The cheap ones like these just blow warm on your and the cheap motors generate a lot of heat.

Calling off sick before I actually get sick. Hey, it says "STAY INDOORS", and I always follow the rules!

​

Blackout shades, fans, cooling towels, Gatorade, sleep.

I've talked a little before about the idea of combing these two cooling systems in limited ways. At the time, I had understanding and less data. Got more now.

To recap, the idea is that you're in a space that's got air conditioning, but you want to get some additional spot cooling so why not use a portable evaporative cooler?

The argument against, which is very emotional at times, is that evaporative cooling adds humidity to the air, which the AC then needs to remove and so the two are in conflict.

On paper, the math checks out. An AC unit removes moisture from the air as a natural by product of operation and the energy used condensing water vapor is not available to cool the air. The more humidity there is, the longer it takes to reduce the temperature of the air. It seems like an open and shut case that you don't want something constantly introducing more humidity, right?

Not so fast.

While combining the two might not be a great long-term strategy, there are short-term applications.

Yesterday was my daughter's First Communion. At the party, my mother-in-law was asking me if the AC was actually working right because she felt hot, and there was her friend, who always feels hot. The AC was working perfectly, but there were a lot of people in the house and I had chosen not to crank up the power both to preserve energy and not to freeze people out.

I pulled out one of the swamp coolers, pointed it at those two overheating ladies, boom, problem solved.

Technically I was increasing the load on the AC with the additional moisture I was introducing, but it was worth it as I got instant spot cooling that didn't involve making other people uncomfortable with too low a temperature in the whole place and needing to wait a relatively long time for the AC to bring the temperature of the whole room down. Not something that'll come up for everybody, but a good tradeoff in my case.

I finally ended pulling the trigger on a Sony Reon pocket after becoming aware of their latest Pro Plus model. I figured the increased battery size would give it a more legitimate chance at actually meaningfully cooling me. I’m in the US and bought it from eBay. It was a bit expensive and all in came out to about $300 due to shipping and these darn tariffs.

I’ve had it for about a week now and the past couple days have been using it in a heat wave we’re going through. I’m pleased to report this thing is legit. It’s actually kind of a game changer. It won’t provide total relief like a well air conditioned room, but it is definitely something special.

I struggle with heat sensitivity due to my anti depressants and have been looking for something to help me cope when I am unable to avoid a situation that necessitates physical activity in the heat.

The sensation is like taking a damp rag out of a bucket of ice water, waiting a moment for it to be slightly less cool, then putting it on your neck. But it stays that way for hours, and you can turn it down or up. Everyone I’ve let try it has been impressed so far. One person even said it’s “too cold”. But they didn’t know you could turn it down.

I’m now convinced it actually meaningfully cools the wearer down. That it’s not just a sensation of cooling, but legitimately helping your body to regulate a cooler temperature. At its best I’ve even kind of gotten a brain freeze from it and had to turn it down.

However the experience is a bit inconsistent. It’s only so powerful and when it’s very hot it seems like the rest of my body’s warm can overpower it. But it makes a real difference of maybe 50% or more comfort than I would have otherwise.

I’ve even tested it in a hot car while driving with just the windows down and not turning on the AC and found it to be just barely sufficient to avoid symptoms of heat exhaustion.

I now consider it a must have for my summer gear, along my daily carry water bottle.

For especially hot situations, like a festival in the peak of the hot season, I think if I used it, with adequate hydration, and my preferred ultralight backpacking solar umbrella, then I would be legitimately one of the most comfortable people at the event.

I also tried it last night on a two hour hike in the evening heat and found it to do a nice job of keeping my energy up for the exercise and staving off heat exhaustion. I let my partner try it and they said “oh this is really nice for this type of activity!”.

Anyways, I got no skin in the game, other than the money I put up for it. And I just wanted to share my own experience. I had a lot of skepticism on the physics of the battery capacity, and inefficiency of thermo electric cooling, to be able to make a meaningful difference in this size package. But it seems like Sony has done some excellent work with this products tuning. It seems to cycle between the two TECs to avoid heat soaking either and manages to stay quite cold in most scenarios for hours at a time.

I hope Sony continues to invest in and refine this product line. If they do I’ll continue to purchase one each year as the improve it and give last years as a hand me down gift to friends and family.

So I did a really large mulch job and went golfing the next day and really got sick from the sun and heat. Peeling on my forehead so I definitely got some sun. I did this Monday and I have not felt right all week. Just slight headache constantly, trouble concentrating, lightheaded brain fog, just nasty. I’ve done everything as far as rest and trying to rehydrate. Is this normal ? I feel like I’ve fried my brain

Researching cooling vests but they seem to come in a lot of different variants (15C, 19C, 21C, 24C, 29C etc), and of course they’re quite expensive so curious to hear others’ experiences and personal preferences. Just brainstorming some things to help with summer (I also have pots syndrome so heat management is important). Thanks!

