Why Yes Sir, That's How Commerce Works

[Minflick]

My husband loved the box fans, and I always thought they were the most useless things on the planet. I have a big metal blade fan in storage (it's too large for the apartment) and a smaller one for my bedroom. They cost more, but they move a LOT more air with those blades.

[Slave to the Phone]

So, because of this thread, I did something I always wanted to do, and it was unplanned!

I pulled a couple of fans out of the shed and brought them inside so I could test them and see if they had died of heat death. Due to me leaving them on the floor, and my sweetie not paying attention, he tripped on one.

I FINALLY managed a Monty Python reference right at the moment instead of an hour later.

He complained tripping over a fan and I said with a perfectly straight face: Nobody expects a fanish imposition!

He's looking up divorce attorneys now, LOL!!!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Air conditioners were a hot selling item yesterday.

Ha. Haha. You'll never in a million gazillion years see what I did there.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

He complained tripping over a fan and I said with a perfectly straight face: Nobody expects a fanish imposition!

👎

On a related note, I stopped at the swamp today for some holiday necessities (okay, beer, which I could've gotten at about a million other places in this town) and noticed it to be even more swamp-ish as usual. The cashier who rang up my beer told me the air conditioning was all assed up and had broke down yesterday. I wouldn't have known unless she told me; the a/c never worked in that place. There was one time the temperature up in the break room was nearing 100 F. I spent my breaks in my car with the a/c cranked up that day.

[SteeleDragon78]

my apt has the ac units in a bumpout in the ceiling. yesterday the drip pan drain clogged up and i woke to the sound of it pissing on a towel i dropped after my shower. 2 hrs after calling maint it had filled one of my small pots by just over a quart. the maint guy said he fixed it. but didnt. i cant deal with it again till friday when im off. so i get to listen to the drip sound all day. i would get a window unit, but im on the 2nd floor, and i dont trust the windows to hold one securely.

[Sparklyturtle]

Back about 2007 there was a heat wave with average daily temperatures here of 107 degrees F over about a week and a half. I live outside of Portland, Oregon. There was an incredible run on air conditioners, which isn't surprising. It's usually nowhere near this hot during our summers, which is a good thing since we don't have air conditioning in our house. Usually we don't need it, and sure, occasionally we have to sweat in summer, but our summers are short here. I also have one of those tiny fans on my desk, which is currently stirring up the air in my home office.

[Racket_Man]

I have lived in the mid Mid West and upper Mid West all of my life and I do know one thing SUMMERS YES DO GET HOT even here in upper US ie. CheeseHeadLand Central. every couple of years we get searing (meaning frying an egg on the sidewalk hot) temps for a couple of days or weeks at a time and then throw in high humidity OH THE JOY . Street pavement buckles, lawns turn deep brown in 48 hours, I sweat my brains out, possible electric brown outs and pizza delivery goes through the roof as people just do not want to grill for some reason

[Ironclad Alibi]

We could repost this entire thread in February, after changing "air conditioner" to "snow blower."

[Catwoman2965]

Don't these people realize that it's gonna be hot again NEXT summer? A well-maintained air conditioner should last the average person a decade or more, so the $300 or so they spend is gonna break down to less than $30 per year. Same thing with a basic fan. Who can't afford twenty or thirty bucks for a basic stand-up fan?

when I moved into my apt 15 years ago, they only provided an a/c in the LR. if you wanted one in the bedroom, you bought it yourself. Being someone who DESPISES heat and summer, i bought one. And as its a thru-the-wall unit, it was pricier than a window unit. But i sucked it up and paid for it. this is the 13th summer and its still going strong. Although now in my complex they provide one in the BR, so when this one dies, they'll replace it.

[Blue Ginger]

The freak outs about the heat currently happening in the UK makes me giggle. (I do feel bad for the elderly though. I know how dangerous the heat is for them. And the Scottish transplants that have moved further south. )

When I lived in London, I used to laugh at them complaining about 25 degrees (77F). To me that is just a really nice spring temperature. 30C (86F) is starting to get not fun for being outside for long periods, but lovely for a lunch in the sun or BBQ dinner. But to the locals it was like the end of the world. There were a lot of Wicked Witch of the West moments. I'm meeelllllttttiiiinnngggggg, mmmeeeelllltttiiinnngggg.

