The past several weeks have been some of the hottest of the year, with temperatures frequently going over 100 °F. It’s during these times of extreme use that home climate control systems tend to simply give up, a fate that befell our air conditioning unit one week ago today.
Even the nights are in the balmy seventies, meaning that, while it is lovely weather for strolling, our poor apartment doesn’t get much opportunity to expel the accumulated heat of the day. Thus, our house has been regularly reaching 99 °F, which may be the maximum temperature our thermostat can read (I haven’t noticed a third digit).
Thursday our landlord gave us a portable air conditioning unit for the bedroom, allowing us to create a little oasis of comfort amid the hostile temperatures of the remaining rooms. We’re now able to get some sleep at night, but our ability to use our living space remains cramped.
One of the first things to go were the desktop computers—they generate far too much heat to be allowed to run under these conditions. Since I often use Summer to process and archive my pictures, I haven’t been able to upload any of the interesting ones I took last week. Even the laptop is difficult—despite installing a third party fan controller application, the MacBook Pro is more like a Cookbook Pro, cheerily heating any adjacent body parts to the point of pain.
From a wider perspective, it’s not like we have the humidity levels of Maryland or are dealing with hurricanes. However, a near-constant outpouring of sweat from merely sitting in my living room does affect our ability to accomplish things. If Fortune smiles upon us, this will be a non-issue before the week is half over. Until then, it’s another cold shower for me.
2 responses to “Slow Cooking”
Well, at least you still have electricity. I’m going on almost twenty-four hours now with now power at home, and the drive to work showed that I’m hardly alone. It’s interesting navigating intersections with no traffic lights…
Ouch, power outages stink. How are your UPSes holding up?