Texas Heat!

[jinman]

I was home by myself most of the day yesterday. I turned the thermostat up to 79 and was plenty cool with the ceiling fans going. When my wife got home, she was uncomfortably warm for a couple of hours, but we kept the thermostat at 79.

My outside thermometer is on the north side of my house. It should give consistent temperature readings, but yesterday it was a bit strange. At 3 PM, the temp went from 109 to 110. It got as high as 110.6 by 4 PM and then dropped to 108.5 for 1-1/2 hours. Then at 6 PM, the temperature spiked up to 111.2. I figure it has to have something to do with the shading from trees and sun angle, because those temperatures make no sense except that it is too darn hot to be doing anything outside.

Ron, our energy regulation company is the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). They have business suppliers who have agreed to reduce consumption by shutting down some operations as the maximum loads are approached. They also control the rolling blackouts that occur when the load is more than the grid can supply. In most instances, brownouts no longer occur. Power drops and stays off for a predetermined length and then comes back on. As you noted, brownouts are killer for equipment, but we don't see many of those. Power surges caused by lightening are common, but HEY, we don't have any of that to worry about recently.

 

[pacerron]

Bird,
Sounds like good eaten' to me.
Do any of the homes have underground basements in your area?
Before the days of central A/C and/or HVAC a basement was a good place to be cooler in the summer. Lot's of folks even had "summer kitchens" down there.
Ron

 

[Bird]

Ron, nearly everything around here is built on a slab foundation; no basement. I know some of the very old mansions in East Dallas have basements, but there are very few.

 

[Western]

I finally got that Armadillo this morning,YEAH!! Was home for about 1 hr when the dogs started barking at about 5:45am. Hopefully it is the one that has been "plowing" the yard and my wife's flower beds.

Last night , it was a scorcher working on a parking lot. The built up heat that radiates from concrete and especially asphalt is amazing, didn't take time to take a temp reading, but it was HOT. Nothing worse than working, soaked with sweet to your knees.

 

[xtn]

I finally got that Armadillo this morning,YEAH!! Was home for about 1 hr when the dogs started barking at about 5:45am. Hopefully it is the one that has been "plowing" the yard and my wife's flower beds.

Last night , it was a scorcher working on a parking lot. The built up heat that radiates from concrete and especially asphalt is amazing, didn't take time to take a temp reading, but it was HOT. Nothing worse than working, soaked with sweet to your knees.

I took the temp of the asphalt at Eagle Canyon Raceway last year in like conditions. Mid afternoon. 187F.

xtn

 

[NativeSon]

Bird,
Sounds like good eaten' to me.
Do any of the homes have underground basements in your area?
Before the days of central A/C and/or HVAC a basement was a good place to be cooler in the summer. Lot's of folks even had "summer kitchens" down there.
Ron

We've got a basement here in East Texas and it's at least 15* cooler in the summer. Pretty cozy in the winter as we have a wood burning stove down there. It was a big selling point with the wife whose from the Northeast, she grew up with basements.

Charlie

 

[Bird]

finally got that Armadillo this morning

Dennis, that Armadillo is what you get for watering the yard.:laughing: I've seen them tear up pretty lawns, but the folks who get the most upset are when they tear up the greens on golf courses.

We've got a basement here in East Texas and it's at least 15* cooler in the summer. Pretty cozy in the winter as we have a wood burning stove down there. It was a big selling point with the wife whose from the Northeast, she grew up with basements.

Charlie, is it a very old house? My grandparents bought a house in 1943 that was built in 1921-22. It had some basement, but then my granddad dug out more, poured concrete himself, etc. so they had electric lights, the washer/dryer, and even a gas cookstove down there.

 

[Western]

Bird, You got that right!! I have cut back on watering, just enough to keep it green. I pay a little more attention to the St Aug. though.

I'm not sure doing it to thwart the fire danger is practical unless you have a BIG yard, it is so dry now that I think it would take little effort for flames to "tree jump".

What is surprising to me is how few fires we have had in the past couple of weeks.

 

[Bird]

Yeah, Dennis, I do think we could expect more fires. Yesterday morning my wife told he she thought the left rear tire on the car was low, and she was right. So I drove it down to Discount Tire on I-35E just north of Swisher Rd and got it fixed. When I started back north, I could see a big column of black smoke up north, so I went on up the service road to see what it was and it was a big grass fire that had gotten into the trees just south of Mayhill Road and east of I-35E. There was a utility truck nearby along the new A-Train tracks, but I don't know whether he had anything to do with the fire. I began to wonder if no one had reported it to the fire department when I heard, then saw, the first fire truck arriving. So I went on to be sure I wasn't in their way. I didn't see anything about it in the newspaper this morning, so I guess nothing too major burned.

 

[jinman]

Yeah, Dennis, I do think we could expect more fires.

I think low wind/no wind has a lot to do with keeping wildfires down. Once things get started, they are quickly put out. If the wind was blowing 30 mph, the fire would spread in a hurry. In this weather it seems like lots of fires start along roadways and some railroads, but they get put out before getting out of hand.