Some years ago, we had our loft converted to create two 'bedrooms' and a shower room. At the time the local building regulations were framed with the assumption that a new ice-age was in the offing, and extensive insulation was installed. Now that the ice-age has become global warming, those top floor rooms become very, very warm when there is anything approaching a heatwave ... which is exactly the situation we find ourselves in today.
The two new 'bedrooms' are my toy/wargame room and the home office I use, and as today is officially the hottest day of the year so far, you can imagine how warm it is on the top floor. Even with all the windows open and a fan going full blast, the temperature in my toy/wargame room (which faces south west and is currently being subject to the full heat of the sun) at 3.00pm is 33.5°C/92.3°F whereas it is only 29.5°C/85.1°F in my office (which faces north east and has been relatively shaded since midday)!
I had plans to do some modelling and writing today ... but as things stand, I don't think that is going to happen. Instead I am going to sit in the coolest room I can find, relax, drink cold drinks, and either watch TV or read.
* Scorchio first came into common usage as a result of the TV comedy show, THE FAST SHOW. Each show included a spoof TV news programme from an unnamed Mediterranean country, which always ended with a weather forecast where – except on one occasion when the weather was described as 'cumulus nimbus' – the weather was always very hot or ‘scorchio’.
The two new 'bedrooms' are my toy/wargame room and the home office I use, and as today is officially the hottest day of the year so far, you can imagine how warm it is on the top floor. Even with all the windows open and a fan going full blast, the temperature in my toy/wargame room (which faces south west and is currently being subject to the full heat of the sun) at 3.00pm is 33.5°C/92.3°F whereas it is only 29.5°C/85.1°F in my office (which faces north east and has been relatively shaded since midday)!
I had plans to do some modelling and writing today ... but as things stand, I don't think that is going to happen. Instead I am going to sit in the coolest room I can find, relax, drink cold drinks, and either watch TV or read.
* Scorchio first came into common usage as a result of the TV comedy show, THE FAST SHOW. Each show included a spoof TV news programme from an unnamed Mediterranean country, which always ended with a weather forecast where – except on one occasion when the weather was described as 'cumulus nimbus' – the weather was always very hot or ‘scorchio’.
My wargames and workshop room is a very well insulatedoutside shed... doors open and today it's still just under 90... I keeping popping in to spray a couple of armoured cars though.
ReplyDeleteRob Young,
DeleteIt doesn't help that the flat roof on my toy/wargane room is black, which makes the room even hotter.
As the afternoon progresses, the temperature is rising ... but the weather forecast predicts that it will be cooler tomorrow.
All the best,
Bob
I checked a few minutes after my post - it was actually 95!
DeleteRob Young,
DeleteThe current temperature in my toy/wargame room is just over 36.3°C/97.3°F!
All the best,
Bob
Living in Virginia air conditioning is a must (global warming or otherwise). The wargaming table and modeling/painting table are in our basement, so it's cooler than the rest of the house and a nice refuge on days like today when we're expecting a high of 94F. If the Lords of Chaos are kind I might get some time later today to run some Gridded Naval Wargames down there. Sounds like you have a good plan: stay in the coolest room, relax, and keep drinking fluids.
ReplyDeletePeter Schweighofer,
DeleteThe weather in the UK is too variable to make air conditioning worth fitting in most houses, although it is common in hotels as well as modern offices and shops.
Luckily our main living area faces north east, and only gets the sun in the morning. As a result, it remains relatively cool, even on a very hot day.
Good luck with using the rules from my GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAMES.
All the best,
Bob
Definitely too hot to paint here today as they dry almost instantly on my painting palette. Plenty of other gaming related activity to do though which is good.
ReplyDeleteSteve J.,
DeleteI realised that it was too hot today to do any painting when the same happened to me.
It has - however - given me the opportunity to do some reading and research, so the time hasn't been wasted.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob, hope things cool down a little for you soon. The first thing we did when we bought this house was to invest in air conditioning, upstairs and down and it's been worth it's weight in Gold! 27 degrees here in Valencia today, but nice and cool indoors and of course we have the pool to cool off in. Yet we are still missing England, and planning to return for at least the Autumn/Winter :) I'm determined to make SELWG this October.
ReplyDelete'Lee,
DeleteIf I lived in your part of Spain, l'd also have had air conditioning fitted in my home. I've been in Spain in midsummer, and I know how hot it can be ... but usually it is a dry heat, which I find much easier to cope with.
It looks as if we are only going to have one day of really scorching weather, and that by the middle of the week it will be much, much cooler.
If you do come back to the UK later in the year and you go to SELWG, I hope that we have the opportunity to meet and have a chat.
All the best,
Bob
Bunch of sooks. :) In Canberra, we regularly got over 40 C. But frankly, all that you could do is jump in the pool. All wargaming activity suspended. Here it was around 20-21 most of the day, then a thunderstorm, hail and torrential rain.
