Go Green & turn off the A/C...

[PPGMD]

Another huge Star Trek fan, I also loved Stargate, and Battlestar Galatica. I liked the Firefly movie, not a huge fan of the TV show though, never seen Farscape either.

[JonnyB]

Hmmm....

Do I detect a major thread drift?

Mrs. and I are so freaking green that we're going to recycle an entire house! We're buying one that has to be moved and will repair and update it.

The old furnace and AC unit are going to the scrap recyclers, though.

jb

[Art Eatman]

Drifting is fun.

A positive aspect of high temperatures in the desert is that it doesn't cost nearly as much to run a "swamp cooler" as it does a regular A/C unit.

A little water pump and a 1/4hp squirrel-cage fan are pretty cheap.  At 17¢ a kw-hr, my usage in mid-summer costs me around $60 a month for electricity for the house.  The A/C folks run $200 and up.

, Art

[LadySmith]

Drifting is fun.

Old school trekkie, loved Next Generation, DS9 grew on me, didn't watch any other part of the franchise after that. Caught a few episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica, never saw the new version. The few Farscape episodes I caught were interesting, never saw SG1 and am absolutely hooked on Firefly/Serenity.
As for A/C, if I can't see my breath in my house, then it's too warm.

[K Frame]

I once had someone try to tell me that I should get a swamp cooler for my house.

He didn't quite grasp the concept that DC metro in summer is often high double digits for humidity, and the desire is to remove moisture from the air, not add to it.

[mtnbkr]

I'll do you one better...

When my parents moved to SW Va, they were told they didn't need AC at all because it was so cool in the summer, being in the mountains and all. 

BS.

The summers there are about as hot and humid as the ones in DC.  Maybe if you lived up one one of the taller peaks around the valley and had a house competely surrounded by large trees, but not down in the valley where most people lived in suburbs with the normal number of trees.

Chris

[K Frame]

I grew up in a 1870s-era house that had two window air conditioners -- one in the kitchen, one in the parent's bedroom.

When I moved to DC I had a top floor apartment in Washington that had eastern and southern exposure all day. The walls were thick masonry. When that place heated up in the summer it could be unbearable. The air conditioner in the bedroom window barely made a dent even though it ran 24x7 when it was hot out.

[Art Eatman]

108F outside, yesterday; 80, inside.

I'm green enough to smile at a $60/month electric bill.

Art 

[mountainclmbr]

I don't have AC being that 80F would be near a record high temp here at over 8,000 ft elevation. I have propane-hot water baseboard primary heat in winter, but try to keep the two wood burning stoves going to keep the thermostats from kicking the heater on. My fireplaces are the modern fireplace insert types that have double walls and a fan that forces high volume air between the two walls. It is winter conditions for all but 4-5 months per year so heating is the biggest concern (It was snowing last night and wind to about 80mph). I use about 4 cords of wood in winter and have south and west facing windows to get good solar collection. I do have to open windows in summer.

[Perd Hapley]

108F outside, yesterday; 80, inside.

I'm green enough to smile at a $60/month electric bill.

Art 

80 degrees?      Old folks. 

[Art Eatman]

Yeah, old, but remember that 80F at 30% relative humidity is quite comfortable.  80F and 80% relative and the sweat pours off me when I'm standing still.

My operating range, generally, is from 70F to 110F.  Somebody from high country or from wet country who tries to hike with me in the desert and only drinks water when and as little as I do is gonna die.  When I first moved here, outdoor work had me drinking some three gallons of water and Gatorade a day.  A year later?  Same work but less than one gallon.  Acclimatization.

Art

[K Frame]

"80F and 80% relative and the sweat pours off me when I'm standing still."

Welcome to today in Washington, DC, metro.

Only, it's going up to 95-97 today...

[charby]

"80F and 80% relative and the sweat pours off me when I'm standing still."

Welcome to today in Washington, DC, metro.

Only, it's going up to 95-97 today...

Urban heat sink?

[mtnbkr]

Urban heat sink?

No, it is/was a swamp.  Most of the Mid-Atlantic is hot and humid this time of year through early September.

