Residential air conditioning is a rare luxury in the Seattle area. Something that all the “oh it was only 97F what a bunch of pussy snowflakes!” crowd doesn’t really get.
Most places around here simply aren’t equipped for AC, and when it does get into the 80s and 90s there’s nowhere to escape to. My living room was hovering around 90F yesterday and it was fucking awful. Since there was basically no breeze, opening the windows did absolutely nothing.
Since we live in a condo, we have zero options aside from portable ACs, which are only slightly better than useless when it gets really hot. In the two bedrooms where we had portable ACs running full blast, the temperature only got down to around 85F.
Funny how the same people are never pussies when it’s 8°C, 0°C or -8°C. Then is perfectly sensible to leave the windows closed and to wear a jacket for a measly 500 meter walk.
Yeah, 5 decks of superstructure…You’re not going to see this pushing barges down the Mississippi. And judging from the beam to height ratio, the bridge would be a very uncomfortable place to be in any kind of swells…
120F weather is not exactly mild. I have friends in both Vegas and Phoenix and those temps are no joke.
Here in Austin the weather hasn’t been as bad, around 90F. But the rainy season just started which means humidity will start to go way up. Should be really muggy pretty soon and i’m not looking forward to it.
Anyway, I think the original point was that the temperature range people find comfortable varies a lot. Partly due to where they had been raised, partly simply by genetics and chance.
It’s frigging annoying to get told that I should feel comfortable at 24°C room temperature and not turn on the air conditioning (As a programmer! in an office facing at the south side of the building! Ins summer! On the Northern hemisphere!) because … reasons!
I don’t mind being warm in certain situations. Like if i’m outside i know i should deal with it but late at night at home or working in a hot room is a recipe for desperation.
I know in european countries is common not to have AC but honestly i couldn’t see myself living somewhere without it. I dont need to have it running all the time (the AC in my place is usually off), but i like being able to turn it on when it gets too warm.
Until recently you really didn’t need one. I can count the 30°C days we have each summer on one hand and before strong insulation became the norm, houses would easily cope with that.
And if you take a little care, it’s still manageable. (Northern Germany here.)
I’ve recently installed a thermometer tracking our main living room, which faces south. And has a glass ceiling and partial glass walls over the patio, catching the heat. We simply put down the shades when we are away or around noon and thus the living room never exceed 22°C. Kitchen 18°C. The 2nd floor rooms are a bit warmer (but not by much). 3rd floor is a bitch, though. Hard to ventilate, but we never intended to use it as storage.
Really, this. I don’t like hot weather at all but I find the temperature much easier to deal with when I’m outside versus inside. I also just can’t sleep when I’m hot.
I live in the area, and was about to go to bed when I heard it faintly in the distance. So naturally I got in my car and drove to see where it was coming from. If you want to hear it for yourself, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBGfRIPqhOg
We had a similar incident in my neighborhood here in TJ the same night. Someone’s car horn going off at 4:30 am and it couldn’t be stopped.
I walked down the street today and saw broken safety glass and what seemed to be burnt material, so I guess I wire fried and they had to break a window to turn it off?
Growing up in my old neighborhood i recall an instance during the summer break where i was walking to a friend’s house and the next block from where i live i heard a really loud shrill horn going off. It was the home’s security system, it had somehow been tripped while the family was gone on vacation and no one was around to deactivate it. I presume someone eventually took care of it but the damn sound was loud enough that being a few houses away from it was still painful to the ears.