ReplyDeleteDoug,
DeleteI wish that we had a pool to jump into! The nearest one is several miles away, so standing under a cool shower is the best I can hope for.
Your weather today sounds like a typical British Summer's day ...
All the best,
Bob
As you said I grew up with warnings of a mini-ice-age being around the corner
ReplyDeleteHope the fine weather lasts fro CoW - good for the tent city inhabitants like me!
Geordie an Exile FoG,
DeleteWhilst I am not a climate change denier, the fact that the predictions have gone from 'it will cause another ice-age' to 'the ice caps will melt and sea levels will rise' can be confusing to a non-scientific layperson (or national leader!), and gives spurious 'ammunition' to those who do.
In all my years of going to COW, we've only had bad weather on a few occasions. In fact, the expression 'it's going to be COW-weather' has been used by some of the longer-serving members to describe a weekend of predicted good weather.
All the best,
Bob
I used to live near the desert in southern California - with weeks and even months on end where the daily highs were in the upper 90s to 100 and teens. And experienced the issues of paint drying too quickly. Summer (which lasted 5 or 6 months there) was not a good time to paint minis.
ReplyDeleteWhere I live now (Pacific Northwest) it can still get warm in the Summer (into the 90s and 100s), but not for so many days.
I'm still glad to have AC and a basement that stays fairly cool.
I was in London in the early 2000s when it got up to around 100 degrees F or so. I don't envy you!
You have the right idea - find the coolest place to hang out, drink plenty of fluids, and do non-strenuous hobby activities.
I hope you all get some relief from that heat!
Fitz-Badger,
DeleteThe late Allen Curtis lived in Barstow, California, and I got the impression from what he said that it was rather warm (British understatement here!) during the Summer. Mind you, the invention of the air conditioner seems to have made living in conditions of high temperatures bearable ... just as long as you don't venture outside.
Most British cities are not built to deal with the very occasional heatwave that hits the UK. Although most modern buildings are air conditioned, very little public transport is, and I try to avoid travelling by Tube during the Summer if I can at all avoid it. If I do, I always have to have a shower as soon as I get home to cool down and to rid myself of the feeling of being very dirty.
I spent a large chunk of yesterday in our main living room with a tower fan going full blast most of the time, and it was reasonably comfortable. We did have to go shopping at one point, but the climate control in my wife's Lexus kept us cool going to and from the air conditioned shopping mall.
It got a bit cooler overnight, and with luck temperatures will be in the mid-twenties ... which is much better.
All the best,
Bob
Time to head for the river! :-)
ReplyDeleteRegards, Chris.
Chris Kemp,
DeleteThat sounds like an excellent idea.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob. Glad you made it through the heat. It got to about 34 here in the SW of the metropolis - not helped by standing next to a barbeque to burn chicken and vegetables for my daughters' birthday party.
ReplyDeleteWe had a loft conversion done last year and despite having a large south facing window, we find it easy to keep it tolerably cool. Insulation and glazing have improved over the decades (good insulation should keep the temperature inside stable rather than allow it to heat up/cool down) - provided we keep the curtains drawn and windows closed. The 'velux' windows on the north side of the roof allow enough light in to work in. Mind you, we haven't had a prolonged spell like last June/July so it's not been REALLY tested.
The downstairs is a different matter - no cavity in the brickwork so no cavity insulation and the living room has to be kept curtained and with the door to the cooler part of the house open. On really hot days I have to remind the other members of the family to keep the 'flaming' patio door closed!
Nundanket,
DeleteOn Saturday several of my neighbours had barbeques, and the drifting smell of burning meat - tinged with a whiff of barbeque starter fluid and the sound of lots a noisy children - filled the air. Our cat - who tends to live in the garden in hot weather - was disgusted and stomped about the house trying to find somewhere cool and quiet to sleep.
I have come to the conclusion that loft conversions are great things but that the orientation and location of one's house has a lot of impact on how hot it gets during a heatwave. We live near the top of a hill, and if our house was orientated north-south, the back would be in shade for a large part of the day and the loft rooms would be cooler ... as would the front of the house. Because we are orientated south-west to north-east, the front of the house gets the sun early in the morning, but the back gets it from midday until sunset. Even with the blinds down and the windows open, without a breeze - however slight - the loft room at the back of the house gets very, very hot.
We also have no cavity insulation in our house (it was built in the late 1930s) but our main living room - which is at the front of the house - tends to be the coolest room in the house, and has become our refuge when it gets too hot elsewhere.
No doubt the coming weeks will see us have unseasonably cold and wet weather, and we'll be looking back of the single very hot day we had on Saturday as being the high-point of our Summer!
All the best,
Bob