July 2006

A couple of weeks ago things got pretty hot here in Vancouver Washington, with temperatures hitting the low 100s. I was really tempted to go out and buy an air conditioner, but it only gets really hot for maybe two weeks here and after that the proper use of fans does the job fine. So it was hard to justify spending the money on air conditioning only to end up using it for maybe two weeks out of the year. But when it’s 100+ degrees outside a fan isn’t much help. It was hot and I needed some relief, so I put to use some basic science – heat rises. Fortunately my house is on a raised foundation and even better the access to the underside of the house is in my closet. I pulled the access cover from the floor and immediately realized that my idea was golden – the temperature was easily 15-20 degrees cooler under the house than it was inside the house, which makes sense because –
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