You have to “drive” a little bit but there are towns in Minnesota and South Dakota where you can pick a house up for under $10,000. A little cold in the winter but hot in the summer, and maybe need a little work, but . . .
$10,000 wouldn’t even get you an outhouse in a gang-infested neighborhood in Los Angeles
Yeah but 10k overpriced for my retirement home, a maytag box under a bridge in FL, or maybe I could move up to a dodge dart in a wal mart parking lot
I am amazed that most people seem to hate the cold as much as I hate the heat. I think the South would be uninhabited if William Carrier had not invented the modern A/C while working for a refrigeration company in Buffalo.
If you want to talk about working on a car in cold weather, we had to put a starter in my SILs Ford wagon during the blizzard of 77. Below 0F themps, 50+ mph winds gusting to 79 for 4+ days and wind driven snow that caused us to lose railroad trains until April, many autos were never recovered, must have been pushed into Lake Erie by heavy equipment along with the snow. I had never before seen a blizzard you could absolutely not drive through but this one filled up 15’ high underpasses with snow in 2 hours that looked and felt like white concrete. One car in my drive sheared the camshaft gear that drove the distributor. Then we took the dist. cap off all we saw was a perfect mold of the inside of the cap in hard white ice preventing the rotor from turning.
My point is, it is possible to work outside in those conditions if you dress warmly enough. There is nothing to do to make it possible to do anything at 100 degrees.
We had over a month of 100+ days in a row a couple of summers ago and I don’t work in an air conditioned building. During the hottest days, I started going into the bathroom, taking off my shirt, and getting it soaking wet in the sink and then putting it back on. I would have to resoak the shirt every couple of hours.
I also did this before my motorcycle ride back home, in fact for the motorcycle, I have a cool-vest, it’s filled with some sort of gel that soaks up a lot of water and the water evaporates while I ride keeping me cool for the ride home.
I guess I have to agree. If its too cold you can always go inside and turn the heat on to 70, or with a snow mobile suit, you really don’t get cold outside. If its too hot though, even with the AC on you still need to spend time outside where it is tough to get cool. I really felt for our friends in Phoenix last year when it was 110-120 for quite a while. Even inside with the AC cranked full blast, its hard to cool a place down at those temps.
You get used to it, whether it’s hot or cold. Just make sure to drink a lot of water when it’s hot. We have AC at home, but don’t use it much. When it gets to the mid-90s, we turn it on if the heat will last a few days.
But it’s ‘dry heat’ @bing.
It has gotten tougher for me to endure excessive heat or cold but even at 100* with the humidity at 80%+ getting in the shade makes it bearable and my work schedule has been awfully light since I retired.
When the temperatures start hitting the 110 degree mark, you start getting the opposite of wind chill, you get wind heating. Standing in front of a fan actually makes the air feel hotter. You can hold your hand in a 300 degree oven longer than you can hold in in front of a 300 degree heat gun blowing hot air at a high speed.
We had a spell of over 110 degree days. One day when it was really bad, I took the water hose and completely soaked the clothes I was wearing before riding the motorcycle back home. It was great while it lasted but my clothes were already completely dry about half way home. Also, I was riding a 1974 vintage BMW R90/6 air cooled bike. I started switching the engine off at long red lights so the engine wouldn’t build up heat. Every pound of gasoline not burned is about 18500 BTU of heat the engine doesn’t have to get rid of. If I didn’t do that, the engine would detonate during acceleration with even moderate openings of the throttle until it cooled back down to near normal operating temperature.
It’s a viscous circle, detonation makes air cooled engines overheat and overheating makes the engines detonate. To the pilot of an airplane,often the only clue is climbing CHT along with dropping EGT readings along with sagging power output, which may not be apparent if the plane has a constant speed prop. A signal to richen the mixture or reduce power or both, pronto before you have a hole in a piston.
I thought that at one time, too. I never understood old people flocking to Florida for the winter.
Now that I am old and I seriously froze some toes running my snow blower at sub-zero temps last winter, I get it! My dermatologist examined my feet and hands and told me what I already figured out, I can’t do cold, any more.
Besides, I like to ride bikes, run, play golf, etcetera. Day after day every winter alternating Air-Dyne bike and treadmill in my house and no golf gets really old.
