u/Leighgion

1. Trunk organizer bag

2. Stick-on blind spot mirrors

3. Side window curtains for the back seat.

4. Kick guards from the back of the front seats.

5. Steering wheel laptop stand

Today was the start of school here, and things are very different than before. I need to make two roughly 34km round trips for my kid a day. This is also my first year with my 2021 Corolla Hybrid Hatch 1.8 Active Tech.

Even with a horrid traffic jam on one leg that took almost an hour to get through instead of 25 minutes like when there's normal traffic, I still ended the day with 3.5l/100km or 67 MPG!

This hybrid is saving my life. I got caught in a serious bottleneck with around 3/4 battery power, which allowed the gas engine to stay off for 20-25min while we very slowly crept forward. Aside from saving gas, the quiet and lack of vibration was a blessing.

EDIT: A few practical notes. This a mixed drive with a good stretch of highway, but also a stretch of city driving with stoplights. The highway run has a very good downhill stretch that contributes a lot to the efficiency. When I do need to kick on the gas engine, I have been making it a point to, whenever possible, smoothly push the engine up to 2,000 rpm and do as much gas-powered driving as possible that way, as it's a more efficient band that will move the car, charge the battery and allow me to back off the throttle faster if I'm getting up to speed for a pulse and glide. I've found that pushing to 2,000 rpm is saving me gas as while the engine uses more per second, the overall time it's on is less and the battery is getting a boost during that time.

u/Youarethebigbang posted an NPR story about heat deaths in Arizona, particularly among trailer park residents.

One unfortunate household had both window AC units and a portable swamp cooler. Regretfully, both an AC unit and the swamp cooler broke down and the family was unable to get anyone to try to repair them. They tried to tough it out during a stretch of 100+ degree days. One of the residents, Sheri Petty, 76, was found by her daughter, Tara Gentner, passed out in front of the swamp cooler that was blowing hot air. Petty later died in the hospital from heatstroke.

I credit the writer for actually differentiating between AC and swamp coolers, but that was as far as it went. The article went into the expected direction of focusing on the systemic financial and legal problems.

Now, the system certainly failed these people; nobody in a first world country should be dying because they can't get somebody to fix their cooling system. However, this highlights what I feel is one of the grand weaknesses of modern society.

Even in the United States, which supposedly values independence, we have as a people gradually given up on our knowledge and knowhow about matters outside of our jobs, and a narrow range of interests, in favor of assuming that systems will take care of us. When those systems fail, such as when we try to call professionals with money in hand but nobody comes, we are helpless.

While all the untimely heat deaths are tragedies, I look upon places like Arizona with special frustration.

Those of you who are regulars here will be somewhat familiar with my situation. I live in Madrid, Spain, where summers are hot and extremely dry, pretty much exaclty like Arizona at a slightly lower intensity. Before I came here, I knew nothing about swamp coolers, but since then I've learned all about them, amassed a small army to keep us cool in summer, and done various repairs on them. I have a degree in Literature and I'm not the guy you call to advise you about your car troubles, but I learned because I wanted to be able to take care of as much of these issues as possible.

The Gentner/Petty household is thousands of miles from me. I don't know them and I've never even been to Arizona, but an idealistic part of me feels a thread of guilt because even with the sparse technical details in the NPR story, I know what went wrong with that swamp cooler and would have gladly helped them if I'd been a neighbor.

It is tragically simple.

The report said the swamp cooler was blowing hot air, which means that the fan was perfectly functional. Therefore, the failure point was the water pump. It's a failure I've personally dealt with multiple times. At worst, you need to replace the $5-20 submergible pump, which often is exactly the same as the ones you buy for your aquarium, but in many cases you don't need need to do that. These pumps, like any mechanical device, can get bound up by debris and hair getting inside. It's a simple fix to get one open and pull the junk out and boom, you're back in business. Even if it's not possible to get the water pump back in action in short order, a swamp cooler can still be useful if you manually pour water over the filter media.

