Our cheapest form of keeping cool in the summer starts with Sweating. Sweating cools the body down and maintains its operating temperature. Sweating prevents us from overheating and heatstroke.
Basic Physics of Water Cooling (Seating): When a liquid changes state by evaporating into gas, the process has the effect of cooling down the surface that it came from. Evaporation needs a triggering event and that would be our body getting hotter (exercising/ working hard) plus the movement of air across the water’s surface (our skin). Our body is similar to turning on the stove burner and placing a pot of water on top. The pot of water is actually trying to cool down the hot burner as the water evaporates into the air, but more energy coming out of the burner (I.E. our body) keeps the water hot triggering more evaporation to continue. When we stop exercising / working hard, we stop the source of high temperature and the skin evaporation goes way down.
CHEAP:
FIX - CLOTHING: WHITE Clothing surfaces reflect light while BLACK-surfaces collect light. Therefore, it is best to:
· Wear white clothes when hot outside to reflect the heat away.
· White umbrellas will reflect the most heat, while black umbrellas will collect and radiate amplified heat down to you.
· Wear wet collars around your neck which evaporate water to cool the warm blood entering your brain. (Sold at hardware stores.)
MEDIUM:
FIX - HOUSE EXTERIOR: White roofs and white walls will greatly reduce your air conditioning bills while Black roofs and dark colored walls will suck in heat which travels through the walls into
the house. A LOT of insulation (R70 – 100 per www.phius.org ) is required to prevent that extra heat from penetrating into the house. (Note: a standard 2x4 wall is only ~ R9 - 13) · FUTURE: Lets have Seasonal Color changing roofs and walls on our house for Summer and Winter