How's the Weather Today?

[MiniDave]

Summer's here......101* today

This morning was even more miserable, even tho it was only 75*, it was about a million precent humidity!

That seemed to burn off as the day went along and we had a nice strong breeze from the south, so in the shade it wasn't too horrible.

Next Tues they're saying 102-104*.....and 100+ every day over the next two weeks from there!

Supposed to go to the "Great car Show " with Don on Sunday - supposed to rain Sunday too and only be in the high 80's with commensurate humidity I'm sure. I may last an hour......

[94touring]

Hot is how the weather is today.  Supposed to top out at 108, currently106.  I have the shop AC running and it's maintaining 72 in here thank goodness.

[MiniDave]

It wasn't all that hot here on Sunday for the car show, about 84 but the humidity and unrelenting sun meant I lasted just over an hour. I drove the racing green Mini so no A/C but once I got going the breeze really helped. I'm a complete wuss when it comes to heat any more.

We're getting the same heatwave as Dan, just 5 degrees cooler. We'll be over 100 for the next week or maybe two - and it's not even August which is traditionally our hottest month!

[Brit_in_TX]

The high here has been over 100 most days for the last couple of months. 

A number of planned jobs on the minis are on hold until the temperature comes down as I often don't get out into the garage until mid afternoon, and by that time it is well over 100 in there.

[MiniDave]

I have a large window A/C unit in the garage/shop, so I can keep it cool enough to work.....but when the house A/C has to run non stop from about 10 am till 4 am, I'm not anxious to turn it on and add to the already pretty stiff A/C bill. OTOH, it's only 3 months of the year.....  ::)

If I lived in Texas and wanted to work on my car in the 8-9 months of summer you guys have I would definitely have A/C in the shop, not to mention how much nicer it is to get in your car and have it cool and comfortable right out of the garage. A mini-split will do that for you, just ask Bruce!

[Brit_in_TX]

I would love to put in a mini-split, but we are not planning in staying in this house much longer (about 18 months) so that luxury will have to wait until the next house!

[BruceK]

I only run the garage a/c when I need to be in there for a while tackling some maintenance or repair problem.  So that may only be one or two days a week at most. I found the best way to do it is make the decision early in the morning to start cooling the garage down when The ambient temperature is only in the upper 70s or low 80s because if I were to wait until the end of the afternoon the interior of the garage, the cars, the tools, the concrete slab and everything else in there has been heat soaking all day and it can easily top 100 degrees or more in there.

When you think about it, having 10,000 pounds or 5 tons of dense metal, glass, and plastic baked to 100° sitting in the garage presents quite a cool down challenge.    There's nothing comparable in a typical home with furniture, bedding, and carpets to that huge garage heat sink.

[94touring]

We had a hail storm come through yesterday. Went from 96 to 75 degrees!  We had the bmw out but luckily no hail damage after looking it over today. 

Regarding shop AC, I turn it down low when I'm working in there and set it to 78 when I leave to keep it cool but not run continuously.  When I leave for a couple weeks for work it gets turned off.  I do have an extra portable ac unit that I have as something I can use in the bus which I decided to run this week in conjunction with the regular AC unit.  It actually got too cold!  I had the portable AC at the opposite end of the shop blowing towards the shop AC, so the center area where I work got a double blast.

[MiniDave]

Keeping that mass of metal cooler might actually be more cost effective than taking it from hot back down to comfy.....

I have the unique situation that my garage is under the house so to speak - since it's a split level - and even tho the garage doesn't share the house A/C it doesn't get too bad in there, 80 is the hottest I've seen it after we've had weeks of 100* days and in winter 40 is about as cold as it gets, even if we're in low single digits or worse. If it's really humid out I can run my shop A/C and it really cools it down nicely as it takes the moisture out of the air. When it's really hot out I only need to run the A/C for about an hour and it's plenty cool.

The real determining factor is what I'm doing out there.......... hard work where I'm working up a sweat vs just piddling around.

[G67mcs]

 Has been really hot the past two weeks in southwest GA. Temps in mid-nineties with heat index at 100 or above. Not much work on any cars taking place :(

Know we aren't out of it yet, could be another month. Hope cooler temps where you are.

Garry

[MiniDave]

We were in the Mid to high 90's almost everyday since the first of June, with commensurate stupid high humidity, in July we had weeks over 100.....it broke a couple of days ago when we got a big rainstorms, then some more today. We'll have 80's till Monday then back to the 90's again....

[gr8kornholio]

Please send any and all rain south.  It's turning into the Sahara around Dallas.  Been in the 100s since June, no rain, and no end in sight. 

[BruceK]

It's even worse further south. Terrible ongoing drought. In this part of Texas entire rivers have dried completely up, and lakes are mostly just small ponds in the middle of a huge empty fields.   Our well is producing substantially less water, which is a huge concern.   We really need a lot of rain.

[MiniDave]

With the situation out west (Lake Mead is almost empty and Boulder dam may have to shut down - which means Vegas among others will not have power) I can't justify watering the yard like some of my neighbors are doing - fortunately we've had enough rain that I think my grass will make it thru the rest of the summer.

We'll have a brief respite from the high temps till Monday, then we're getting hot again.

Some places are dry as tinder and others are dealing with floods......