Portable swamp coolers are a cheap, very effective in dry climate technology that's also cheap and easy to repair: the perfect combination for resource-challenged members of the Arizona population. I am absolutely convinced Arizona's heat death rate would plummet if the general population simply knew about these things and understood how economical and effective they can be. They don't, which isn't the general public's fault. Government and organizations should be cognizant of these options and spread the word as a matter of public safety, but instead, the advice is the tired and presumptuous, "seek out air conditioning," as if that's always going to be there for us.

Arizona, and hot and dry places like it, if you're out there, don't look at swamp coolers as a quaint and obsolete relic of your parents' or grandparents' time. They are an extremely effective cooling measure when it's dry that could well save your life and, unlike air conditioning, the critical components are totally user-serviceable and repairable.

So, you're waiting in the car for your spouse/kid/friend/misc individual.

They swear they're not going to be long/class should be over/they're coming right down.

Sure they are.

One minute is going to turn into five, which will morph into twenty at which point what's an hour between friends/family?

It doesn't matter how prescient you are though, you're kinda stuck in that car because you're in a loading zone or other non-sanctioned parking right near the door so you can't just leave the car as any minute you might need to loop around the block. Not being in that loading zone would have involved pressing the point that you know this isn't going to just take a minute, and that's just not worth the social capital it'll cost.

With moderate temps, you just roll down the window and scroll on your phone or knock the seat back and have a minute (hour) of peace. No biggie. However, 2026 is a super El Niño year and the whole world is seeing record breaking heatwaves, and record breaking numbers of heatwaves. Europe's had five. I think we win, but we totally respect your suffering is real as well.

When it's 35ºC/95ºF, normal people will just idle the car and run the AC because well, comfort and safety, right?

I've been accused of a lot of things, but normal hasn't been one of them.

When I idle the car to run the AC, my brain stews over the price of gas, the Strait of Hormuz situation, extra wear on the engine, the precious electricity that could be moving my car in EV mode for up to kilometer, the hit to fuel efficiency, the amount of extra CO2 & heat I'm pumping out and the essential moral failing needing to operate such complex machinery just to stay safe and comfortable while waiting.

I really, really, want to shut the car off so its resource consumption drops the zero until it needs to move again, but just deploying the windshield sunshade and rolling down the windows simply doesn't cut it when it's north to 30ºC.

So, when I know I'm going to have to wait in the car, I make the following preparations:

1. Bring a bag of ice packs and some cotton shopping bags. Hugging an ice pack or two wrapped in a cloth bag is remarkably helpful, especially if you're not in direct sunlight and for extended times, extras in a cooler bag can be swapped in.

2. Keep a continuous spray bottle of water ready. Dry air means evaporation is useful not only for directly cooling me, but I also use it a bit on the black dashboard as cutting the amount of thermal buildup in the car helps more than you'd think.

I've also done a combination where I did run the car's AC, but I kept the temperature rather high and used the ice packs to supplement.

Most of you will never do this, and I understand, but crazy world calls for crazy measures.

The whole concept of frugality here is focused primarily on money, and there tends to be an assumption that we have more time and money, and so it's a frugal win to reduce expenditure of money at the expense of some time and convenience.

While I certainly count myself in this category, there are limits. How much money you have is subject to a lot of changing variables and your efforts have impact on that. On the other hand, all of us, rich, poor, filthy rich and dirt poor all get 24 hours per day and 7 days per week. We need to balance the consideration of what's the relative value of spending less money or spending more money but spending less time.

I have recently faced this down first hand when it comes to transportation.

For about 2-3 months at the end of spring into summer, for reasons unimportant to this discussion, I found myself without a car. I work from home, so that wasn't an issue, but my daughters have school and specific activities.

The regular schedule was possible on public transport and on paper, it was a lot cheaper than maintaining a car. In my city, children under 14 ride public transport for free and adult monthly passes are very reasonably priced at around 35€ ($41 USD) for unlimited rides.

However, the cost in time and physical wear and tear, especially during the summer, was considerable.

Driving to my kid's classes takes around 25min door to door. Less than half an hour in comfort.

