I know I have been very slow lately and there are mostly medical reasons for that. I have to add that I do not intend to expire just yet!
The latest heatwave has not been helpful. I write in a small upstairs room originally set up as a nursery, it is approx 8 feet square with what was a built-in wardrobe at the back. This wardrobe contains almost all the computer equipment apart from the desktops I usually frequent. The room at present is 30C and the wardrobe is 33C. I intend to shut everything down once I have posted this.
It is so hot that I fear for the equipment. It will operate at those higher temperatures but it effectively shortens the lifespan. It is probably doing the same for me! I can't function in this heat, and today is much more humid than the last few days. We have a portable (luggable) air conditioner but it is downstairs. It is too heavy to bring upstairs, where the temperature is usually 4-5C warmer than below, so we hunker down downstairs and mostly read until the evenings.
I have about 90% of VotV #101 written and just have some tidying up to do. Production will likely resume sometime next week, when temperatures should be a little more comfortable.
Penny
Comments
Heat in upper floors
That is basic fundamental physics for you. Warm air raises by natural convection. And on the inside of a house or building the upper floors will naturally be warmer than the lower floors. And it gets worse if the upper level rooms are partially or fully in the attic space, right under the roof. You have not mentioned if this room is on a standard upper floor with an attic above it, or if it is located in the attic space directly under the roof.
Based on the experience I have had in Germany with an attic level apartment, you need an exhaust vent near the peak of the ceiling in the room. Preferably with a fan to extract the accumulated hot air out of the room force-ably. Over time the heat will accumulate in the peak of the ceiling and start bearing down on the room occupants and become oppressive to the point of becoming unbearable. This is especially true if there is only one window and/or if the top of the window opening is to low in relation to the ceiling peak.
On the other hand, in the winter time you need to be able to close that vent to prevent the heated air to escape outside into the cold.
Down in rural South America this heat accumulation is one of the main reasons why multi-level houses are more or less taboo. Also cleaning and upkeep is just so much easier if every thing is on a single level with no stairs. Especially as residents get less young.
Agreed
Our house is what they term "Dormer style" which means that the upper rooms are all, technically, in the roof space, even though there is little roof involved. We have full-length dormers front and back and the upstairs width of the house is only about a meter/yard less than the downstairs. There is a tiny triangular space above the middle which is the real "attic" but it is only about 1.5 metres/6 feet high. Enough to store our travel cases and not much else.
Walking up the stairs you can feel the temperature gradient as you climb. It can be a pain sleeping in the summer but fine most of the rest of the year.
We have an end wall so an extractor fan is a lower-cost possibility. I'll investigate.
Right now the temperature hasn't risen any further as the sun hasn't come out so I've risked logging in, but I doubt that will last. Oh, well, back to the e-books.
Penny
just came in from shopping
I try, and complete my shopping on Saturdays, just came in, It was like walking into an oven. Alexa, turn on the fans; I'm stuck ground floor, 110 F. might need to turn the A/C on, though last I checked it had a hornet's nest in it. Sighs it's always something
Hm, I interpreted the heading in another way
;)
The heading
:D :D :D
Well?
Isn't that enough for you to produce something? You have standards to maintain, after all.
Penny
Raindrops keep falling on my head
Well, we'll see. In principle you are right. And I can't use your excuse. Here in Helsinki the weather is rather cool and rainy. However, the reason I'm in Helsinki is also the reason why I'm unlikely to write any story in the near future. Studying Finnish is devilishly complicated and demanding.
Didn't Fall Into The Stock Tank
All week, pants are wet, socks are wet, blouse is wet, under clothes are wet, all of that leaked out of me. The wind blowing twenty six mph isn't drying me off either. Wednesday evening the AC quit. Too hot and too tired to check it out as I've been working on fencing. Thursday night metered it out, one of the capacitors had shorted, simple to replace. The AC is a lifesaver even growing up on the farm without one I'm no longer able to stand the heat like I use to.
Hugs Penny, take care, drinking lemonade will help one's body a little with the heat.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
AC issues?
Yeah, had that la week ago in Missouri, was not fun. So feeling your pain!
Diana
how I cool the upper floor.
I have a 2 story home with an attic on top and a basement that is 3 feet above ground level and 5 feet below. I have a heat pump to heat and cool the home. Instead of using the AC, I opened the basement draw at the base inside air handler setting the system to continuously run the circulating fan to draw air from the basement. I live 60 miles NE of Philadelphia and summer temps range from 90 to 100+. In the last 3 years I have only ran the heat pump AC 3 days.
If you don't have ductwork, a channel can be made on an inside wall between a pair of studs to use as a duct for air circulation from the basement to the 2nd floor bedroom. Place an 8 inch fan on the 2nd floor in the center of the vent. This draws the cooler basement air to cool the hotter 2nd floor.
Boys will be girls... if they're lucky!
Jennifer Sue
You could try this in Houston
You could try this in Houston, but 'basement' equates to 'indoor swimming pool', so it's not the best idea :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Different construction methods
Europe has very different house/home construction methods to the “stick and paper” methodology so common in USA.
Even single family homes have solid walls of masonry, prefabricated concrete elements, or adobe and/or cob for half-timbered houses. So making a channel inside the wall is not really feasible.
The vast majority of homes and houses I have seen in my nearly six years in Germany are still heated by hot water radiators installed under or in windows, with a coal/oil/gas boiler in the basement. Or maybe remote steam heat exchanger or more recently a heat pump to heat the water for the radiators. Though individual room gas furnaces run a distant second, and electric heating is third. Forced air heating, very common in USA, is almost unknown here in Germany.
Artificial cooling is rather uncommon in Germany.
Another aspect is that, at least in Germany, the majority of residents are not home-owners but renters. Historically the long-term financial burden of home-ownership was a multiple of renting. And it is not unheard of for people living for twenty, thirty or even forty years in the same rental property. Except for deep rural areas almost all housing is in multi-unit buildings. So, many modifications are difficult to impossible.
Much of the construction
Much of the construction differences have to do with available materials, and not any particular arguments over what sort of materials are better/worse. Stone built can fall down in a century, and wood (stick) built can last centuries - and vice versa. It just has to do with who did it, and how. Wood is easy to grow, sequesters carbon, and is inexpensive to get in construction form. Stone is expensive to get in construction form, can last a long time, and leaves big holes in the ground that only fill in with water (quarries). There are trade offs for everything.
One big construction 'change' that most people ignore is that the thicker your walls, the better your insulation, cooling or heating.
Oh, yes. Big stone buildings are often extremely drafty :) Good in summer (with no central a/c), not so good in winter.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Yet another option
Use an iPad? /shrug Maybe get a little Logitech keyboard and possibly use Apple Dictate? Then email the text later into the pc? Just an idea.
Be well and stay cool!
Hugs
Diana