August!

[sholio]

For the last couple of years I've tried to post every day on DW in July and December (both typically low work months for me) - and I did in fact do that this past month, although I cheated a couple of days with private-locked diary posts to keep up the momentum. Still, I really like it; it's a fun personal challenge, and I often encourage myself to make shorter and more chatty posts or do more prompt fills, which I had amazing fun with this past month and would like to keep going, if possible!

August has blown in cold and wet. In Alaska, our hottest month is usually June (though late July gave it a surprising run for its money this year) and by this point in the year, we're tipping over into the fast slide into autumn and winter. We've already had to turn on the furnace a couple of times this summer.

(I saw a post on Tumblr in early July that was something like "What do you Americans set your thermostats to in the summer, is it what we British consider the fires of hell." I looked at it, saw most people choosing around 76F, had a brief moment of disconcerting amazement because WHO sets their heater to 76, are you people MADE OF MONEY, and also we just turned on ours a couple of days ago due to a spell of cold weather or I wouldn't even be able to answer this, I am shocked so many people are running their thermostat in-- oh wait, some people's air conditioning runs on a thermostat, suddenly everything becomes clear. 😂 It's all about the context.)

How is your summer? Or winter, depending on where you are.

Comments

[philomytha]

It's been uncomfortably hot and sunny here the last few days - by which I mean 25C or more, I am not a hot-weather creature - but I did manage one dip in the sea which was very much needed! But I think it's going back to the more cloudy and drizzly weather we've had for most of the summer so far.

ETA: and now, my brain slowly coming online - it's only now you mention it that I realise that yes, I also concluded from that tumblr meme that some people must run their heating stratospherically high /o\

[passingbuzzards]

76F?! Man, my apartment would be unlivable with the thermostat at that temp, 76F outdoors is fine but indoor thermostat set to that temperature when it's mid- to upper 90s outside would be so miserably stuffy and hot. All the buildings here are so poorly insulated that the actual temperature near the windows would be way higher. (Though these days I also keep the thermostat way lower than I actually find comfortable, since otherwise my head will overheat and my vision will get blurry...currently set to 68F until it gets dark and cools down enough for me to turn off the A/C and open a window [if it does], then 68F again when time for sleep. It's freezing, so uncomfortable! Alas, my thermoregulation just cannot cope.)

Definitely very hot and dry summer here overall, no long spell of rain like last June. (I think the last summer that was standard-parched-Colorado like this was 2021?) Which I mostly don't mind, I was happy to be able to go night biking at the beginning of the summer, that was really nice. But we've also had some heat spikes where it wast still 95F at 8:00PM, LESS NICE, and my plants really struggle with the baking heat on my concrete balcony in the afternoon sun, the leeks wilt during the day and I can't leave the basil out because it’ll fry.

All the smoke from Canada and then California and now from our own fires is not great, though, can't have windows open at all. D:

[black_bentley]

My MIL has her heating set to keep the house at about 25 Celsius (which I think is 77 Fahrenheit) year-round and I start drooping the second I walk in the door, it's unbearable.

We've had a few hot (for Scotland), still days here, but it's overcast and a bit cooler today. We live up quite a big hill so it's unusual for us to have no wind!

[anna_wing]

Monsoon in full force, heavy rain for the last month. Floods, parasitic dysentery and cholera. Also one of my cats has taken to coming for a snuggle in the morning, since on most mornings it is raining, so they can't go out after breakfast as usual. Daytime temperature down to a chilly 27C, night-time around 22C, which is cold (24C is my airconditioner temperature setting at night).

[sgac]

The days have started getting noticeably longer, which is a relief, but the winter temperatures are still what a delicate Australian considers cold. An average day would be about 4C/39F to 13C/55F.

Our heaters are set to 16C (61F) overnight and 21C (70F) during the day. In practice, the house is about 18C.

[trobadora]

Haha, my first reaction was "thermostat? summer? WHAT????" - I exclusively associate it with central heating.

We're having very unstable weather, by which I mean heat and sun interspersed with thunderstorms and rain (and flooding, in some places). Overall very warm, but no actual prolonged heat wave this year, which means my (very cool) flat remains nice and comfy, and hasn't gone above 24°C. In years that do have prolonged heat waves, the temperature in my living room can eventually go up to 28° max for maybe a week or so; it's never been higher than that, or for longer than that.

(The disadvantage of a flat that is nice and cool in summer is of course the heating costs in winter ...)

[rmc28]

The heating thermostat is set to 17C. The portable aircon unit is set to 20C, but a. only works in one room at a time, b. I only run it when we have surplus electricity from the solar panels. Also this is England so there are not so many days in the year where we need it. I did notice this week that there is a lag as the sun goes down, when the solar panels no longer have surplus, but the heat has not dropped. However, the room takes a little while to warm up from 20C, so it's usually bearable until the heat drops outside.

[lunabee34]

Heeee. It is really hot here. We try to keep the AC at 76 but it ends up at 75 or 74. We keep the heat at 68.

[leesa_perrie]

Summer's been wet, very wet, occasionally hot and very hot, but we still have August to go and so far it's hot (for me). As for 76F, that's too warm to me!! I'm more of a 68-70F girl (inside definitely, outside I can cope with a little more heat/cold)!!

[silverflight8]

My heating gets set to 62 and my ac to 80 🤣 I don't like using energy and will change what I wear inside to compensate, like why should I cool my place so hard to sleep under a thick duvet in summer?? I can't with the people who do 62 in summer and then 75 in winter. So wasteful.