Chris

[charby]

Urban heat sink?

No, it is/was a swamp.  Most of the Mid-Atlantic is hot and humid this time of year through early September.

Chris

I've never been to DC I figured it was cooler in the summer than here in the midwest. We have actually be a lot cooler than normal the past couple weeks.

[mountainclmbr]

Ice on the back deck this morning. Low temp last night in the upper 20's.

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KCOGOLDE3

[K Frame]

"I figured it was cooler in the summer than here in the midwest..."

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Up until building air conditioning became relative common, Washington, DC, was considered a TROPICAL posting for diplomats from most European nations.

The heat and humidity in DC metro during the summer can be absolutely grinding. It's almost something alive.

It's fairly rare for the thermometer temperature to go over 100 here, but it does happen.

But, it's VERY common for the "felt temperature" which is derived as a combination of the thermometer temperature and the humidity, to be 100+ for days, or even weeks, on end.

The highest I specifically remember was 112-115 in 1993 during a nearly 3 week heat wave that was just crushing.

My exwife and I chose to go to Mt. Vernon on July 2 or 3. BIG mistake.

[mtnbkr]

Urban heat sink?

No, it is/was a swamp.  Most of the Mid-Atlantic is hot and humid this time of year through early September.

Chris

I've never been to DC I figured it was cooler in the summer than here in the midwest. We have actually be a lot cooler than normal the past couple weeks.

I haven't been to the Midwest, but summers are generally mid to upper 90s with humidity to match.  We get a few 100+ days thrown in for good measure.  While the humidity is near 100%, we'll still go weeks with little to no rain, so everything bakes to a nice golden brown.  You'll get some relief from the heat and humidity in the mountains nearby, but it's still in the mid to upper 80s on the tallest of those peaks when it's in the 90s here.

Chris

[charby]

Urban heat sink?

No, it is/was a swamp.  Most of the Mid-Atlantic is hot and humid this time of year through early September.

Chris

I've never been to DC I figured it was cooler in the summer than here in the Midwest. We have actually be a lot cooler than normal the past couple weeks.

I haven't been to the Midwest, but summers are generally mid to upper 90s with humidity to match.  We get a few 100+ days thrown in for good measure.  While the humidity is near 100%, we'll still go weeks with little to no rain, so everything bakes to a nice golden brown.  You'll get some relief from the heat and humidity in the mountains nearby, but it's still in the mid to upper 80s on the tallest of those peaks when it's in the 90s here.

Chris

Summer we run 80-95, get stretches of 95-100 days. We have high humidity but it goes up and down depending upon what front system is passing through from the panhandle. It can be 95 and 85-90% humidity, but its not bad in the shade if you have a 10-15 mph breeze. I hate the windless days of late July and August.

One of the best feelings in the summer is the 20 degree instant temperature drop when a squall line passes over. It also means that there is going to be a hell of a downpour and possible damaging storm.

-C

[K Frame]

DC was built on a swamp, but that really doesn't explain the humidity.

Only the ongoing political situation...

[mtnbkr]

No, but the humidity and overall weather conditions probably contributed to the swamp's existence.

Chris

[K Frame]

No, but the humidity and overall weather conditions probably contributed to the swamp's existence.

Chris

The underlying geology and topography of the area contributed to the swamp's existence.

Weather of course affected it, given that if you don't have rain, you don't generally have a swamp.

Humidity doesn't have much of an effect on a swamp one way or another, other than to slow down evaporation.

[charby]

what Mike said.

I imagine that tundra marshes and swamps aren't that humid of a place in the warm seasons. Same for the marshes of Iraq.

-Charby

[K Frame]

Or the swamps in the Nile delta in Egypt.

[Balog]

Nothing like living in Arizona in the summer and needing a sweater in the house. Mmm....

I shudder to think of your electrical bills. 

Eh, in the hottest months bills averaged $140-190. In the winter we basically used no electricity. Our lowest bill was $6; a lot were almost there. Averaged for the entire year we had a remarkably low utility burden.