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I am fortunate to live in a climate which celebrates four (typically) distinct seasons, bookended with cold and snowy winters (typically) and warm and dry summers (typically). I am appreciative of my ability to turn on my air conditioning, but also far more appreciative that since I do not live in a tropical climate (typically), I only need to use the air conditioning during one or two string of days where there is a heat wave (typically).
My house is nicely insulated so on those warm summer days that climb into the 90s, I can (typically) turn off the air in the evening, open up the windows, turn on a ceiling fan and let in the cooler summer night breezes. This makes my Yankee pocketbook happy as I do not have to spend a ton of money (typically) on an artificially generated cooling source of air.
But this summer has been anything but typical and with hot humid days which lead into stormy saturated nights, I have found that, on a daily basis, I am running around opening and shutting windows in order to try and find the right balance of warm, yet dry, air and comfortable sleeping temperatures that feel “natural.”
In my opinion, air conditioning which is set to a temperature of 78 degrees can feel very comfortable in comparison to an outdoor temperature of 95 degrees with complete humidity. However, this summer, opening up my windows at night because the temperature drops down to about 70 degrees (8 degrees cooler than what I have my air conditioning set to) is not only making my bedroom feel somewhat tropical because of all of the humidity, but it is also allowing the almost nightly barrage of thunderstorms and rain to wake me up. This is causing me to jump up and shut the windows and switch on my air conditioning to a lower temperature. By dawn, I have grown weary of the constant clicking, on and off, of the air and so I turn up the air temperature and open my windows to allow fresh air in for the remainder of my sleeping time.
As the day continues on, I find that the humidity seeping in through the open windows is making me sweat unnecessarily and so I shut the windows and turn on the air. Then it rains and cools things down a bit and so I open them again. Then it heavily rains again and so I run around shutting all the windows so that things don’t get wet. Then it feels sticky in the house at 78 degrees and so I turn the air down to 75 degrees. Then I think about how expensive my electric bill will be and I notice that the sun is setting so I turn the air back up and open all of the windows again. This continues throughout the night until it starts all over again the next day. I’m tired! ;-)
Open? Shut?
Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!
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