I worked outside on brakes for about 6 hours in a temp range of 24F - 31F. Got it handled, but it wasn’t pleasant.
It’s more fun riding my bike to a sub tropical island paradise before b’fast and then going out to play golf or relax by the pool.
If I didn’t enjoy outside exercise and activities so much, I would have agreed with you! Sorry! I’m heading south until May!
Respectfully, CSA
I don’t think there’s anything that needs to be done. 100 degrees? Roll up your sleeves and drink some extra water. I’m perfectly comfortable, seems reasonable. I never understood how people can be uncomfortable when it’s 95 degrees, normal body temperature is 98.6 as I understand it.
Now the cold? Working outside when it’s 34 and raining with a breeze is about as miserable as it can get as far as I’m concerned. You can have that noise…
Because just like your car engine, your body produces waste heat when you use your muscles. As the ambient air temp approaches or exceeds your normal body temp it becomes harder to dissipate that waste heat.
Well yeah, I kinda already knew that @TwinTurbo. That must be why I often sweat through my shirt when I’m working hard in hot weather. It’s not uncomfortable though. 65, 75, 95 degrees, all the same to me.
In fact, I find A/C to be uncomfortable during the hottest days of summer. The office and the waiting room are air conditioned, the shop is not and has a number of south-facing windows. I find it very difficult to be in and out of the office when it’s 95 in the shop and 72 in the office. I’d prefer to just stay warm.
That’s why we sweat. Every pound of water that evaporates from our skin takes about 970 BTUs of heat along with it.
That’s also why wetting down your clothes keeps you so cool.
Old timey “hit or miss” one cylinder engines had a water jacket that was open on the top surrounding the engine’s cylinder. There was no radiator, the water boiling away is what kept the engine cool, you had to make sure the engine didn’t boil dry though.
I live in Los Angeles, and it gets pretty hot here, sometimes it’s well over 100 in October
Anyways, I’ve also lived in areas with ice and snow
I’ll take the heat
I “fondly” remember unlocking the shop and firing up the compressor in freezing temperatures, and naturally the darn thing didn’t want to start up easily . . .
I remember rusted out floorboards and frames, cars failing inspection due to severe rust, yeah those were the days
The trailers going back and forth to former Yugosolavia, providing supplies, during Operation Provide Comfort were so rusted out, by the time the welders were done, they were darn near new trailers. Road salt and splatter from the tires themselves ensured they took a beating.
An “interesting” fact about the depot I used to work in . . . it was built during a time when they wanted to save on energy costs, specifically lighting. So it was literally a glass house. Steel and glass. No insulation WHATSOEVER, and both sides were open, so that vehicles could easily drive in and out, all day long. If it was cold outside, it was cold inside. The glass magnified the sun’s effects, so that conditions were sweltering in summertime. No ac, naturally
Every summer our bosses are required to warn us about heat stroke and to drink plenty of water. They said the last thing you want to see is the bottom of a guy’s boots. I haven’t seen it happen to any of my coworkers in recent years. But I do remember my dad collapsed a few times in hot weather, because he wasn’t drinking enough water. Then again, he wasn’t exactly taking his health seriously, and he payed the price for it later on.
Well, I didn’t recognize any sarcasm. Sweating only works if humidity is low enough or fans blasting. Nothing more miserable to me than hot and humid. I’ll do a brake job outside at -10 over 95 and 80% humidity.
Yeah grew up in cold state. Old fluorescent lamps need special cold temp ballasts to fire up too. I had 80k btu fuel oil furnace in garage. Nice and toasty in no time…
When I flipped burgers in the summer I’d hang a wet towel around my neck and that helped quite a bit. Short hair then helped too.
I agree! I do heavy duty aerobic exercise every morning and am soaking with perspiration, even with fans blowing on me or wind blowing by. Feels great! I don’t feel right if I don’t heat up a little!
CSA
I don’t, but then again that probably explains why I’m 2 bacon cheeseburgers from a major coronary event!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not indifferent to the various comfort levels people experience. My wife is very uncomfortable if it’s 85 in the house. But in the context of working on cars, I just don’t care. When I had my own place I had a guy who was constantly complaining about the temperature. If it was below 60* or above 80* in the shop he was constantly griping and taking breaks to warm up or cool down.
Someone once told me that sweating was healthy. In that case I should live a long time.