quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
ensigmatic, can you link to one of those misters you are referring to plz.

There are all kinds of them, ORC. Some are meant to be permanent installations. Some of them you hook up to your garden hose. Some of them work in conjunction with powered fans--others are more passive. The variations are nearly endless.

Try searching on "outdoor mister cooling" (w/o the quotes) and you'll get plenty of hits.

The idea is to generate a a very fine mist--one so fine it creates a cooling effect, but not so much it actually makes you and everything around actually wet, per se.

They create a cooling effect two ways: One being by the mist evaporating in the air surrounding you and the other by the mist landing upon you and evaporating off your skin (just like sweat works).

The airborne evaporation effect is the same reason grass, shrubbery, and trees nearby create cooling zones: Evaporation of the moisture from the vegetation surfaces and evaporation of the moisture those surfaces release into nearby air.

quote:

Originally posted by 2PAK:
I'm pulling the rip cord and checking into a hotel for the next two nights.

I feel for you 2PAK. It's toasty here but we have a below ground basement and can still sleep at night.

Mitch

The misters are very effective in dry climates, somewhat effective in humid ones.

We have a long horse barn, 130' or so, and we have 8 mister nozzles mounted on the bottom of the trusses at each end of the barn, fed by a 1/2 PVC pipe. This one.

It is effective in lowering the temperature of the porches on each end of the barn, and cools the interior if there is a breeze blowing through the structure. You can order new nozzles for it. They last about half a season with hard water, and can be cleaned with CLR or white vinegar. We have a few sets that we rotate.

However, Central Florida is very humid, and the misters leave water on the floor because it simply can't evaporate off fast enough in the humid conditions.

In dry air, for us, that rare hot dry spring day, they are fantastic, lowering temp almost 10 degrees while not collecting any water.

They also make rings of mister nozzles that clip to the face of high volume fans, and those are also very effective, but with the same humid/dry caveat.

Back when we were first married and couldn't even afford a window air conditioner, I had one of those small kiddie pools. I would fill that up a couple of times a week, then sit it in for a bit before turning in for the night. It was amazing how it cooled me off and let me fall asleep on those hot, humid nights.

Naive me used to wonder why the news made a big deal about folks in the northeast and upper midwest would be dropping like flies in temps that didn’t sound like a big deal until I was friends with a gal from up around Cleveland. it had never even been on my radar that big swatches of the country didn’t have A/C because they didn’t or rarely needed it.

^^yeah, when I was a cop we found more dead people folks the summer…the heat kills them. The winters not so much. I guess the family or friends check in on folks when it’s super cold, but in the summer they don’t think it(heat) kills.

I reflect now about growing up in Fla, (1970) we never had AC in schools, we wore shorts and opened the windows. I went to a private school for 6-9 and we had AC but when I went to high school, they had just installed them in 1985.
We played outside every day until the streetlights came on. Now we had AC at home because my dad began sweating when he left for work around 0730 and didn’t stop until he was home…he’s from Philly…but our house was a fluke, neighbors had AC but it was never as cold as our house…I remember dad installing insulation when Carter was President because he got some kinda deduction maybe for it during the energy crunch.
Right now in central Texas, I will pay for it to be 74 in the house when it’s 100 outside.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I wait until the cool of the evening (currently 61 here in MQT) and place fans into the windows to draw in cool air. After the temp drops, I close the windows and make sure the curtains are closed. It then takes most of the following day before the temps get uncomfortable. Rinse and repeat. YMMV.

I do something mostly similar. The difference being (and I'm doing it right now) as I'm in a two story house, I open some windows on the ground level and have a fan or two blowing out the window(s) upstairs.
It's down in the mid 60's atm here, but very humid.
I try to avoid using it but we do have A/C. So I might run it for short period in the morning to remove the humidity. Or I might not. And draw the blinds, curtains. We have lousy insulation but as Yooper points out, it works for most of the day.

ETA: My bedroom is upstairs and shares a wall w/ the attic of the garage. I often get home after second shift and its 86* in my bedroom. After an hour w/ the fan blowing out, I'm in the upper 70's tonight.
It takes longer to cool my room but setting up the fan to blow out the window is more efficient when considering the whole house.
Obviously this does not work as well when it's 70-80 at night but then it's better than nothing while I run a second fan towards my bed.

Two story house, when outdoor temps are lower than indoor box fans blowing out in upstairs windows. Come morning close all windows and heavy drapes. Use fans to recirculate air till evening and repeat process.

Two story house is the key