[BruceK]

It's even worse further south. Terrible ongoing drought. In this part of Texas entire rivers have dried completely up, and lakes are mostly just small ponds in the middle of a huge empty fields.   Our well is producing substantially less water, which is a huge concern.   We really need a lot of rain.

I drove past this today: the current state of a river near me.

[MiniDave]

Looks like we're going to get about one more week of this mid 90+++ weather, then it might break and drop back to the low 80's, but even more better  - 60's at night!

[94touring]

Couldn't be any hotter today, all the way up to 104.  I'd rather be back in Colorado!

[MiniDave]

Ugh.....so humid here - it's not that hot - mid 80's - but with 99% humidity it's miserable. You feel like you're breathing water and the air feels so thick it's more like swimming thru it than walking. It's raining humidity!

At least if the temps get up around 100 it tends to dry out.....but neither is preferable to me.....I need to go back to Sandy Eggo!

[MiniDave]

Well, it's not officially fall, but the weather finally broke.....after weeks of 100* or close to it, we've hit a really nice stretch. Mid 80's days and nice cool low 60's at night - perfect  - at least for me cause the humidity is in the 30% range. My wife hates it because it's so dry but I'm lovin it!

Downside - we haven't had any rain for over a month and the grass is mostly brown with a few green patches where there's a lot of shade. I'm having the yard aerated and overseeded again in a few weeks, so if it hasn't rained by then I'll have to start watering so that the machine can penetrate the hard packed dirt.

The city came thru and removed all the big trees that lined the street, under the pretext that they were all infested with some bug - I don't remember if they were ash or elms - but they formed a nice canopy and shaded the yard nicely. Yes, it's a PITA to clean up all the leaves every fall but I appreciate the shade. Of course they also damage the sidewalks by the huge roots getting under and lifting the concrete up. They claim this fall they'll plant new trees, probably some form of maple that grows quickly, but we're still talking years for them to grow big enough to provide any sort of shade.

I have a giant pin oak in the front yard, I wish it was in the back to shade us from the summer sun to the west and south, but boy howdy has it gotten expensive to get a tree trimmed up. It has some branches that are over the house now that I need to get trimmed, and some dead branches here and there, but it's gotten way too tall for me to climb up and go after it like I used too, so I'll be calling someone.

A man's home is his hassle! 

Speaking of homes, the real estate market is still out of control.....I have friends wanting to move into Overland Park to be closer to their office, they've made offers on two homes in the last couple of months and didn't get either. On one they offered 40% over the asking price and someone beat them out with a cash offer that was $10K higher, and this was on a fairly spendy house - final sale price was $450K. They've seen houses offered for $300K that needed "everything" done inside and out and they sell within one day for $75-100K higher than asking. It's nutso out there!

[MPlayle]

Speaking of homes, the real estate market is still out of control.....I have friends wanting to move into Overland Park to be closer to their office, they've made offers on two homes in the last couple of months and didn't get either. On one they offered 40% over the asking price and someone beat them out with a cash offer that was $10K higher, and this was on a fairly spendy house - final sale price was $450K. They've seen houses offered for $300K that needed "everything" done inside and out and they sell within one day for $75-100K higher than asking. It's nutso out there!

That has been going on down here for the last 3 years.  That is one of the reasons I am still living in an apartment.

[94touring]

Kind of surprising considering interest rates are very high right now.  Figured the offering more than asking price stupidity had ended by now.

[MiniDave]

I'm also surprised at how raising the rates hasn't seemed to slow things down......when I bought my house in Sandy Eggo in 84, we were just coming off the stupid high interest rates of the early 80's, where mortgage rates were in the 20-21% range. To buy a house then you did "creative financing" which usually meant a small mortgage of $100K or so and big balloon amount with the balance due in 5 years. That's how I got a great deal on my house - the seller's balloon was way overdue and he was going to lose the house. I think I only paid just enough to get him out from under it - an unbelievable $150K for a newly renovated 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath, 2 car garage only 3 miles from the ocean. My rate was 10% and I was happy to even get it, a couple years later I was able to refi at 5%, my payments dropped by about 1/3!

A $450K house financed today at 7-9% (is that the current rate?) would be stupid expensive!

Edit: BTW, my old house in SD is currently about $1.25 million, according to Zillow. 4117 Avati Dr. if you're curious. In 2016 when Bruce and I went to SD for MMW, it was valued at $600K, so its doubled in those years.

[94touring]

Yeah we were looking at a property here a week ago outside of town on 10 acres with a spare living quarters with extra garage on the property.  Really nice updated main house and kind of what we're interested in for the "retirement property". Not crazy mansion big, not small, close to downtown, cool features, land to expand on and have things like gardens and chickens, both of which they already had. 600k asking price which is big money in Oklahoma.  But with 7.5 or so interest rates no thank you.  I still have some pinching pennies to do before we make a big purchase anyway, as I'd like to keep the current house as another rental.  Not really wanting to sell it for the down-payment on the retirement house if I don't have to.

[MiniDave]

Yeah, but by the time you're ready it could be twice as much!

[94touring]

Yeah, but by the time you're ready it could be twice as much!

Yeah that's also an issue.  But, in theory high interest rates should reduce these prices or at least keep them stable.  If only we had a crystal ball.  🔮