Jesus. It’s 96 degrees and 1000% humidity. This just plain sucks.
I’m so sick of air conditioning. You can’t not have it on; it’s too hot. But when it’s on, you get that perpetually clammy feeling.
This morning, the local infortainment show had their weatherperson standing by, periodically reporting in as she measured a block of ice melting on the sidewalk. In the last few minutes of the show, she grabbed the remaining ice and shoved it down the front of her shirt.
“I’ve wanted to do that all morning,” she said. “You have no idea how good that feels.”
I went out at lunch and the humidity seemed pretty low. I was out for about 15 min (went to a lunch truck) and never broke a sweat. It was much more humid this morning, IMO.
Of course, that didn’t help me sleep last night. I drifted in and out of sleep in a pattern remeniscent of when I had a 103F and pneumonia - was I asleep and dreaming, or awake and hallucinating? Bleh.
Susie,
It may make you feel a little better and take your mind off the heat to:
Enter “Santorum” into Google and click on the “I’m feeling lucky” button.
Enjoy.
Clammy feeling with an air conditioner? Are you sure you don’t have a swamp cooler (aka evaporative cooler) instead?
Swamp coolers inject humidity into the air to reduce the ambient temperature while air conditioners reduce temps as well as humidity levels. Swamp coolers work best with one window open somewhere else in the house or building to allow air to circulate. They cost less than half as much to operate as air conditioners, but they don’t work well in humid conditions. Swamp coolers work best in dry environments like the Southwest and the Rocky Mountain West. If you have the sense of clamminess from your air conditioning, perhaps it’s really evaporative cooling.
This educational nugget brought to you by your architect, The Dad.
Climatologists say humid hot spell takes toll on air conditioners
By WILLIAM KATES
Associated Press Writer
July 26, 2005, 4:19 PM EDT
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Imagine. It’s even too hot for the air conditioners.
Climatologists at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University reported Tuesday that dew points _ the day-to-day measure of humidity in the air _ were so high last week that in 13 major Northeast cities they exceeded the “design dew point,” or maximum humidity level at which air conditioning systems can operate efficiently.
“Air conditioners have design capacities for temperature and humidity. If one is exceeded but not the other, it’s not a problem,” said Larry Spielvogel, who runs a consulting engineering business in suburban Philadelphia that advises building owners on air conditioning systems.
“It’s when both exceed the design capacity, that’s when you have a problem,” said Spielvogel, who also helped develop national energy conservation standards for the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers.
The society publishes design dew points for U.S. and world cities. When both temperature and humidity barriers are breached, air conditioners use more energy to run less efficiently with reduced cooling effect, Spielvogel said.
Temperatures soared past 100 again in several cities Monday and Tuesday, and the National Weather Service posted excessive heat warnings and advisories from Illinois to Louisiana and from Nebraska to the District of Columbia. The blistering heat has caused numerous deaths this summer. In the Phoenix area alone, 24 people, most of them homeless, have died.
During July’s extended hot spell, design dew points were exceeded in Albany, N.Y.; Boston; Buffalo; Burlington, Vt.; Charleston, W.Va.; New York City; Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; Portland, Me.; Providence, R.I.; Syracuse; Washington, D.C.; and Wilmington, Del., said Dan Graybeal, a research climatologist at the regional climate center.
The dew point expresses the day-to-day moisture content of the air in terms of a temperature at which condensation occurs, Graybeal said.
Not only has the Northeast seen high dew points, but they have persisted for weeks. So far this season, Albany and Pittsburgh have set new records for the number of days with 70-degree or higher dew points: Albany with 20 days, and Pittsburgh with 26 days.
“The Northeast has had high energy demand,” Graybeal said. “Exceeding the design dew point is an important factor in that high energy demand. ”
Graybeal said this has been the Northeast’s first unusually hot summer in three years. The high humidity has been caused by the return of the dominance of the Bermuda High. The warm humid air flowing into the Northeast from the South has been exacerbated by muggy air created by moisture from decaying tropical storms as they diminished over the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys.
There are two types of air conditioning systems _ one that uses chemically refrigerated air and another that uses water, said Johnny Johnson, an engineer for Carrier Corp., the world’s largest makers of air conditioners. Both can be affected by the combination of high temperatures and excessive humidity, but more so water-cooled systems.
Spielvogel said most homes use air-cooled systems while larger buildings _ factories, malls and libraries, for instance _ use water-cooled systems and large industrial chillers.
“Water-cooled systems work by rejecting heat by evaporating water. Obviously, when the air is saturated with moisture, the water is more difficult to evaporate and the machine must work harder,” said Spielvogel, who said homeowners can lessen the stress on their home units through simple steps, such as by keeping curtains drawn to reduce the greenhouse effect of the sun shining through windows.
Johnson recommended air conditioner owners also make sure their units have adequate levels of refrigerant and that they have the proper capacity for the size of area to be cooled.
pragmatic_realist: Interesting article. Water-cooled air conditioning systems (the ones with cooling towers out back or large condensing units on the roof) work by the same principle as evaporative cooling — adding moisture to hot air cools it down long enough to transfer that coolness (really lack of heat) to water in separate heat exchanger pipes. But this kind of system, though rendered less efficient by extremes of heat and humidity such as the Northwest is experiencing, doesn’t add humidity (a sense of clamminess) to the air being pumped out at Suzy. When she complained of clamminess, which I associate with cooler moisture-laden air, that sounded like swamp cooling to me. And swamp coolers are no damned good in high humidity conditions. Unfortunately, water-cooled air conditioning systems sometimes aren’t much better.
My air conditioner stopped working towards the end of the summer of 2003.
No biggie, we weren’t going to use it for a while anyway.
2004, no money to fix it, no money to run it. No problem - it was such a cool summer we only got in the pool twice.
But now, I wish it were working. Still, we have ceiling fans in almost every room.
Night before last, there was a big thunderstorm. Huge wind, so I had to close windows. The power went out as I was getting back in bed. We quickly learned how much difference those fans make. We decided a bit of water on the bedroom floor was tolerable.
Today, it is reasonable out there. Mid 80’s feels cold after the last few days.
Clammy? Make sure the A/C is actually able to drain it’s condensation (one more complaint to the super), Here in hellish West Central Florida we commonly get snot like algae/bacterial/fungoid plugs living in the drain lines for central air units. You may wish to invest in a tiny window unit (with all that spare money you have lying around) if you are stuck using central air but have the electric service covered by your rent, This would also allow you to better manage your the air in your living space (and get away from using the central air), which will do wonders for management of your allergies.