass, but definitely worth it, given that I lived in the basement.

Trying to sleep in 95+ degree heat is nearly impossible for me. I can't imagine how Que does it. Granted, I'm a cold junkie - I live in the mountains and I can't stand the heat. But still.

[Quemaqua]

I'm a cold junkie too.  My advantage comes from the fact that I sleep about 5 hours a night, which means I'm basically always fully ready to crash in any circumstance as long as I'm at least somewhat reclined on something at least slightly more comfortable than riveted metal.  But yeah, the heat here does give me trouble sometimes if it's really bad, but mostly I do okay.  Generally when it's this hot I don't sleep in our bedroom, I go sleep on the couch.  Our couch is directly under a window, and at night there's usually a cool breeze, even if a minimal one.

[WindAndConfusion]

So Ghandi, I understand you've never had sex.

[Ghandi]

Nope. Nice try, dick.

Edit: Replaced the smiley with a choice word. It gets the point across better.