Delighted hot summer daysReaders!
Heat wave Continue and worse in some parts of the world, and temperatures have been recorded break all seasonsBeating the heat is on many people’s minds—including ours. We published Dr. Gulrez Shah Azhar‘s tips for staying cool without air conditioning—like he did growing up in a part of India where temperatures soar to 100 degrees. And we asked for your tips and tricks. You sent us a cooling blast, including ice, chilled pickles, and an Arctic dip—via TV.
Here are some tips from our awesome audience.
Mother Nature is your friend
William J Carter from Bon Accord, Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, said: “Great article on how to cope with the heat. The geography helps a lot as although I live in the tropics quite close to the Equator (about 10 degrees north) our country is a twin island and gets quite windy! (Now that’s not a life tip but those lucky enough to travel can visit!)
My suggestion is to look for bodies of water, lakes, beaches and rivers. The following are popular recreational areas in some parts of my country.”
Break (ice)
Many readers turn to the freezer to cool their hands.
Tamsin Clarke from Australia writes, “What we did was take frozen cubes [cold packs like the ones used in a cooler] Take the freezer out an hour or two before bed, spread a towel over your bed, and place the frozen cubes on top of the towel. Cover them with another towel and place your pillow on top. When you go to sleep, both your bed and pillows will be cool and comfortable. “Make sure you use plenty of towels,” she advises, “to soak up any condensation that forms on the cubes. Otherwise, your bed and pillows will be damp.”
Jennifer Lefevre of Atlanta used a cousin of this technique. “When we were kids living in a house without air conditioning in Naples, Florida, in the 70s, we would freeze wet towels and bring them to bed at night. It was like using a hot water bottle on a cold bed.”
Patrick Kenny of Honolulu agrees. “My best tip: Go to bed with an ice pack under your pillow. Gel ice packs work best. If [you get] hot at night, switch to the second (or third) one.”
Take a cube and fan it
Marnie Lansdown is from Castle Rock, Colorado, and grew up in Salt Lake City. “In the summer, I used to sleep on the couch on the first floor. We bought a block of ice, put it in a pie pan, and put it right behind the floor fan. The fan was set to blow directly at me, with the idea that having a block of ice behind the fan would make the air a little colder. Was this a real science? I don’t know. But it did—maybe just in my imagination—make the air feel cooler.”
“I use a blue freezer bag and a small fan,” writes Debra Combelic of Longmont, Colorado. “Take a frozen bag of ice and place it upright in a shallow dish (to catch any condensation) in front of a small fan. The air cools as it flows around the bag. It lasts long enough to fall asleep—and then some!”
Anand Karipineni from Fremont, California, suggests, “Put out large trays filled with [cold] water and spreads throughout the room. This water evaporates and keeps the room temperature lower.”
Editor’s PS This is called “vapor cooling” and the U.S. Department of Energy has a lot to say about it — and about water coolers, which our readers support.
Barbara Morrissey of Spokane, Wash., and several others have mentioned that it is possible to create a smaller water cooler. “I created a very small water cooler by hanging cold wet towels on a drying rack behind a box fan to blow the cool air from the towels into the room. It works great for small spaces, but you have to KEEP the towels WET.” She adds an important note: “Turn the fan off when adding water to the towels.”
Try it in front of your TV, she suggests. To add some fun, she says, “Then I watch High Arctic Cargo Truck!!”
Create shade
Barbara Morrissey also adopted a longer-term strategy to combat heat. “Years ago, I planted shade trees everywhere,” she said.
Elizabeth Maland of San Diego also invested in shading “the side of my house that gets direct sunlight.” “I started with a roll-up awning and added shades on the side of the house that gets direct sunlight at sunrise—and indirect sunlight at noon,” she says.
She also said she gets up early when it’s hot, “and opens the house with fans to draw in the coolest air from outside. When the sun comes up and it starts to warm up outside, I close all the windows and doors, put fans in every room, pull the blinds, and keep the cool air in. The house can be comfortable in the afternoon.”
Robert Foster of Pensacola, Fla., said his number one tip for staying cool during the recent heat wave was using a floor fan. “It blew directly on me all night and all day for 10 days.”
Lettuce uses clothing creatively
Dorothy Zerbe of Oshkosh, Wisc., reiterates one of the strategies from our previous story: “Wear a wet towel around your neck or head. Rewet as needed.”
Jean Cottel of Eugene, Ore., also uses “a cheap neck gaiter that absorbs moisture and keeps her cool around her neck for hours. Plus, I carry a spray bottle and spray it in my ears and on my head regularly. It’s like being a lettuce in the produce aisle.”
And speaking of veggies… Kimberlee Wheeler, a self-described “librarian and heat survivor” in rural Butte County, Northern California, recommends: “Eat ice-cold pickles. We tried half a pickle, and the pickle juice helped too. I think it’s another way of eating cucumbers with salt, but it really works. Apparently baseball players are known to drink pickle juice on our local league teams. A cold pickle cools the body.”
(Editor’s note: Our previous article cited the “soluble electrolytes” in cucumbers, and the author noted, “In India, we sprinkle black salt on cucumbers to further enhance their restorative powers.”)
“One method I use to stay cool is a bag of popcorn that I keep in the freezer,” says René Lauderback Robinson of Tulsa, Okla. “I buy popcorn at a sporting goods or big-box store, and then stuff it into a cloth bag sewn to whatever size works for me—9 x 13 is enough for a small pillow; 3 x 16 or so is enough to cover the back of my neck. These bags stay cold for a long time, and of course there’s nothing to melt. Since popcorn isn’t popcorn, these bags can also be warmed in the microwave for a minute or two and used in place of a heating pad in the winter.”
From thigh to foot
“While studying, I put a big bottle of ice water on my lap. When it melts, I drink it. During breaks, I soak in a bathtub full of cold water,” said Liz Corbin of N’djamena, Chad. She said a friend of hers “will fill a sink with water and ice and soak her feet in it while she studies.”
Lorraine Riddell is also a fan of the foot cooling method. She lives in Spruce Grove, Alberta, but has lived in Ottawa before. “My first summer in Ottawa in the 70s was in a south-facing apartment with no air conditioning. I would sit in the living room with my feet in a big bowl of cold water. It really helped.”
Vajra Kilgour of West Harem combines those two ideas. If you have an “old-fashioned cast iron lion’s paw bathtub,” she says, “fill it with cold water. It will keep the bathroom tiles cool all day, it will make it quick and easy to soak your bandana to cool your head, and you’ll have a nice little wading pool to cool yourself off in.”
Kevin Tso of San Jose, California, sent in some thoughts, including tips for preparing meals in hot weather. “Use the microwave to cook if possible,” he said. Or “after cooking on the stove, turn off the stove and put a small pot of tap water on the stove. As the water heats up from the residual heat, pour it down the drain. This removes some of the heat from the stove that would otherwise heat up the house.”
Listen to wet hair
Daniel Fleisher of Baltimore praises the bath. “If you don’t have electricity,” he writes, “your best bet is to get in cold water and soak for as long as possible. When you get out, get your hair as wet as possible. Hair is a giant wick of evaporation.”