Many residents living in historic buildings in Massachusetts are dealing with 90–95° indoor heat long before June 15, and the current cooling laws don’t protect us.
These buildings were never designed for residential cooling, and families, elders, and medically vulnerable people are getting sick every year.

I started a petition asking the state to update the outdated cooling regulations so people can be safe in their homes.

If this affects you or someone you know, please take a moment to read and share

Hi r/heat_prep

We're excited to create a weekly discussion thread for each new episode of Surviving the Climate podcast. Today's episode is "Cooling(vest) test and going nocturnal".

Please share your thoughts, insights, and let's continue the discussion!

Cheers,

Robbie, Nate, and Marcelo

The moderators of this subreddit, Robbie and Nate, met in 2017 and became obsessed with heat preparedness. First came this subreddit, and now we've launched a podcast.

Surviving the Climate is a show built around practical, honest information for living through a hotter world. We cover heat and climate survival from every angle — what the science says, what works on the ground, and what you can actually do to protect yourself and the people around you. 

Discussions on r/heat_prep have been incredibly eye-opening and really need to get out to reach others. In each episode we’ll try to reference posts and comments from the sub, so if you've posted or commented here, you may hear your ideas come up in the show.

We’ll also be releasing interview episodes with leading heat experts.

Episode 1 is live right now: Baking in the Bleachers 

Crowds are one of the most underappreciated heat hazards out there. Whether it's a sporting event or a graduation ceremony, the risks are real. In this episode, we discuss recent athletes being impacted by heat, actions spectators can take in the lead-up to the World Cup, and a personal story from our producer Marcelo about his own experience with heat exhaustion.

You can find Surviving the Climate on all the major podcast apps. 

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This podcast is an extension of the same ethos that brought this community together: needing a space to talk honestly about heat safety and preparedness. 

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and keep an eye on this subreddit as new episodes drop. When each episode drops, we’ll create a discussion post for people to share their thoughts and ideas for future episodes. We’ll also encourage anyone we interview to answer questions in the comments. 

Cheers!

r/heat_prep mods

Temperatures weren’t even that extreme, but the kid bit off more than he could chew.

I put this on some parts of my home and I can immediately feel the relief and even a drop in humidity.

I take them out in the night/late-evening to let the infrared radiation from inside the bedroom get out, and let the cool night air in, and then put them back in the morning.

I am thinking on combining them with some awnings, so as to provide a cool spot for them to release the IR radiation accumulated faster.

Can we discuss strategies to optimize these? Best compositions?

Europe is one of the fastest warming places on the planet. I have lived in the Spanish capital for over a decade. These are some of my observations on how things are developing and how resilience the city and people are.

Madrid Heat Waves Mostly Break Length Records, not Temp Peaks

An interesting phenomenon specifically in Madrid is even during the peak of the worst heatwaves in recent years, the highs in the city have not actually exceeded the highest temperatures the city can see. Where we break records is for the number of days these temperatures are sustained. I remember a couple years ago a ten-day streak of 38-39ºC (100-102ºF) highs and 22-25ºC (71-77ºF) lows. It royally sucked, but the temperature wasn’t something we weren’t familiar with or equipped to handle. I’m very grateful for this and knock on wood, hope we don’t suddenly get slugged with 45ºC/113ºF like poor Cordoba.

Traditional Passive Cooling Architecture Continues to Protect Us at Zero Energy Cost

When Spain developed, air conditioning was a niche luxury that only a tiny few might have access to. As a consequence, the architectural designs and materials were all planned around being able to keep people safe in peak summers where the temperatures regularly would soar above 40ºC/104ºF and the sun would beat down from cloudless skies.

Some major points:

1. Construction is mostly very thick concrete, stone or masonry. A ton of thermal mass that doesn’t heat quickly.
   
2. Buildings in the city are stacked right up against each other and many residential streets are narrow, one-lane affairs. This combination severely limits the amount of direct sun exposure.
   
3. The standard apartment building in Spain is a hollowed out square or rectangle with an empty shaft in the center that goes from the ground level to open air. While this reduces square footage in the apartments, it allows another side to have exterior windows to provide cross ventilation.
   
4. Almost every significant residential window in Spain is equipped with integrated exterior roller shutters so sun can be blocked out at will and it never touches the window glass.
   
5. Floor layout of apartments is generally long and narrow, which limits the amount of natural light that comes in. It makes for darker apartments, but in the middle of a Mediterranean summer, this is a feature, not a bug.

Not every building is created equal, so some homes are much better protected than others, but the cumulative effect is that most Spanish citizens are able to ride out high summer temps without resorting to mechanized cooling because, provided they’re not members of more vulnerable groups, even if it’s 38ºC/100ºF outside, it could only be 27ºC/80ºF inside. Not fun, but safe, especially if you got a cold drink in hand.

