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July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - Printable Version

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July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - TWIH - 08-01-2018

Man o’ man its been wet here in the Carolinas!  I came out from Phoenix in late June, moving away from the desert.

Now I am used to seasonal rains, being a BC resident I’ve experienced plenty of that (though the really rainy time in the “Lower Mainland” is winter), but I spent a lot of winters in Phoenix.

Now that I have changed the US residence to N Carolina, to live with my son and family for the next year and a half, I am experiencing daily T-storms and a lot of rainfall!  It’s not a record year but the locals say it’s above average. The point is, for a vehicle dweller it would have been tough to handle. Very little solar potential, very humid and definitely necessitating ventilation and some means of not allowing the rain in. Being stuck in the Prius would have been hard and keeping a minivan properly vented would have been nearly impossible.  A FS van with a covered, powered vent (a la Maxx Air) could work.

For those of you in the south, how have you been dealing with the extra rainfall (if you are dwellers)?


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - Mr.LooRead - 08-02-2018

The Carolinas only have four months per year of climate which is acceptable for a tin can tourist.

October and November in the fall and March and April in the spring.

To survive the summer you need to be in the Appalachian Mtns. at 2000'+ from Pennsylvania thru New England.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/flooding-rainfall-to-threaten-eastern-us-through-the-end-of-the-week/70005663


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - RoamingKat - 08-02-2018

I have wondered the same. I have the AC running constantly, just to keep everything from rotting.
Smidge and I are staying in a house belonging to my friend. AC running there too...all the time.

I cannot image how miserable this must be for the person in their RV or van.

I knew the humidity would be bad. But, this is just a road trip that has been a bit extended to help a friend. I won’t be back east again.


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - TWIH - 08-02-2018

Altitude definitely is your friend. After that Ive found you need a list of places that are air conditioned.
Places like libraries, book stores, restaurants, coffee shops, malls, gyms, even box stores.


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - TWIH - 08-03-2018

It’s early August and this monsoon weather pattern is style deluging my area. About 2” of rain in less than 2 days here, and the creeks are a-risin’ fast!

Of course I’d have driven away if I was Prius camping but you can’t go up to the nearby mountains as they are all washed out as well. Sorry to say but I’d have to head back to Flagstaff if I was Priusing it.


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - Mr.LooRead - 08-03-2018

At my location, there have been 5+ inches of rain in the last 24 hours. I had to move my van at 8 am today to higher ground due to flooding in the parking lot.

https://www.weather.gov/images/marfc/mpe/past24.png


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - Handy_Dan - 08-03-2018

Moving with the weather is often either inconvenient, or impossible do to commitments.

I seem to read a lot about people struggling with the heat and/or humidity, and everybody is trying to figure out air conditioning, as in compressor and freon driven units. These aren't generally power friendly, but swamp coolers can easily be built in low power 12v models. The indirect type works regardlesss of the humidity and doesn't add any moisture to the indoor air. I've been using them for many years, and they work at least as well as any typical air conditioner I've ever seen.

Sometimes history is a better teacher than new technology, especially for those of us living with limited power availability. These coolers date back to before there was electricity, and the systems used heat, water, or wind powered fans and gravity feeds for the water. They kept whole mansions and businesses cool, even in high humidity areas. When I was a kid, all the movie theaters and big businesses along the hot and humid gulf coast and swamp lands used these swamp coolers. They were always a cool retreat if you were in the city during the summer. The river boats used them, and so did the fishing boats. Water was the one thing we had plenty of in the swamps, rivers, streams, and the ocean.

Swamp coolers were built to work in the hot and humid swamps, that's where they got that name. They are not the same as normal evaporative coolers, even though many people seem to call them swamp coolers too. I came from swamp land, and trust me, we knew how to keep cool off the grid. Our system was water and gravity powered, and required no electricity at all, just a simple water wheel pump in a stream, that supplied our house water as well as our cooling power. Talk about evironmentally friendly, that system certainly was. When I was a teenager, we got power for the first time, by connecting a generator to that old and faithful water wheel.

Today with 12v fans and water pumps, it has never been easier to beat the heat, unless water availability is a problem. If you've got water, you've got an energy efficient solution that works anywhere. Indirect swamp coolers are more complex than the easier to build direct type that they use in drier areas, but they work anywhere, and that's all that counts. While many of my neighbors struggle to keep cool with their high powered air conditioners, my little water powered swamp cooler can keep my van cool even in direct sunlight. Two 12v fans and a water pump are all the power it requires, maybe 3 amps at 12vdc.


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - TWIH - 08-03-2018

You’ll have to refresh my memory (or more accurately teach an old dog a new trick) on how your version of a swamp cooler a/c is going to work in a steel box when it’s 90 degrees and 80-90% humidity. 

I get the fan blowing across the “membrane” and thus cooling (until the air reaches its moisture saturation dew point).  Pray tell how your system gets around that.

An internet search showwed why my family always lwft a couple windows open with their evap coolers (but it still doesnt address how it works or doesnt in a vehicle):
Begin quote

Why is the Humidity So High?
First off, it's pretty important to understand why the humidity in your room is rising so high as to stop the evaporative cooler from expelling cold air any more. The explanation is in the way the device works to create cold air. 

It uses evaporation of moisture to create the cooling effect, just like your skin does when it perspires in the heat and a breeze feels nice and cool. The appliances have a big water tank that soaks a porous membrane through which air is passed by the fan. The air picks up the moisture and evaporation reduces the temperature rapidly. 

That moist air is blasted into the room by the unit's fan so you can enjoy a colder atmosphere. At the same time, all that cool, moist air is saturating the atmosphere in the room, artificially raising its humidity level. Eventually it will reach saturation point (100% humidity) and the evaporation process will no longer work, because the air cannot absorb any more moisture!
Cycle the Air

The way to prevent this happening is simplicity itself. All you have to do is open a window to let in dry air from outside and allow the moist air from inside to cycle out of the room. 

You can open a door too. This will create a cross-draft in the room and allow moisture to escape, keeping the room's atmosphere dry enough to allow the swamp cooler to keep creating cold air. 

When told about this simple solution, many people are surprised that they should allow hot air from outside to get into the room. Won't that make it hot in the room? 

Actually, the room will stay cool because the cooler is still working and blasting out cold air, maintaining a cooler temperature than there would otherwise be in the room. This works very well and if you own a swamp cooler and were concerned it wasn't working properly, please try this before discarding it!”  

End of quote from: ventlessportableairconditioner.intervalinc.com


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - TWIH - 08-03-2018

(08-03-2018, 05:19 PM)Mr.LooRead Wrote: At my location, there have been 5+ inches of rain in the last 24 hours. I had to move my van at 8 am today to higher ground due to flooding in the parking lot.

https://www.weather.gov/images/marfc/mpe/past24.png

Thats a bunch of rain in the bluish purple zone for sure!


RE: July was a heck of a rainy month in the SE - Motrukdriver - 08-03-2018

I like the indirect evaporative cooling. First cooling box is your basic direct evaporative cooling technology exhausted to the outside with a heat exchanger that allows the "house" air to be drawn thru and cooled without adding moisture to it. I wonder if you could redirect the added moisture air in the direct part back thru the system for added cooling? I'm sure you could do a return air system where the "house" air is recirculated thru the heat exchanger. Here in Missouri you want to be sure to keep the humidity as low as possible or you'll wake up in the morning with mushrooms growing in your ears... or other parts.