It's been cooler than usual here in North Texas. I think we had a couple of days at 95. With all the rain and wind it's been more like spring than summer.
@1:11PM here my outside thermo is registering 102F. It is in the shade, BUT it also is on the south facing side of my townhouse abode as that's the only place I am able to mount the remote sensor. I went out with the trash ~9:30 and the air felt TTHHIICCKK, like I had a wool blanket on.
I am in Michigan. I spent my 35 year career as a steel maker, in a melt shop. I was the guy you see on television wearing the silver suit, with the temperature on the melt floor usually around 150 degrees in the summer. The management would always warn us about the heat, and heat stroke and the like. But we took care of each other. I can't even remember the number of times that I sent a guy to the lunch room, where he could sit in air conditioning, drinking cold water, until he got his temperature back down, and he felt well enough to come back to work. I always called a foreman and told them to come and walk with the guy up to the lunch room, and to take over the responsibility for the guy. The shop always kept 5 gallon jugs of Gatorade with Ice in our control rooms on the melt shop floor,so we could stay hydrated, and we sure that everyone kept drinking constantly. That kind of heat could really be dangerous, and we didn't want anyone to have any serious issues. I myself had only one time where I started to black out, I told the guy next to me,while I was pouring steel,and he was running the ladle. He took the wheel from me, and sent me to go cool off. He got another guy to come and take over. I went over to the overhead shower that we had to put out a fire if you caught fire. I dumped my silver suit, and stood under the shower,until it started to run cold,and then stayed there for a few minutes. When I started to feel a bit more normal,I went up to the locker room, and put on fresh clothes,which were less flammable than those of the other employees who worked in places that they were not exposed to molten steel. The hardest part was after I started running a vacuum furnace,and they needed someone to fill in for one of the melt floor jobs,in the summer, I would go there, and not have had the chance to get used to the heat, but just had to deal with it coming from a normal shop job. The vacuum furnace,had a huge dome,which created a very, very strong vacuum, about as low as in outer space. But once a shift or so,we had to open the dome,and go inside and re set the furnace and molds for the next heat. The man going down onto the bottom had to wear wooden slatted shoes on the bottom of our regular boots, to keep them from melting. That part was actually the hottest job in the shop,but it only lasted a half hour. The last 10 years,I worked 3rd shift,so now,I still have a hard time sleeping at night. When working, I used Ambien during the days to sleep, but now,my doctor doesn't like the idea of my staying on that drug for ever. You all stay cool,and make sure you drop an Ice Cube into your glass of Bourbon every night. Just for keeping cool,of course.
Jesus Christ, that's off the scale man. Here I thought working around Heat Treat furnaces in the Summer was bad. That is nothing compared to pouring molten steel. At least the furnaces had doors on them and used liquid Argon to drop the temperature fast before you opened them up. Damn.
Damn, man! I thought the summer in Memphis in 1981 when I worked in a bottle factory was hot. But molten glass doesn't compare to molten steel. I remember walking out after work when it 105 in the shade and even in the sun, it sure felt good. I don't know the temp inside was, but those of us working near the furnace and bottle molds were rotated into the air-conditioned breakroom for 10 minutes every half-hour or so. That was just one summer, though.
My old machine shop was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. When we moved, the new shop actually had air conditioning and real heat. At the old shop there was a bottle of salt pills in the cabinet to help people get through the heat - I should have saved them, as would anyone believe that today?
I spent a summer replacing the 1200 tubes in a Coast Guard ice breaker (Polar Star). Hottest job I ever did, until it was time to test - run steam through the pipes, with me inside checking for leaks. It would get up to 150+ in there, and they kept me going with a hose from a 5-gallon Igloo full of Poweraid. The ship was on dry dock, and was being painted with a couple dozen fire hoses right out of the river, as you couldn't touch the hull otherwise.
Years ago a buddy of mine wanted my help to dig two holes in the ground. He worked for a sign company, and these holes were for the base of the sign. They normally sent out a deep hole auger machine to drill these, but they didn't want to spend the money. So they hired us for $200 bucks (circa 1982 dollars). The job was in Lancaster, CA, in the summer. I should have said no. We drove 100 miles from the cooler part of southern California, out to the Mojave desert at Lancaster. This is the "high desert", and has a local record high temp of 115 degrees in June. The holes had to be 2 feet wide, six feet deep, and a certain distance apart. We arrived around 7:30am, when it was still on the cool side. The first 3-4 feet of the holes were easy. Then we had a problem: our shovels only worked down to about four feet, to lift the dirt out... We couldn't reach it with our hands. Our only useful tool was a post hole digger, that held about two fistfuls of dirt... We took turns digging and lifting the post hole digger up to the other guy, who would empty it out. I think we finished around 3pm. I was sunburned, and I had sweat so much that the salt from my sweat had dried on my skin and turned it almost into sand. I think we had heat stroke. 4+ hours doing the last two feet of both holes, good Lord, it was hard. It was surely the hardest hundred bucks I ever earned. And I never again volunteered to help my friend dig holes again.