Taking public transport means riding the subway for around 25min and then walking for about another 20min. Also, you need to allow for at least another 10min to get into the subway station and wait for a train.

Then there's the fact walking for 20min when it's 35ºC/95ºF is extremely taxing, plus the fact that after I drop the kid off, I need to do something with myself. Without a car, I am stuck once more having to walk which costs time and a lot of wear and tear when the weather is hostile, which it was and still is. This additionally makes it impractical, given the timing, to return home; I'm forced to wait until classes are over or I'm just spending all my time and energy walking and riding the subway.

The whole process has to be repeated for the return home, which is much later than ideal. All in all, hours are lost due to lack of personal transportation.

Now, consider the same situation with a car, which I now mercifully have again.

Less than half an hour to drive the kid to class.

Once the kid is in class, I can go grocery shopping, run errands or if I really need to, just drive home and rest or take care of something there before returning to pick her up.

We get home much earlier.

The time savings leads to a compressed schedule with a car that also means that I can schedule work during hours that would otherwise be impossible because I'd be in transit. Also, in a pinch, the car is a mobile office.

While the car cost a lot more than 35€/month, with a car I don't pay for the monthly transport pass because I don't use it often enough to make it worth it. However, 35€ a month pays for a considerable percentage of the gasoline I need; with my current hybrid car, that might pay for 50% of my monthly gas bill.

So, while on paper spending 35€/month on a transport pass versus spending thousands to purchase a car, buying gas every month and paying for upkeep sounds more frugal, the result is not a net benefit. In my case, the public transport option is not only costing massive amounts of extra time and energy, it's directly impacting my ability to earn money as well.

Some members of the Swamp Cooler Army™ are getting a bit on in years.

Others don't have that excuse, but suffer problems anyway.

"Big Sister," currently the oldest of my coolers still in service, developed the dreaded floppy verticle louver problem; if the louvers don't stay in place, then the cooler just blows air at the floor. A close examination of the offending part revealed that every louver shaft had a little o-ring around the end which together provided enough friction to make the louvers stay where they were put. Age had degraded the rubber and the rings were crumbling and falling off.

Leroy Merlin: 79 Eurocents for a pack of five #3 o-rings. I needed four packs. Fifteen minute swap out and I swear the louvers are now tighter than new for around five bucks US. The biggest issue was dragging my kids along while I tried to find street parking in a European city.

My new cooler starting buzzing and vibrating even on standby. Turning it on solved the problem, as did unplugging it. Then it stopped, as did the fan. Rest of it works, but not the fan. After removing a lot of screws somewhat unnecessarily, I found the top panel was easy to take off and the fan capacitor accessible there. I'm not that agile with my multimeter, but a little research and I confirmed the capacitor was dead. No reading on capacitance and the resistance test gets a brief, erratic, flux then goes back to default. Good thing, as I had already ordered replacements.

Amazon.es: 19.19€ for a ten pack of electrically compatible capacitors with male terminals. They didn't sell any compatible ones in smaller amounts and in the end it's easier to order this bundle than wander the city trying to find one at retail. Next day delivery.

Our temperatures have rebounded. It was 37ºC/98.6ºF today and tomorrow is meant to be 38ºC/100.4ºF. I am not amused my the timing of these failures, but I feel vindication that they're user solvable.

The classic dilemma/argument against hybrid cars from an economical point of view is that they come with a higher purchase price and thus the natural thing is to see how long fuel savings would "pay back" that difference and use it as a metric to whether paying the hybrid premium is justified.

If you only consider the economics of fuel, this is reasonable, but it's only reasonable if we assume fuel prices remain relatively stable or fall.

I don't have to tell you that this isn't our current reality at all.

The Iran situation has strangled the movement of oil and thus driven up the prices of anything related to it, like gasoline. Rough figures I found are 30% increase of the average price in the US and my personal experience in western Europe is that I'm paying about 20% more now.

Conservative estimates of fuel savings with a hybrid are 40%, but own experience going from a V6 gas engine to a Corolla hybrid is that I'm saving over 50%. While saving money on gas was a consideration when I bought the car a few months ago, I hadn't dug deep into the math and I was surprised by just how much fuel I'm saving.

