CNN:
California is cooking. Given that we in New Mexico live in a routinely hot climate, I’ll offer some tips for my friends in CA for walking around in the heat:
1. Wear a hat. The more airspace over your noggin, the better (leave baseball caps for the “Yes Dear” fans), with a wide brim to shelter as much as possible. I like raffia or straw, personally, though well-ventilated cotton designs aren’t too bad if blindingly white. One of the ways we New Mexicans immediately peg a tourist is ... no hat. There’s also an old pioneer saw about ‘no hat, dead by nightfall’ or along those lines. Learn from the past.
2. Carry an umbrella. If you’ve never carried one in the summer sun before, you’ll be surprised how cool the experience is. Highly recommended as a very simple solution to intense sun and heat.
3. Use a hand fan. Like the oriental fans geishas use. They give the upper arm mild exercise in the process. Most often used while sitting in outdoor spaces or cafes. Extra points for also carrying a horsetail whisk to keep bugs away ...
4. At hiking stores, you can buy little bandana things with gel inside that you can soak in water. They’re not too messy, once saturated, and keep your neck (and therefore head) cool. They last longer when your head is shaded by a good hat, up to a couple of hours.
5. Use light moisturizers and sunscreens. Go light on makeup, ladies. The heavy diesel goop that some people use traps heat and can encourage heat exhaustion.
6. Loose, light-colored clothing. But you knew this. I made the mistake of buying some t-shirts with a percent of lycra, in black. Don’t do that, if you want to be comfortable in the heat. Linen, cotton, breathable microfibers in as light a color as your color-sense can handle. They make some really nice button-down microfiber summer shirts now, with amazing ventilation abilities ... but as sane as the design is, the prices are insane. Shorts are not always cooler, either, in direct sun; I often have better luck with loose light-colored longs. I subscribe to the Bedouin philosophy, in other words (to be exact, if you don’t mind sweating, very loose black is cooler).
7. Open footwear. Avoiding a hot head and hot feet, is often all some folks need to do to handle heat. Sole thickness dependent upon your proximity to landscapes with cactus, goatheads, thistles. This does not mean Tevas or Keens, as many will imagine. Both these brands (and others) can be sweatshops for your feet (which is why they manufacture stuff like this). Birkenstocks, though often considered less than attractive, are often much cooler (and more supportive). I know the NY Times recently complained of the lack of formality in flip-flops, but when the heat’s on, you can find cheap ones that keep the soles of your feet ventilated. My current Reefs even open beer bottles; if they pulled wine corks, that’d be cool squared.
8. The last suggestion is more subtle. We New Mexicans navigate from shade to shade without thinking, walking from tree to portal to building to tree to wherever, sometimes seeming to others as if we’re weavingly, wanderingly drunk. It’s self-preservation, and a skill as finely-honed as that of “never look up, never respond to a noise” walking in Manhattan.
What about for just plain living in heat, without A/C? We do that routinely here, in our dry heat.
Make sure you have no synthetics on your bed (not even a blend). Well-worn, smooth cotton sheets and cotton coverings are the only way to go. Ceiling fans, box fans, strategically placed. You know those reflectors you put in your car windshield? Well, take ‘em out, buy a few more, and put ‘em in the sunny windows of your house. I put mine between my blinds and the window (metal blinds heat up incredibly, dissipate heat just like a radiator). You’ll discover an instant temperature drop, and they’re cheaper than buying window film. Actively manage the airspace in your house, opening everything up overnight, closing down in the morning after 10 AM (get those reflectors in the windows as soon as the sun comes up, or shortly thereafter), pull drapes on the sunny windows too. Turn off unnecessary computers, printers, monitors, appliances that create heat. Don’t turn on the dryer until after dark, when things have cooled down. Don’t use heat in your dishwasher dry cycle, and only run it after things have cooled down for the evening. After about 6 PM, when you feel that the outside is beginning to cool down beyond the ‘cool’ that’s left within your home, start to open everything up in the house, biasing towards the windy sides of the house. If you leave the house, close it all up, drop all the shades, and turn off all the fans. Vital point, that. [Elementary physics, look up what happens when you run a fan in an enclosed space, what happens to the temperature.]
