My Wet Coast Life

After the lack luster first weekend of July is over and Mother Nature still not giving us a summer to remember. After a not so great June-uary, I seem to be rusting instead of tanning. Looking outside at another overcast day and temperature sitting around 15°C, I look east to Ontario and Quebec who are currently experiencing a hot, humid and smoggy heat wave. Now living on the wet coast, we tend to always get cooler weather compared to the B.C. interior and prairies mainly due to cool ocean breezes keeping us in check. But every so often the wind dies down and we get the nice hot weather and looks like that is coming in 1 day for us.
Now I prefer love the hot weather. Due to my lack of insulation, you can still find me wearing pants or layers in 20°C+ weather when others are sweating and pealing off all their clothes. So i decide to go check our weather and see if the weather is gonna get any warmer and sunnier.

To my surprise, it looks like we are about to get our first heat wave of 2010! WooHoo! Both Environment Canada and Weather Network show the heat is on the way!
After calming down from the shear excitement that the sun will be out and the temperatures nice and warm, I realized I live in Rain-couver where people loooove to complain about the weather. Whether it is raining too much or not enough, someone has to be a weather hater. As for me, my body works like a human barometer and whenever the weather is inclement, my body hurts. I can now somewhat accurately predict weather based on pain and its location. Now why do I mention this?? Well sun and high heat tend to be the only times I do not hurt which means little to no pain medication for my bad back = Win.

Now for my unfortunate family and friends who tend to “die” when the temperature goes over 25°, fear not for i have put together some tips and tricks to beat and deal with the gorgeous tropical weather on the way.

Follow up:

Firstly we need to understand what a heat wave is?

A heat wave is a prolonged period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity. There is no universal definition of a heat wave; the term is relative to the usual weather in the area. Temperatures that people from a hotter climate consider normal can be termed a heat wave in a cooler area if they are outside the normal climate pattern for that area.

Source: Wikipedia - Heat Wave

Now that that is outta the way, we can look at ways of dealing with the heat and surviving the random heat waves we can get on the coast. There are tonnes of sites out there for dealing with hot weather. Some tips can be no-brainers where other tips and tricks you only find out when traveling in tropical countries or word of mouth. I just thought i would put, in my opinion, what tips and tricks would work best for the wet coast and on the cheap.

Keep your place cool

Let’s start with ways of keeping our homes cool. We all know about good old air conditioning. Some of us are fortunate enough to have A/C but for a good majority in the lower mainland, we don’t have it as we rarely need it. Now you can go get portable A/C units for $400+ but not everyone wants to commit that much $$$ for the couple days of relief from the extra heat. Depending on preference and budget, here are a couple tips and on-the-cheap DIY fixes to beat the heat and keep your place cool.

Firstly, there is the Homemade Air Conditioner - For about $30-$40 in parts, you can make your own cheap ghetto A/C. If you’re feeling extra savvy, you can make an upgraded model using a car radiator (cause we all have one just sitting around) or a recycling unit using a fish tank and water pump. A short 5 minute tutorial can be found on YouTube

For something portable, you can try the Portable 12V Air Conditioner. This solution will help those that have both a car and a place to live that lacks A/C.

Now if you can’t make the homemade A/C, you can either freeze a couple 2 liter pop bottles with water and place on a towel (condensation) or place a bowl of ice, in front of the fan as a cheaper, less effective option.

Another option to keep your place cool is a simple as knowing the location of windows and the sun as it progresses through the day. In the early morning and late evening, you want to get them open to allow as much cool air into the house and warm air out. Once it starts warming up, close those windows and any drapes or blinds blocking out the warming rays of the sun.

If you find you still need to open the windows during the day to get the stagnant air out, try spraying the drapes with cold water or covering the window with a cold damp sheet. This way as the wind breezes through, it will cool down the air.

Screw the home, what about cooling me off?

Now for some people, they are content with a cool place during the hot weather, others need both their home and themselves cool. One easy trick is just wetting a bandanna and draping it on the back of your neck or placing it on your wrists. Why does this work? There are pressure points on the body that aid in cooling us quicker because the blood vessels are closer to the surface. To learn more on cooling your body with pressure points, check out LifeHacker.com’s article.

Now to keep the cooling longer, you can make a polymer neck band to keep you cool for hours. All you need is a bandana or a bit of fabric and some polymer crystals. These can be purchased as most craft stores like Micheals (they are used in the base of vases).
If you need simple tips to identify and avoid heat related illness, The City of Toronto has a PDF flyer with that info.

Cooking in the Heat

Search the net and there are tonnes of no-heat or oven-free recipes to keep your place cool. If the weather is hot outside, why not cook outside and keep the heat out there too. Options range from salads to cold soups and if you need heat, learn to use the BBQ for more than just grilling a steak. You can cook more or less anything on a BBQ from rotisserie chicken to pizza. If you’re stuck on ideas, one good place to start is 101 fast recipes for grilling. So get creative, get grilling and BBQ up a storm!

Hopefully these tips and tricks will help you survive the excellent heat on the way and make your summer more enjoyable. Now if you did read this, there should be NO reason you should complain about the heat. There is enough options available and if in doubt, you always have Google to help find an answer…