I definitely paid more up front for the car (secondhand) than what I would have paid for an equivalent gas model, but the expense of buying the car is one time in the life of ownership. Paying for gas is a recurring expense and having a hybrid is saving every mile I drive and it'll compound over the life of the car.

Something to consider if you're in the market.

EDIT: Due to a temporary change in driving schedule that involves a very crappy city drive with traffic and a lot of stop lights, my efficiency has recently fallen to "only" 51 MPG and I'm a little annoyed, because before, I was getting 56-60 MPG. I will never understand naysayers.

After running a few errands around the neighborhood that were very short drives that also involved some idling in my 2021 Corolla Hybrid Active Tech, my efficiency dropped to around 56 MPG (4.2l/100km). I was a little put out because with my more regular routine this month, I was closer to 62 MPG (3.8l/100km), but then I had to remind myself:

"Come on, a gas powered Honda Civic is coming in around 36 MPG (6.5l/100km) and that's considered really good."

So, we went away for a couple weeks. I drained all my portable swamp coolers and I told my mother-in-law to just use the air conditioning while we were gone because she's over 80. Filling and maintaining the portable swamp coolers is too much.

We just got back yesterday. The first thing my MiL said, after regular greetings, was that she missed having a swamp cooler because the air conditioning just wasn't the same; she's now accustomed to a direct stream of air.

Now, before somebody says "you could just get her an electric fan to use with the air conditioning," yeah, I'm aware, but why would I do that? This comes up only a couple weeks of the year. Rest of the time I'm here, filling up the much more energy-efficient swamp cooler.

I've said before much of the discussion around heat prep focuses on daily, real-life issues in the first world, like air conditioning maintenance, proper use of electric fans, swamp coolers, managing humidity, backup power, solar shading and personal cooling products. That's all important, but my brain always goes to more extreme scenarios where normal first world parameters, like going to the air conditioned mall when your home system fails, don't apply.

I call this one, "Tub-pocalyse."

Temperatures have soared to unlivable levels. All you've got is running water and an electric fan. There is nowhere cooler to retreat to. Fill the tub with water, open the door and windows, point the fan at the water and get in once the water feels coolish to the touch. As long as the web bulb temperature is survivable, you'll get by as the fan will both cool the wet, exposed parts of your body and cool the tub's water towards the wet bulb temp. Air circulation is critical so the humidity from the evaporated water can escape. Eventually you'll need to get out in order to avoid maceration of your skin, but being completely wet with a fan blowing should buy you a decent amount of out time before you need to get back in.

The same principle could be adapted to a small, outdoor pool or pond if they were shaded and the water temperature could be brought down far enough.

I've only had my 2021 Corolla a short time and I'm learning all kinds of things, among which is that these cars don't come with conventional spare tires. Mea culpa, I should have known this before.

Not a huge problem to me, but I'm reading the tire sealant included has a limited shelf life and might just be at the end after five years. I'm away for a few more days so I can't physically look at what's back there, but I'm trying to get a jump on things.

Has anybody purchased a replacement bottle of tire sealant that works with the included air compressor? I'm seeing various options including kits that include a compressor at reasonable prices, but of course I'd prefer just to buy a bottle of sealant rather than an extra compressor.

Most of us here aren't anywhere close to these circumstances, but my mind always drifts back to how you'd survive when the chips are really down.

I have gone on extensively about the virtues of swamp coolers in dry climates, so I shan't reiterate that here. However, one of the unquestionable pain points of regularly using swamp coolers is the fact that you're constantly refilling a tank of water that's pumped through filter media. A lot of wetness combined with heat is a recipe for a bacteria farm.

The general recommendation for a portable swamp cooler is to drain it and clean out the tank every 2-3 days. I did this for a time, but when you've got several coolers as I do, this quickly becomes a pain in the butt between your other adult responsibilities, so I looked for ways to extend the time.