This is ‘normal life’ in the heat of New Mexico, though this year I’ve only recently discovered the windshield visor trick. I have some nice spring-loaded ones that double as photographic reflectors on photo shoots. We don’t think about these routines anymore. If I could physically do so, I would add another foot of insulation to my ceiling. I’m considering more portals or shade devices outside sun-exposed windows. Just a few feet of shade can cool air entering the house (look at the older Southern houses for inspiration, with full-surround deep porches). Or, I almost forgot, the square compound with inner portal’ed courtyard, of Spanish design; though without Nader Khalil’s ingenious windscoops, I think I’d prefer the Southern porches.
Northern New Mexico is a place where traditionally we’ve never used, never needed, air conditioning. If only builders hewed more closely to history, and built only real adobe houses, we’d never need an A/C unit. But they build wood-frame stucco mostly, and you can never insulate enough to compare to real dirt adobe. After that, ceiling fans are best, in our dry heat. I’m trying to eke that out as long as humanly possible.
Hope that helps a few of you.
Comments:
Dan, what do you think about Gatorade, for electrolytes? The old philosophy in competitive bike racing was to get the powder, and mix it up half-strength; plenty of electrolytes there, but much less of a sugar-hit to the bloodstream.
Sugar is a diuretic and will actually pull fluid out of your circulatory system; that’s why soft drinks are contraindicated for hydration. I alternate Gatorade and water here on my “outside days” (corporate shopping at Costco and such). Our mechanics use the half-strength system in their shop cooler and say it works well for them.
Yep, if you’re sweating from the heat/exercise you need the electrolytes. ...and if you’re not sweating you’ve likely moved past heat exhaustion to heat stroke (ten deaths locally from Friday through Monday here).
This is really an intense heat: In that shot from my car interior (http://thetimesink.net/2006/DCB060724.html#Wednesday) the windows were all down 1 inch and I had reflective screens on the south windshield and the west front passenger window…
And you’ve got the humidity, which we haven’t got here in the high desert. Still, with our monsoons, it’s been more humid than usual, which just increases that heat ‘feel’. Sometimes you feel like there just isn’t enough water left in the world, that you could possibly imbibe fast enough ...
Someone used to make a solar fan that you could place in your car windows (rolled up tight against the sliver-shaped fan). Don’t know if a Google might get you there ... but it might help.
Oh, and ... we also carry old beach towels in the car, to throw over the steering wheel (whether a reflector is used or not). Darned wheel gets hot enough to blister, around here.
I favor Pedialyte for maintence hydration - no sugar and the right electrolytes at the osmolar levels, and available in dried form you you can remix with any water you happen to have on you.
The problem, of course, is that it tastes bad - which is why the sports drink folks try to hide the taste with sweetness. Still, if the idea is to keep your lytes right and you fluid volume optimal, then why worry about taste?
Well, I’ll be darned. I’ll try it. Even at half-strength, Gatorade tends to spike my blood sugar too much during exercise, bringing the ‘down’ with it (unless continuously imbibed ... a chore, sometimes).
Here in Oakland CA, on the east side of San Francisco Bay, in a hotter neighborhood of town, we normally don’t need any a/c at all. Our wood frame house with a heavily insulated attic stays cool for three days, and most heat waves never last longer than that. But the one just finished did, and we were stifling.
HOwever my dad is a mechanical engineer with a lifelong interest in passive solar, and he taught me as a child to figure out the wind patterns and ventilation around a home. From our first summer in this house I began opening windows at night, using a window fan strategically, closing curtains and so on. This helps keep us comfortable.
My latest discovery: opening the back garage door, the garage door (it’s on the first floor) and the inner house door creates a chimney effect, but only if the evening air cools off. You can stand in the inner (garage-to-house) door and feel the hot air from the garage whooshing up the main staircase, presumably to flow out the opened skylight at the top of the house
Your reflector tip is fabulous.
