<p>Sleeping outside in a heat?..I would not be able to fall asleep at all. I much prefer to sleep in airconditioned house inside when it is hot. I would not be able to sleep with the window AC unit either, way too loud.</p>
<p>OUr themostat for AC is at 73 when we are at home and 75 when we are not.
In a winter, I cannot tolerate above 65. If H. insists that he is cold, he is reminded about sweatshirts and winter coats, various sleepers and thick socks and electric pad if nothing else helps. Over 65 will put me in melt down situation in a winter. I stopped wearing long sleeve tops because of higher temp. at the office.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, did you know they have bed fans now? My mom stopped wearing long sleeves nd the like, too. She always tells my siblings, “You guys have sweatshirts and socks for a reason!” :p</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be able to sleep comfortably in the Florida summer nights. It gets humid, sticky, and wet. I’d rather be dry inside.</p>
<p>Opening all the doors and windows at 5 AM to cool the house down.</p>
<p>Washing all my sweaters.</p>
<p>Hanging the sheets outside to dry.</p>
<p>And, as a bonus, when you weed and drop the weeds on the ground, they shrivel up and die instantly.</p>
<p>I do not need “bed fan”, I have a fan in my ceiling right above my bed. But even this very quet fan sometime is a bit too loud for me. I have never seen any others that are queter, since moving air is producing sound no matter what fan.</p>
<p>This heat is a good excuse for buying a separate ice maker appliance for kitchen. </p>
<p>I need my ice cubes with Florida summer heat to use with drinks including: Kool-Aid, soda, iced tea, iced coffee, Gatorade, water, Sangria, etc. Gotta have my ice!</p>
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Well, whenever you get hot underneath the sheets, they’re great to have. I tried it and it was awesome.</p>
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<p>One of the nice things about the Seattle area - even if it gets to 100 degrees, it’s below 70 by 10 pm and about 60 degrees in the morning. Not many bugs, either. With our big trees, we have lots of shade.</p>
<p>We have a fan in the basement. I tried to tell my H that it would be more useful upstairs. ( It is a large standing fan & Im not supposed to carry things yet)
For some people fan noise is “white” noise, it’s sort of soothing.
It is unusual to have AC in a residential home here, especially in my neighborhood where many of the homes are 100+ years old.
We just open all our windows & doors, until the neighbor cats come in.</p>
<p>My sister had a heat pump installed when they built their house 30 years ago, which I think is supposed to help cool too?
But the warranty must have ran out because about ten years ago they installed a conventional furnace.</p>
<p>We’ve been sitting on the front porch in the evening. More shade than in the back in the early evening, & it is entertaining watching the neighborhood take their constitutional while sitting on the glider eating coconut popsicles.
Then when it cools off a little more, we take * our walk*.</p>
<p>Our neighbors are strange. One house has their sprinklers set up to water the planting strip (by shooting across the sidewalk). They have it going every few days, no matter the weather, so we’ve had to change our route if we didnt want to get soaked.
But * now* they’ve turned it off! 
( yes I know that watering in heat can burn the plants/ dissipates before it is any use, but they were watering three times a week, even if it had rained for the last four days) </p>
<p>Just a reminder- if you are out for a walk- make sure your doors & windows are secure when you do- others will try & take advantage of carelessness.
[Police:</a> Spike in temperature brings spike in burglaries](<a href=“http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-Spike-in-temperature-brings-spike-in-burglaries-213917551.html]Police:”>http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-Spike-in-temperature-brings-spike-in-burglaries-213917551.html)</p>
<p>I wish they would put water in the wading pool in the park by my house.
I think that will be my next project.( if I finish up my current ones - ;))
Too bad our pond isn’t bigger. 
But the birds like it.</p>
<p>It’s been hot, hot, hot here in inland SoCal for the last several days! I am so grateful for having central A/C now in the house we bought a couple of years ago. For many years we lived in a rental house with two window units, which really didn’t cut it at all, especially since one of the units was in a south-facing window and would cut off when it got too hot. Fans were our friends back then, especially at night in our bedroom which didn’t have a window unit. Now with A/C and ceiling fans we’re pretty comfortable, although when it gets to 100 degrees it’s hard for the A/C to really keep up. Then we just try not to move around too much and cool off by drinking iced drinks and eating popsicles. Also, we grill a lot and eat lots of salads and other minimally cooked meals. And, when we really want to cool off (if we can stand getting in the hot car), we’ll either go to the movie theater or to the grocery store, which normally I get too cold in!</p>
<p>EK4 -I’m impressed you have a basement. We moved here from upstate NY and two of our desired traits while househunting were a full basement and a walkup attic. Neither is common here on the eastside. People with 5000 sf houses commonly keep a storage unit. Our extra “stuff” is piled up in the trusses.</p>
<p>We took the family swimming in Lake Sammamish Sunday - no AC in our house.</p>
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Is that living space or lot size? If it’s a home with 5000 sq ft living space, can you not use a 12x12 room as a storage area?</p>
<p>I grew up in Bridle Trails ( a development built in the early '60s)& about 1/2 the homes had a basement. It depended on your lot, sloped lots seem to have more basements, than flatter ones.
My parents house had a daylight basement. ( from the front it looked like a rambler, but in the back you walked straight out into the yard.)
Most( many?) of the homes in Seattle have basements. We didn’t consider any houses that didnt.
Although when H & I lived in Enatai, that house didn’t have a basement.
It had a huge attic though.
And when I lived on Cottage Lake, that house didnt have a basement either.
But I think it was originally built as a " summer home".</p>
<p>Our basement is always very cold in a summer, no fan / AC is needed, we have closed all of the vents in the basement.</p>
<p>We bought a house from the original owners who actually added a basement a few years after they bought it in 57. It was done by raising the house up and digging underneath. It’s a full basement with a living room area and a large bedroom, plus a workshop and full bath. It cost them $2,500 in 1962. </p>
<p>We saw many homes with basements when we were house hunting in S. Seattle 4 years ago. Most had been turned into MIL apartments though, which we were not looking for.</p>
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<p>It was one of the real surprises of the house search. According to the real estate people, the number crunchers got ahold of the home design people and did away with any semblance of adequate storage. It is expensive to build but barely adds to the sale price. They make more profit spending the extra money stylizing the kitchens and bonus rooms.</p>
<p>A friend had a lift rack built in his garage to store his sports car up near the roof, parking the SUV underneath. One of his garage bays had to be sacrificed for sports equipment - bikes, skis, camping stuff.</p>
<p>Sadly, homes in HI are very short of spaces and storage companies do a thriving business! Basements are extremely rare and most construction has little to no built in closets or other storage.</p>
<p>nothing worse than a hot stagnant sticky night in ohio,new hampshire or connecticut.</p>
<p>This heat is a great excuse to eat an ice cream bar and half a Dulcinea watermelon for lunch. :)</p>
<p>So far, little heat here in coastal So. Calif. -wearing a sweater today. But that’s one reason we live here. Perfect weather.</p>