A brief flirtation with chlorination ended quickly. While throwing some bleach into the water definitely helped keep microbial growth under control just like in a swimming pool, it also made the output smell like a swimming pool. Not acceptable and plus, regularly handling bleach was too much of a hazard to clothing and towels.

Leveraging the proven antimicrobial properties of copper, I bought some copper plates and placed them in the tanks. This definitely helped and extended the time between cleanings by at least double before smell crept in. Copper isn't cheap though, so the relatively small plates I could afford only had so much surface area to work.

This summer was the first summer since my discovery of hypochlorous acid, and I determined to try to use its superior antimicrobial power to try to keep the cooler tanks clean for longer. My reading informed me that field tests had shown that as little as 1 ppm of HOCl was sufficient to kill all the common bacteria found in standing water with only a minuscule amount of salt and chloromines as a byproduct. I started adding HOCl to the cooler water every couple of days. At first, I carefully measured to produce around a 2ppm concentration based on the tank volume, but after a while I just eyeballed it.

I have to say, after almost a whole summer of doing this, that's it's been a smashing success.

Long as I keep up, the water never smells. Eventually I do need to drain the tanks, as iron builds up and the water starts to get frothy as impurities like dust accumulate; there's no filtration system like a swimming pool would have, but it's a net win. I never worry now about anything growing in my coolers and have a lot more flexibility in how often I drain them.

Europe's fifth heatwave is officially upon us, but while it's intensely hitting Britain with a record-breaking 38ºC in Kew Gardens, hammering France and Central Europe, things in my neck of the woods in Spain are.. relatively sedate.

I'm actually currently in the north, where the high pressure system theoretically has more influence, but the aegis of the cold Cantabrian Sea blunts the majority of the impact. It's technically 5ºC above normal here, but the reality is that it's just made things feel a little hot rather than comfortably moderate. Nights are weirdly warm, but the sea breeze does a lot of ameliorate that. The range today was an unusually narrow 23-27ºC (73-81ºF).

Supposedly, according to the long range forecast, Madrid's serious heat might be over by the time we're back there with a chill high of only 26ºC/79ºF. I'll believe that when I see it.

So the end of the August is coming and despite the extensive national and global damage the heat has left, most of us regular folk in adapted regions have come through with very little change to our personal circumstances. Really not sure how to feel about that, as while I vastly prefer no great disasters in my life, I also can't help but think the ease which so many of us can ride out these events isn't motivating the population enough to support serious efforts at change.

I am at this time, mercifully away from the brutal dry heat of central Spain and in the much milder, if humid, warmth of coastal northern Spain.

While hotter than normal, as most places this year, temperatures are only peaking at 27ºC/80ºF.

We've been coming here for years to take the kids to the beach. As fellow northern latitude folk will know, the mild temps are deceptive when it comes to the UV intensity; just because it doesn't feel that hot doesn't mean you won't get burnt to a crisp. Everybody in the family has suffered from that during days of carelessness.

Now, you might logically say the answer is sunscreen but I'm going to be honest, I hate sunscreen and even if I didn't, all the sunscreen in the world doesn't do a thing for heat, which ultimately is a problem if you're on the beach for hours without shelter even if the air temps are relatively mellow.

So, we got a beach tent.

Then, we got a smaller beach tent, because the first beach tent didn't fit in carryon bags and was a pain to carry to the beach.

Smaller beach tend has been the beach MVP for years now. It's a simple triangular affair with two flex poles and an open front, but it allows us to stash the beach bag in the back with space for two to sit in the shade. Breaks down to a roll that fits in a backpack. Perfect, far as cheap nylon beach tents go.

However, being a cheap nylon beach tent, it has cheap nylon beach tent limitations. Nylon doesn't breathe and it's dark blue-green nylon, which means the sunny side heats up in record time, which seriously undermines the thermal protection it offers. A couple years ago though, I hit on an ultra simple solution that didn't demand buying anything extra.

All I do is drape a pink microfiber athletic towel over the sunny side of the tent and use a clothespin to secure it to the tent poles. I always orient the tent so the interior is shaded and facing the sea.