But most houses and businesses are not set up for temperatures above 20C (68F). Only the modern office buildings are. And even then some of the smaller ones don't have the aircon units that they should.

I loved summer while I was there because the temperatures were warm and lovely without hitting the 35-40C (95-104F) that Melbourne averages. Hell, over the last decade or so we are hitting 40+ temperatures way more often than we ever used to. During the 90's we would hit 38C (100F) maybe 2-5 times a summer, with 40C once in a bad year. Now we are hitting 42C (107F) 6-10 times a summer. 90% of the time our heat is a dry heat straight off the deserts in the centre of Oz.

(All temps are 'in the shade'. We don't measure the 'in the sun' temperatures. I don't even want to know how hot that would make it some days. If it's 46.4C (115F) in the shade, it's too scary to think about what it would be in direct sun. That is one of the highest temps recorded in Melbourne CBD. I was in a coastal town and it hit 48.9C (120F) there.)

[Mental_Mouse]

If it's 46.4C (115F) in the shade, it's too scary to think about what it would be in direct sun. That is one of the highest temps recorded in Melbourne CBD. I was in a coastal town and it hit 48.9C (120F) there.)

New York City has a yearly media ritual where the mayor literally fries an egg on the pavement. IIRC, they just pick a suitably exposed bit of street (blacktop, not sidewalk), clean it and fence if off for the morning while it heats. I'm not sure how long they've been doing it, but at least since I was in high school.

[Android Kaeli]

Don't these people realize that it's gonna be hot again NEXT summer? A well-maintained air conditioner should last the average person a decade or more, so the $300 or so they spend is gonna break down to less than $30 per year. Same thing with a basic fan. Who can't afford twenty or thirty bucks for a basic stand-up fan?

My AC is still in working order, albeit with a new condenser [The old one went out early last year, thankfully this unit is still under warrenty]. I keep mine maintained and looked at several times a year, because the southern states gets HOT at the end of May through the end of September. Don't want to be without one during June.

Always amazes me that people don't seem to realize that the world cycles through the same four seasons every year. By winter some will be complaining about the cold.

[MadMike]

The guy proceeded to swear up and down and he couldn't believe that we sold out of them so fast.

I believe it. Back in '99, we had a bad heat wave, with temperatures reaching triple digits for days in a row. Unfortunately, I had moved into a rental house with two stories, and only one A/C. Back when I was living in a place where everything was on one floor, it was able to cool the whole place just fine. But not so much the second floor in the new place, which is where my son's bedroom and mine were.

I went from one store to another, trying to find some window units, but everything was sold out. I finally lucked out at Lowe's -- they must have just received an order, because there was a whole pallet of them sitting in the middle of the floor. I kind of balked at the price at first, but then realized that the pile I was staring indecisively at was quickly getting smaller and smaller. So I bought two units.

Less than a year later, I ended up buying the house I live in now, which has central air, and sold my window units.

[Slave to the Phone]

I made another customer swear at me today. I was at the hardware store buying AC filters when I heard someone screaming at a clerk because the fan SHE had sold the SC didn't work. The clerk plugged the fan in and turned it on which is when the SC commenced screaming at the clerk that it WAS in fact defective because all it was doing was blowing hot air around. WHY WASN'T IT BLOWING COLD AIR!!!

That's when I quietly said, the only one blowing hot air here is the idiot who doesn't understand that fans only blow the surrounding air. Much swearing happened then, with things getting worse because I was laughing so hard at the SC that other people started laughing as well.

Laughing and pointing seems to help at times, the SC stormed out of the store, screaming and cursing.

[Monterey Jack]

Air conditioners CREATE cold air...fans just blow around the EXISTING air. I find it hard to believe anyone could not grasp this concept.

[TheWolfEmperor]

If it comes down to it, I buy two fans. One is in the window pointing into the room and another is aimed in my general direction. It really takes the edge off.