Damn Global Warming
Sounds a lot like my days, only I do yard work, so I rarely get to hide under the eaves. Here’s what I do.
Get a small cooler, maybe sufficient to hold 4 six packs, but only if you stack them 2 x 2, and then there’s no room for ice.
Take a gallon jug, fill it half full, put it in the freezer on a tilt, to help it freeze with less likelihood of blowing out. Take a dozen plain white cheap hand towels bought at walmart or target. Wash them, don’t dry them, fold them wet into a stack that’ll fit into half the cooler. Freeze the stack.
You might want to have a rotation going, as it takes a good 24 hours to get a solid freeze.
Now at the beginning of your day, fill the jug with water, put it and the towels in the cooler, put about 2 inches of water in the bottom. You now have a gallon of water that’ll probably still have ice floating in it at noon, and a stack of towels that you’ll have to peel apart to put them on your skin (head/neck/shoulders is good). A towel with a layer of ice frozen into it, on top of your head on a hot day, is like instantly stepping into the air conditioning.
Trust me on this one, I’m doing yard work on the Gulf Coast. “High 90s - low 100s” is an equally good description of both temp and humidity most days. Same as what you’re doing really, only if my brain shuts down I don’t fall off a ladder.
Good hints, Drew.
Here’s an old Army saying......."Hydrate or Die”!
BoynSea
Posted by BoynSea
08/09/2010 at 08:08 PM
Grumpy, that’s good advice. I’ve been using one of those hot/cold packs I got from a doc sometime back. Some kind of gel inside. Plop that on your head an it cools you right down. Only problem is, it melts after about 5 minutes. I’ll give the iced towel thing a try too. Your weather is just about the same as ours. Sauna.
If this weather doesn’t break and the work keeps coming, I’ll fill a whole cooler with them. Maybe I could soak a hat and freeze that too. Put it top down in a bowl, so there’s about a solid inch of ice inside. It could work!
Another bit of learning - don’t wear a cotton shirt. Cotton anything. Day-um. Fuggedabowdit. Things turn into a steam bath in minutes. Sports shirts, like the poly fabric they make football jerseys out of, the kind with thousands of little holes in them are the shiz. They don’t hold onto the moisture.
Ok, and one that’s a bit gross. But for guys, if there’s one part of you that can stay dry, the rest of you won’t sweat so much. It’s true! A couple paper towels folded up together and discretely placed really helps. Lasts several hours. Granted, this might pertain best to when you’re working alone. I hear there’s poly underwear, though I’ve never seen any. That might function just the same; the name of the game is to get all the cotton away from your skin and to get the moisture off.
Any time you get inside work, if there’s power, hook up a fan. Move the air and you’ll stay cooler. Swap socks and shoes at lunch and then a third pair of dry socks around tea time with the morning shoes. Drier is cooler, or at least it seems that way.
She-it. I got a welcome break this evening when the family was cooking dinner, because I was working right outside where the kitchen fan vent was. Big old blast of air. So I smell like spaghetti sauce, so what? I’m married to an Italian girl, like that’s going to be a problem?
BoynSea - I thought it was “if you don’t need to piss, have another drink”? I hydrate until I’m literally sloshing. It recharges the sweat glands real well, so that I can go back to being a human lawn sprinkler.
Fall ... cool dry days, wind blowing leaves around, a nip in the air. Ah, dreaming of it!
Cotton breathes better, but it also wicks the moisture as well. Great for lower humidity when the sweat will evaporate, but if not it just hangs there. Poly doesn’t breathe worth a damn, so if it doesn’t have the holes it’s like being wrapped in saran wrap.
For the “rather gross” problem, corn starch based baby powder is good stuff. For extreme circumstances where you are literally getting chapped, some kind of diaper rash preventative is a good idea too. Yes, I’m serious, otherwise “work one long day” can often equal “walk funny for two days”.
The thing with the socks… “thin, with lots of little holes” works just as well there too. See if you can find socks for bicyclists. Cloth shoes breathe better too. Personally I work barefoot when I can get away with it.