The pink is a much lighter color than the blue-green, so it reflects considerably more heat away and microfiber is a superior insulator to nylon, so this simple mod vastly reduces radiant heat input; the sunny side tent wall with the towel is never more than warm to the touch. With the front being completely open and facing the sea, the interior of the tent now never goes above ambient. Not bad at all for under $25 of stuff.

I could no doubt improve performance by going for better suited material and color, but the current results are so good there's not much motivation. The microfiber towel serves double duty as once it's time to go, it can be taken down and used as a towel.

The fourth European heatwave has officially left Spain for a few days. At first, it felt better. Still hot, but better.

Now, we're objectively hotter in many ways than during the heatwaves.

It hit 37ºC/98.6ºF outside today with the low an exhausting 24ºC/75ºF, rather like the fourth wave, but the building itself is now worse. All of that sustained heat has thermally loaded the structure and there hasn't been nearly enough slightly cooler hours for it to shed enough of the heat.

It's 11:30 PM right now. It's still 31ºC/87ºF outside and my walls are averaging 30ºC/86ºF. The nimbus of safety and comfort the airstream of each swamp cooler is vital now; my latest cooler is delivering a chill 22ºC/71ºF. Humidity is low as usual, but I just don't feel alright in most rooms without active cooling now. If I need to do a cooler juggle and I temporarily am without, I really feel it.

The ten day forecast doesn't go lower than 34/93 high and 21/69 low, but we're not officially in a heatwave, because we're just not quite at the right numbers compared to seasonable average.

Stay safe out there. I know a lot of you have it much worse than me.

They've seen "Nosferatu" (1922) at their own request and they've known about Metropolis for some time, so when I told them this was what was up, my eldest said, "Finally!" She likes vintage things.

While the experience leaned as much into being educational as popcorn entertainment, I'm proud of them. At least far as movies go, they've taken in what their mother and I have tried to instill that cinema is, and should be, a very varied experience across time and styles. They've also watched and liked Prime Video's "Sheep Detectives."

Highlights:

1. The eldest did not like Robot Maria's dance. Too scantily clad.

2. Youngest saw Freder is a really good person.

3. Both were appalled at the conditions the workers were enduring.

4. Youngest thought the workers weren't very smart destroying the heart machine while all their kids were at home in the worker city.

5. Both were impressed by Robot Maria in the context of her being the first of her kind in a movie, and the direct inspiration for C3PO's design.

6. Youngest had questions about which Maria was which during the pursuit.

7. Freder's visions needed some explanation, but the kids absorbed it well.

8. Youngest was very astute as to Rotwang's state of mind at the end. She understood he was crazy and thought Maria was Hel, the woman he'd lost.

The fourth heatwave rolled off a couple days ago so things are now simply "hot" rather than "WTF, man?"

I opened a conversation with a comment about the heatwave being over.

The response was an offhand comment about the next presumed heatwave.

How quickly things change. Last year, we had one August heatwave that was pretty savage. This year, we've had four and we're totally blasé about a fifth or even more.

Being a ballet dad means a certain amount of waiting in cars.

The world being what it is right now, waiting in a car without cooling might well end up with no more ballet dad, but I feel very wrong every time the engine kicks up and idles just to keep running the AC.

It occurred to me today, very belatedly, that we have a whole bunch of ice packs in the freezer. I grabbed a few of them and just threw them in a canvas tote. While waiting in the car, I rolled down all the windows and just had the bag on top of my body. I only needed to wait about half an hour today and fourth heatwave has passed, so the ice didn't even begin to thaw (the drive is only about 15 min).

This might just make idling the car in summer totally unnecessary long as I'm prepared and the wait is under a couple hours.

UPDATE:

I went with my kid to wash the car yesterday. The carwash is partially under renovation, so there were only half the normal number of bays open. There was a line. It was 34ºC/93ºF outside, so just rolling the windows down wasn't really an option. I dialed the car's AC to 25ºC/77ºF and passed ice packs to the kid. It took long enough the engine still had to spin up like three times to keep us cooled (hybrid car), but the ice still netted gas savings.