[yhlee]

I have central air and live in Louisiana. Our thermostatus is set to 74 F pretty much year-round because I get migraines and there is a VERY narrow range of temperatures I can tolerate without constantly being in migraine hell; when it's hot, there's really only so much clothing I can take off, thanks, and when it's cold, I have nerve pain that means that wearing extra layers (especially around hands/feet) is not something I want to do for long periods of time at home. In fairness, I think in a typical year, we only have the heating on at night a few weeks of the winter if at all; last December (2023) we had highs in the 80s F, which suuuuuucked, but this is one reason why property values are depressed in Louisiana lolsob.

ETA: I should add, there is some logic to keeping the house rather cool generally because of the six months of hurricane season: there's a significant chance of power outage, which means if your AC/power goes out, a house can RAPIDLY become uninhabitable/unsafe on heat grounds. So keeping the house warmer means you're losing margin in case of an outage and not being able to get to a cooler location and/or hotel and/or crash space soon.

[oracne]

For sleeping, I put my bedroom AC at 70-72 degrees, but during the day leave it at 76. Apparently, that ends up using less energy than if I turned it off during the day. My bedroom has a bay window facing east, so it can get pretty hot in there at midday and in the afternoon.

[tessercat]

east-coast canada here. AC downstairs is set to 23 or 24C when we have it on. It's been humid and muggy and altogether too tropical here a few weeks this summer.

Winter, thermostats are set between 16 and 18C overnight (depending on room use) and 20C during the day (or left at 17 for unoccupied rooms).

[genarti]

I had the same thought about that poll, haha. I didn't answer it because the answer is very different in winter versus summer!

And for air conditioning, we have a couple of window units that we run at need rather than anything connected to the thermostat, but they have a temp setting that we usually do as 76 or so. In an ideal world I'd set it a bit colder, but a) air conditioning is somehow a lot chillier than the same temperature from any other source, and b) we're not made of money for electricity, either. Heating-wise, though, 76 seems SO HIGH to me! Both in an ARE YOU MADE OF MONEY way and in a "how would you not immediately come in the door, take off your snowboots, and go change into shorts and a tank top and drink ice water" kind of way.

[madripoor_rose]

Usually hot and rainy...temperatures in the mid nineties with 'realfeel' into the low hundreds. Downpours, hours of driving rain. Haven't had to water the garden much this year, but keeping an uneasy eye on the toxic algae bloom on Lake Erie, where our drinking water comes from.

Winter heat is usually on 76F at night and 72F during the day when we're up and moving around, and A/C at 72F. If I could do something about the insulation, windows and the cracks in the walls, we'd probably be more temperature-stable, but it is what it is.

[timespirt]

Too very hot. It's been humid every day since the beginning of June and that in itself is unusual for us. Every time it seems we have rain coming it goes around us so all the rain we got since march seems to have disappeared and we are back to being on the verge of drought. They say the fall is going to be warmer so I can't see any relief coming any day soon. August has already been very hot. I envy you your cold. I will never complain about winter ever again. If we even get a winter this year. We turn the thermostat off in summer and keep it at 68 in winter. We have no central air.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Sadly, I know people who run their heat at 76°, and I suspect a lot of people do it. We set it down to 76° for the night because we have trouble sleeping when it's higher, but it's 79° during the day. I think in winter, we keep it at 68°. But it's summer in Florida, and it has been hot for so long that I can't remember where we keep the heat when it's cold!

Our weather hasn't been getting hotter than usual during the day, for the most part, though we have had a few individual record days. We have been cooling down even less at night. We just had one of our biggest electric bills in this house.

There are people without AC and people who can't afford to run their AC. There are a lot of unhoused people in Florida. I don't know how they survive.

[vass]

It is like this.

[starwatcher]

<g> I live at the opposite temp extreme from you -- southeast New Mexico. I knew immediately that 76 degrees was the cooling temp; it's where I keep my house in the summer. That's 20 to 25 degrees cooler than the outside daytime temps. (And sometimes 30 degrees cooler.)

We'll have temps over 90 degrees at least until the middle of September, and often into October. Even in mid-winter, we often have a couple of days a week where the outside temps reach 65. Those days I hang out my nectar feeder for the bees; they know exactly where it is, and come for the free food.

[ranalore]

North-central Utah here. We have solar panels, so we set the temp to 74F for A/C, 70-72F for heating. I could wish for lower for the A/C, but I live with my sister and BIL and understand the balancing act of livable inside temp vs. livable electric bill. We all three get temp-triggered migraines and have trouble with thermoregulation, but BIL and I tend toward too cold while sis is experiencing the joy of near-constant hot flashes, and of course we live in an area that regularly sees triple digits in the summer and week-long runs of below-freezing temps in the winter.

At least the added complication of humidity is a vanishingly rare concern. That's what made living in Florida such a fun juggling act, especially in the older concrete buildings with some kind of wall heating unit, but where you had to add your own window a/c.

[copperfyre]

I'm in BC and June was nice and cool but July has been hot, dry, and on fire (and thus so very smoky). We've had one scary day so far where we had our go bags by the door because ash was falling and it was all looking quite apocalyptic, but we haven't had to evacuate yet, though a small village about 25km north has. And obviously Jasper has burned, which has so far been the "oh shit" fire of the summer in western Canada. It's also been incredibly buggy, way buggier than previous years and I work outside a lot, so I'm really just holding on until it gets less smoky and less buggy and less hot. I can't wait for fall!

Re: the temperature question, I've only just moved into somewhere with AC capability and I've been keeping it at 25C/77F. Outside temps have been up to 38C, and more commonly have been around 35C, so 25C feels delightfully cool compared to that! It's also a dry heat here, so much more bearable than if it was humid. The power went out for a day when it was really hot and it got up to 44C/111F inside, but luckily I missed all of it by being outside where it was a more bearable 36 and I could lie down in a creek.