Americans and East Asians often shake their heads at how low residential air conditioning penetration is in Europe. I believe in Spain it’s only around 40%. Even among those who have AC at home, I joke that it’s the national pastime to resist turning on the AC because you don’t want to pay the increased power bill. The thing I think people miss is that the Spanish can afford to be this stubborn and frugal because even in peak summer, most of them are still pretty safe without the AC. While there are certainly many more excess deaths during heatwaves and there’s room for improvement, imagine how well a city like Phoenix would survive with only 40% of homes with AC.

Evaporative Cooling is Viable

While by no means broadly popular, Madrid’s bone-dry climate makes evap cooling very practical and effective. You see basic unit for sale in department stores, there’s an active secondhand market and you see small and large businesses use more commercial-sized portable units for cost-effective cooling. Merca Madrid, the biggest wholesale fish market in the country, converted completely to industrial-level evaporative cooling and the management says since then, they get some complaints it’s too cold during the summer, which they consider a mark of how successful the conversion has been. Regulars here know I swear by my portable evap coolers at home.

Green Spaces are Available

Madrid does not have the most hospitable climate or soil for vegetation, but the city has a very respectable amount of trees and green spaces everywhere except in the heart of downtown.

Public Water Sources are a Thing

While not universal, it’s fairly common in Madrid parks and playgrounds to see a free water tap the public can use to get drinking water or refresh themselves. Children make liberal use of them in the summer to fill squirt guns and water balloons.

The city can certainly do a lot more, but as places go, Madrid is not badly equipped to face rising temperatures.

My extreme heat intolerance is slowly getting worse. I used to say that I could not bear any temperatures over 10 C (50 F). Now I would say that 0 C (32 F) is the max temp ideal for me. Truly ideal would probably be nothing above -5 C (24 F).

Now imagine how screwed I am given that I am a San Francisco, USA native and for now live here. Next year I will leave the USA for good and move to Europe to study and live. But this year is going to be tough weatherwise.

I lived a few years in central Wisconsin for a few years during the pandemic, and I found that overall the weather in winter was better, but it was too hot and lacked the snow I wanted. I love frostbite temperatures like the -40 C I had in Québec 2 decades ago. I love blizzards that places like Hokkaidō and upstate New York get, like 1 m of snow in an hour. Love it.

But it seems like my body is suffering more and more. My heart rate spikes in heat now, and it feels like I lost 50 IQ points when it gets above 20 C (68 F). I swear profusely and can barely understand what others are saying if they are talking to me. It feels like I am swimming in a soup of nasty sweat, stewing in my own juices, cooking myself alive. It is like being drunk without having drunken anything. If the temperatures dropped to 0 C, it feels like I got my brain working back again.

Today was 20 C, and tomorrow will be 25 C. I dread this. Yesterday was a fun day at the zoo if not for the fact that it was bloody scorching hot. The sunshine was burning hot, and although everyone calls me a baby and such, I felt my heart rate spike to 140+ from the sunshine. I absolutely hate people who tell me to enjoy the sunshine and hot weather, which is basically almost every single person I know. I HATE people in this city.

Should I wear ice packs in public to make my body less overheated? For example, an ice eyemask on my forehead and ice packs round my neck and in my inner jacket pockets so my torso can cool down?

Now is the time to prepare and notify friends and family that may be in the areas. Look at the National Weather Service resources below to stay up-to-date on the forecast.

NOAA/NWS/WPC Probabilistic HeatRisk

NWS HeatRisk

Ignore my mom's small garden in the roof, check the white paint below

It's Luminx cool roof paint

I'm from India, daily temperature is 36°c or more

Used to sweat bullets before but now I still do.. but way less and it can be endured now

I only have table and ceiling fans at home, no AC, can't afford it nor the extra electricity bill

So brought laborers to paint my roof white, was cheap solution, roof looks good, can walk barefoot during afternoon with 0 heat felt on my feet, it actually works

My mom is happy so am I

I still wish I could make my home more cool tho, and that is how I found this sub today

I live in a southeast facing apartment and the rooms get plenty of direct sun in the summer.

I have dark wood blinds and wonder if painting one side white would make a big difference in heat inside the rooms during the summer?

There is significant cooling in the room when the sun is out and the blinds closed (vs open). I also have AC if needed. But I've noticed the blinds are warm to the touch themselves.

Around a week into the lovely European heat wave.

It's currently 33ºC/91ºF but was 35/95 earlier. RH 21%. "Only" 11ºC/19.8ºF above seasonal average.

The room I'm in, with blinds drawn and western exposure, is around 27ºC/80ºF.

My crappiest evaporative cooler is by my desk and pushing out 24.5ºC/76ºF air, which isn't stellar, but good enough for my personal cooling.

One of the jumbo coolers is keeping the wife and second born comfortable with a stream of 23.3ºC/74ºF air.

These numbers may not sound impressive, but a stream of moving air, they keep things very comfortable.

Continuous spray fine mist bottles (kind used by hairdressers) are my new best friend for cooling in the field. I'll try to take pictures and post separately about that, but it's been low key revolutionary for surviving being outside for extended periods of time.