I have a whole house fan that I think needs to be reconditioned/fixed. Wouldn't help for weather like this, but would work better than just a box fan in the window as I've been doing when it isn't roasty weather.

askye- trick from a desert dweller: leave all the windows open and fans on while it is cool- basically until sunrise. Lowest temps are usually before dawn. THEN shut everything down at sunrise or so (desert it is around 9 or so when it starts heating up,) keep the air moving inside.

Tim handles the heat and humidity just fine, and can go without a/c all summer, if not for the pets (because it's really not fair to let the house get insanely hot for the fur-covered critters). So his acquiescence to my a/c jones is a very nice things indeed.

Another thing that bugs: getting hotter when I lie down flat, when I was perfectly fine sitting up a half hour ago.

askye- trick from a desert dweller: leave all the windows open and fans on while it is cool- basically until sunrise. Lowest temps are usually before dawn. THEN shut everything down at sunrise or so (desert it is around 9 or so when it starts heating up,) keep the air moving inside.

this is what I do all summer in Seattle, and there's usually only a couple of days when I need a/c. Love it. Favorite part of moving here. And the window fan I have is one I got remembering Smonster having one, with an intake and exhaust fan.

If it's humid, turning off the A/C and pulling in humid air versus leaving the A/C on is kind of a wash in terms of electricity use.

We didn't have A/C in Chicago when I was a kid, and I remember lying on top of the covers in front of a fan and not being able to sleep. I also spent a summer in Nashville and a summer in Macon without it. The next time I spend a summer without A/C, I'll either be living in a very different climate or trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.

sara I'll have to try that. I haven't really left the windows open at night, but I'll try it. So far it's been nice enough that running a fan works to cool things off.

I'm getting used to being this far north. Will and I took a drive today and if I had my enhanced driver's license we could have driven into Canada! We didn't , we just drove over to New York and around a bit. This is the first time I've been back that way since I came up and the flooding is even crazier.

Lake Champlain has been at or above the highest level recorded in the past 184 years for most of the month and we keep getting more rain. When we were driving we passed geese paddling around in what used to be crop fields. And we saw kayakers paddling around in what is flooded fields.

did you look at Levis curve id?

I come up against the wall of describing my body in terms I just don't use, but it gave me something. Measurements would be more sensible.

Oh, god I can't believe I just woke up. There's no way I'm sleeping tonight, is there?

I didn't always run the a/c when I was hot in Florida, trying to keep the electricity bills down. One of my stay cool tricks is to keep aloe gel in the fridge and then slather it on when I'm feeling hot. And to really cool off -- slather it on and then sit in front of a fan.

I grew up in Tennessee without any kind of A/C. Open windows and floor fans, and one ceiling fan in the den. It was awfully hot, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't THIS hot, this early or for this long. Or, maybe I was just smaller and therefore had a larger surface-area-to-volume ratio and thus cooled off easier.

The next time I spend a summer without A/C, I'll either be living in a very different climate or trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Ginger and I are as one in this. I can't stand the heat and am willing - and thankfully able - to pay $$ to make my personal air cool.