Sweltering Monday

[Rufflesgurl]

JudyJB - on these very hot days we use our ceiling fans and A/C a few hours/day as needed here in No. Central CA. When I lived on the CA Central Coast (5 minutes from ocean), when it got 90+ used same system. Ceiling fans really help a lot!!

Linda

[monik7]

JudyJB - on these very hot days we use our ceiling fans and A/C a few hours/day as needed here in No. Central CA. When I lived on the CA Central Coast (5 minutes from ocean), when it got 90+ used same system. Ceiling fans really help a lot!!

Linda

I agree Linda. I use my ceiling fans primarily and then the A/C for about 15 minutes before going to bed. And this is when we regularly have high 90s and often 100+ temps in the summer. If I keep my windows closed on really hot days, my house stays 25 degrees cooler than outside my front door.
Sandi

[BarbaraRose]

I run my fans when at home during the day and my AC at night. Haven't seen my electric bill yet tho...

Just walked in the door from work and my phone rang. It was an old friend of mine (my dad's Goddaughter) who lives in MN. She went thru breast cancer many years ago and called to tell me it is back. She is stage 4 and it has gone into her lymph nodes. She is staying positive about it but it isn't looking too good. I feel bad for her. She doesn't really have much of a support system. Her mom and dad are both pretty much worthless. Her sister lives in San Diego but has her hands full taking care of their dad in her home. I told her to call me anytime if she needs someone to talk with.

[JudyJB]

Growing up in Michigan, we had quite a few hot days each summer in the old days before air conditioning. Of course, "hot" was a lot cooler than your "hot," but it felt hot, nevertheless. We had one VERY BIG advantage than you folks in California or even in the desert or Florida--BASEMENTS!! On an 85 degree day, a basement would be a cool 65-70 degrees, even without fans or AC.

Many of us lived in houses with finished or semi-finished basements, and if we were not outside on hot days, we played in the basement, which was a lot cooler than outside. I remember that a lot of people also had canning kitchens in the basements. These consisted of a stove and sink down there because it was much too hot to cook or can vegetables upstairs. My parents and my aunts and uncles always canned pickles, beans, tomatoes, jam, and other things from the gardens. (This was before refrigerators had separate freezers.) My dad bought a farm and tried to raise race horses for a few years, and it came with an orchard with pears, apples, and crab apples, so all of my relatives canned those as well.

And of course, we did NOT have swimming pools because they were very expensive and could only be used a couple of months a year. I think I knew of only one family in those days with a real built-in swimming pool and they lived a couple of miles away. But, we did have sprinklers on our lawns.

And in the evening, we played outdoors after dark and often went for a drive in the car with all the windows open to cool off. The 50s were the heydays of small amusement parks and drive-in restaurants, so we often went out for ice cream or to an amusement park in the evening.

I have to say that I think the advent of AC ruined a lot of communities because people stayed indoors more and did not go for drives in the evenings. We kids were also what they now call "free-range" kids and would be gone from morning to night, riding our bikes or playing in the neighborhood, building forts in the woods, picking wild strawberries, and climbing trees.

[Redetotry]

I've lived in Southern Illinois all my life except for two years in San Diego. Some of my earliest memories are of crying at night because I was so hot and telling my Mom that the fan (rotary) was ALWAYS on my brothers side of the room. I also remember how wonderful it was when we got a window fan that brought in that sometimes lovely cool night air. Now I can't imagine how we lived without 24/7 AC and but maybe it took us a long time to thaw out in the summer from the winter cold. We had two coal stoves and at night zero heat as Daddy banked the fires then started them up early in the mornings. We also played outside and entertained ourselves all day in the summers. I spent a lot of time with my neighbors who did have a basement. I keep our house at around 72 summer and winter now and I have remote start on my car so it is heated or cooled when I face the elements! With the high heat and high temperatures here it isn't like in other places I have been where you can shut the house up and it stays cool. I was surprised when I visited friends in Kelseyville, CA that it could be really high temps and yet they could close up the house, turn fans on and it kept cool.

All the talk about AT&T makes me even more hesitant to make changes to our service!! We have the old unlimited plan and I think they are consistently raising the rates to force those who still have that plan to abandon it. Even if someone did install the equipment I would then need to learn how to turn it all on! Technology is getting way to complicated!

[Acadianmom]

BJ, I'm like you, I don't know how we lived without air conditioning. I can remember crying at night because it was so hot and my mother was wiping me with a wet wash cloth. This was at my grandmother's house in Wichita Falls, Texas and I must have been about 7. When we were in Texas we had an evaporative cooler that was in the kitchen window. Probably the only way my mother could cook in there. When we moved to Louisiana it is so humid here that it didn't do any good. One of the houses where we lived in Louisiana was about 3' off the ground and we would play under the house in the summer. I didn't have air conditioning until I moved into the sophomore dorm at college. The freshman dorm had big fans at the end of the hall that were almost as big as the hall. They were like attic fans and were suppose to pull air out. The rooms had high ceilings and the big windows. We would go to class, come back, take a shower, change clothes and go to class again. I was very clean that year. lol

Martha

[snowball]

I have an old dish (direct tv) for the 5th wheel and we have the two receivers.. haven't had it hooked up this summer as my son in law that usually hooks it up for me hasn't been in Idaho yet. makes me wonder what will happen when I do get it hooked up my dream is to have a dish permanently set up so all I have to do is take the cable and screw it into the rv and when I leave take the old dish with me as I do now...we will see was going to do it and the company that came to hook it up refused said it was a tripping hazard...no more so than the long extension cord and water hoses that are there...oh well hopefully it will happen when I get back home
oh and I have both coasts costs 5 dollars for each but really enjoy having it as I watch network a lot
sheila