Hot

[igenlode]

It's midnight, and the temperature indoors is still 82F with all the windows (including the French windows) open and a through draught :-(
I'm literally walking around in vest and pants because it's too hot to wear anything else. The shirt I was wearing together is filthy and ripped under both arms; I have just been scrubbing my socks with soap where the colour from the shoe-leather has stained them apparently permanently after a day of sweating into them. They have settled down to a sort of grey with blue splotches.

Comments

[paserbyp]

AC?

[igenlode]

Air conditioning isn't normal in English homes, and these buildings are well over a hundred years old.

In any case it's a fairly anti-social solution, since an air-conditioning unit, like a refrigerator, inevitably increases the total amount of heat in its vicinity. So the interior of your building becomes cooler, and the exterior of your neighbourhood becomes hotter for everyone else...

Multiply that up across an entire city, and you not only consume a large amount of power but create a localised heat bubble. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/02/climate/europe-air-conditioning-heat-wave-intl-latam

[paserbyp]

Air conditioning isn't normal in English homes

Unfortunately due to climate changes we don’t have a choice. I learned it 8 years ago(during Covid isolation) when I bought my first portable AC, because surviving with 90F without AC just impossible.

[igenlode]

I've been working all day in 92F -- but with access to running water, so I was periodically soaking my head and neck, which felt beautifully cool for a few minutes...

[paserbyp]

It’s temporary workaround just for minutes and you need permanent solution, with portable reliable AC, which is very important, don’t increase dramatically your electric bill.

[watervole]

Sign of age, or something. I can't think in Fahrenheit any more. I just know that 28C is far, far too hot.

[paserbyp]

Aging? 20 years ago I started more and more working from home(WFH) where I don’t have AC comparing with office. However, 7-8 years ago during Covid I just bought my first AC, because I couldn’t survive 90F at my home office…

Interestingly, last summer I didn’t used it, because of weather and will prepare it for coming summer this year…

[watervole]

We finally succumbed and ordered an AC unit this afternoon.

[igenlode]

I was working in front of a portable air-conditioner today, which I would have said was having minimal effect if any. Although moving the hot air around did lead to almost instant evaporation when I applied water to myself, even when it was hot water out of the cloakroom hand-basin tap...

[paserbyp]

Portable AC must decrease temperature from 90F to 70F. Otherwise it is useless.

[paserbyp]

Smart choice!

[watervole]

I'm old enough to have grown up with Farenheit, but to have successfully converted to Celsius as science and the generational cultural shift in the UK moved to Celsius.

[paserbyp]

I’m grown up with Celsius and after moving to USA converted to Fahrenheit, but sometimes still use Celsius, mostly with people who didn’t use Fahrenheit in day by day activities….

[igenlode]

Well, I was working in 34C today, increasing to 35C as the sun came round...

Apparently I had gone quite grey in the face by the time we finally went home on Monday -- I would have expected to be bright scarlet (I was certainly red in the face by the time I got back), but presumably this is a lesser-known side effect of heat exhaustion. Or just plain ordinary exhaustion; it wasn't actually nearly as hot as today since we were outdoors and working in the shade!

All my plants (even the spring onions) have collapsed again despite having been watered this morning before I left. I did my best to rig an old sheet up across the front of the balcony, but I'm not sure if it did more good than harm, since it had flipped entirely over the washing-line and was battering things behind it by the time that I got back.

It may have helped, since the tomatoes (right at the front of the balcony and hence out of the firing-line for direct physical damage) were about the one thing that hadn't wilted, although that may just have been because they were in the biggest pots and hence had more water reserve. The sweet peas are in the other biggest pots, but of course they had only just been repotted and haven't had any chance to restablish their root systems :-(

[paserbyp]

having been watered this morning before I left

Good idea to do watering after sun goes down and not in the morning when sun is up.