Oh, two other things.
Hats: I don’t know if you can find one, but I knew a guy who had a hat with a zipper pocket in the crown, about the right size for a cold pack. He took a shortcut and filled it with ice cubes.
Cooler: The reason I suggested a small one is because every space in your cooler not filled with something you’re cooling or something cooling everything around it is space that will fill with hot air every time you open the cooler. Big or small, your choice, but dead space in the cooler is not a plus. Also if your cooler has interior dividers you can have your water jog on one side and all the ice on the other. That way you don’t have to fight the loose ice cubes to get the jug back in the cooler.
In a little over 50 years of life I’ve seen 11 people get taken away in ambulances because they were that badly overheated. While they all recovered, nonetheless I’m not in any hurry at all for number 12.
Under Armor - you can now find it a lot of places - - great stuff - try an outlet mall (wish I could remember the store it was in) - it was invented for a purpose. I have the shirts - I hate having stuff stick to me - but my son wears the boxers and we even bought the long version for winter. It is pricey (if you buy in Target etc) but even they are now coming up with their own ‘version’ (don’t know if it is as good), Pro bass has it (mucho expensiveo). They have it all - briefs, boxers, t-shirts, tanks, exercise (Dicks) outfits and as I said, winter lengths too.
I like that cooler/towel idea, might have to try that as we have to clear out the back 40 and we are thinking of calling the garden for the season (other than the potatoes which are hanging in). Been a bust as everything is just weeds - even with spraying (before the season) and several bouts of weed pulling/eating. Too much rain, but now we are baking to death.
Oh and something decided to come up to the house (literally) and eat the leaves off the blueberry bush) - I am seriously thinking of getting another dog - or offering to ‘borrow’ my neighbors (damn thing never shuts up) - but I think it just might have an ‘accident’ in our yard, if we did that.Under Armor… good name. As a matter of fact, I learned the frozen towel trick in the SCA down here, trying to keep people alive who were out doing heavy exercise in this weather wearing 30 - 60 lbs. of leather and steel. I also firmly believe that it literally saved the life of at least one person during setup for the Ford Auto Show at the Texas State Fair in Dallas one year. If someone says they’re alright, they don’t need it, they may be telling the truth. On the other hand, they may be so overheated their brain has shut down and they can no longer tell. This guy was about ready to fall over when I got to him and demanded that he hold a frozen towel with both hands for a minute.
Note: If someone is so overheated that they’re not normal human colors anymore, have that day-glo red thing going, don’t ice the head or neck, you can put them into shock. Instead ice the inside of the wrists or elbows. That’ll cool someone down quickly without shocking them. Then when they’re human colored again, then you can do the head and neck.
Drew:
“Ok, and one that’s a bit gross. But for guys, if there’s one part of you that can stay dry....”
Baby Powder, liberally applied. For the brave, there’s Triple Bond. And for the serious, there’s always the light application of antiperspirant.
“I thought it was “if you don’t need to piss, have another drink”? I hydrate until I’m literally sloshing”.
This good advice, too.
And dehydration will sneak up on you: like working in the Arizona heat for an hour or so, taking a break for a good slug of cool water, and immediately breaking out in a light sweat all over the body. A wake-up call that you almost waited too long.
I think the humid environments are worse, because you perspire a lot, but it doesn’t really cool the body: no evap. So you perspire some more. After a little while, you are “drier than a desert lizard’s butt”, to phrase my Dad.
Stay safe and cool.
BoynSea
Posted by BoynSea
08/10/2010 at 08:07 PM
Oh, and, if you take one or two of your water bottles and freeze it overnight, then pack it with your lunch in the morning, it will not only held keep your cooler “cooler”, you get some nice cold water to drink later.
We always freeze a couple of half gallons of milk here, ‘round about July, in the chest freezer: if we lose power during a hurricane, not only does it help to hold the freezer when the power is down, we got “fresh” milk when it thaws.
Posted by BoynSea
08/10/2010 at 08:13 PM
OCM - only if your baby is an Inupiat.