To deal with permanent climate change we may have to install awnings on all the south facing windows.
Oh yeah, and re: drying clothes during the day - how about drying them outside in the sun? I’ve been doing this all week. Saves natural gas, which matters because we’re threatened with rolling blackouts and the electric plants run on it; provides a slight bit more of exercise because of tromping out to the yard and back.
Re hydrating - we’re drinking water and eating fresh fruit. I don’t hold with that commercial stuff.
Thanks for the tips and the description of life in New Mexico. I wish I had a courtyard and an adobe house, old California style. I’m half-Lebanese and I love that kind of living, it’s very Arab.
Yes, yes ... my garage faces west (where the wind predominantly blows from), and can be used to completely exhaust the house swiftly. Mine has a regular door on one side, which I use to exhaust the initial heat (and to allow the frame and roof to cool a bit from the inside), then I open the door to the house.
As for drying clothes outside, I wish I could. Covenants prevent us from being able to do so (though I can hide behind high courtyard walls for a few items). But that’s a good reminder.
Water and fresh fruit. To be honest, I forgot you folks are all in CA, where fruit is plentiful. If only I could get decent fresh fruit! Santa Fe is not graced with fine produce. I don’t know whether it is that high altitude (7500’), dry climate, or distance in delivery destroys good fruit, but getting decent oranges, apples, cherries and such is rare. And they come at a high price, too. Foodstuffs are much more expensive here. But yes, yes, indulge in your lovely fruits!
My goal, with hydration, is to not just replace fluids, but electrolytes ... without sugar. Emphasizing salt, which has been given a bad rap here in America over the last few decades. I could just salt a diluted fruit juice, though, to keep things healthier than the usual mass-production solution. But I’ve been at cross-purposes, thinking of Pedialyte for exercise, rather than just heat-prostration.
Real adobe living is great. You know it instantly when you walk inside, there’s an a/c like coolness ... enhanced when they do a natural treatment on the floor, like tile. Modern tech on the roof, however, improves on the historical model. Heavily insulated tin or steel roofs seem best here. You automatically feel grounded in an adobe home, and it’s not just some new-age perception. It just feels right.
Rammed earth is fantastic too, when folks build those walls even thicker than adobe. Hay bale, I’m not so fond of. One hole in the stucco, and you’ve got a huge rodent issue (here in bubonic plague country, too). And though folks say settling is minimal if done properly, I remain skeptical over longevity.
Arab culture has been living with heat significantly longer than we have here in New Mexico, and of course Arab culture heavily influenced the Spanish ... I love finding out more about the various adaptations to their environment. I mentioned Nader Khalili; look for some of his books. He has a great one on creating ceramic houses, which mentions the windscoop concept I highlighted. He’s changed over to another technique now, though ... ‘tube building’. His goal is to find a low-cost, low-skill method for building homes. He also has a website: http://www.calearth.org/.
Thanks for these reminders, a few new ones here for me. I recently moved from mostly cool Vermont to hot, humid upstate NY and am really feeling the difference.
RE: electrolyte type drinks, see if you can find Emer’gen-C at a health food store. They’re come in single-serving packets of powder & you add water. Sweetened with fructose, and I think at least one flavor is fructose-free.
I just moved from a house where we had no A/C but we did have a whole-house fan - a fan in the ceiling that, when on, creates a vacuum from the living area pulling air to the attic. It was awesome - just open windows, turn that on, and the whole house is to the temperature of outside within an hour.
Doesn’t help much when its humid and overnight lows are 75, but in a dry heat environment where it cools at night, a whole house fan would be great.
I’m finding that I’m not the only one to discover auto windshield reflectors. Got mine at the dollar store. Unless you’re an early riser (I’m not) it’s a good idea to cover east windows before you go to bed. Never give that sun a chance to sneak in. It makes a huge difference.
...and water, water, water: “If you’re not peeing; you’re not hydrating” (old medic-fu).
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