I believe you libertyman. I remember crank salt-tablet dispensers in the mess hall at our Boy Scout Summer Camp in SE Missouri during the early 60's. We ate them like candy. No wonder I have high bp.
We had salt tablet dispensers when I hired in at the age of 18. They did help with cramping, and probably with keeping your electrolytes in balance. But I am sure that they are not good for you. Once Gatorade became popular, I think that salt tablets lost their value.
retired. house faces west, in NM. no clouds. AC makes noise and moves air, but does not cool. Recently I was guzzling fruit juices continuously all day long. pee, guzzle, do something, pee, guzzle... I remembered a friend saying that he learned he has diabetes when he found himself drinking while peeing. frequent thirst and frequent urination, two major symptoms. I switched to taking a nip of fruit juice every two hours and chugging bottled water in between. back to peeing every two hours. apparently I am borderline diabetic, and I stepped over the border.
my cardiologist says 2300 mg of sodium max per day. a gallon of milk, or gatorade, has 2300 mg of sodium. I was drinking a gallon of gatorade during a workday, and a gallon of milk every night.
do yourself a favor and learn to operate on just water
According to my urologist, who is one of the two best in California: your friend is Saw Palmetto extract with pygeum. Seriously. Take twice a day, will cut down trips to the can by half of more.
BTW, Those are symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Suggest a trip to a urologist to confirm. And yeah, water water water.
100F is 40C for us non americans. We've had 40C I think 3 times in my life, so pretty rare. It's pretty oppressive too and I certainly couldn't tolerate living or working in those conditions, so congrats to those of you who do. Incidentally you should drink magnesium & potassium rich drinks rather than just water in such conditions to avoid heart attacks and hyponatremia...
I used to work for a manufacturing company that had a large, in house machine shop. The manufacturing and machine shop combined took up about 16000 sq ft. split almost equally between the two and neither was air conditioned. The rest of the 25000 sq ft of the building was office space. On hot days, we opened the doors between the office and manufacturing spaces and put huge fans in the doorways to blow cooler air into the non-air conditioned parts of the building. While not ideal, it did cool the non-air conditioned spaces down somewhat, at least enough to make the working conditions a little more tolerable.
I too work in an nonairconditioned machine shop. The worst part is hitting tight tolerances. Takes forever to cool parts down!!
ReplyDeleteIt's was 114 out on the deck here in Coopville - Yikes!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's been cooler than usual here in North Texas. I think we had a couple of days at 95. With all the rain and wind it's been more like spring than summer.
ReplyDelete@1:11PM here my outside thermo is registering 102F. It is in the shade, BUT it also is on the south facing side of my townhouse abode as that's the only place I am able to mount the remote sensor. I went out with the trash ~9:30 and the air felt TTHHIICCKK, like I had a wool blanket on.
ReplyDeleteNemo
I am in Michigan. I spent my 35 year career as a steel maker, in a melt shop. I was the guy you see on television wearing the silver suit, with the temperature on the melt floor usually around 150 degrees in the summer. The management would always warn us about the heat, and heat stroke and the like. But we took care of each other. I can't even remember the number of times that I sent a guy to the lunch room, where he could sit in air conditioning, drinking cold water, until he got his temperature back down, and he felt well enough to come back to work. I always called a foreman and told them to come and walk with the guy up to the lunch room, and to take over the responsibility for the guy.
ReplyDeleteThe shop always kept 5 gallon jugs of Gatorade with Ice in our control rooms on the melt shop floor,so we could stay hydrated, and we sure that everyone kept drinking constantly. That kind of heat could really be dangerous, and we didn't want anyone to have any serious issues.
I myself had only one time where I started to black out, I told the guy next to me,while I was pouring steel,and he was running the ladle. He took the wheel from me, and sent me to go cool off. He got another guy to come and take over. I went over to the overhead shower that we had to put out a fire if you caught fire. I dumped my silver suit, and stood under the shower,until it started to run cold,and then stayed there for a few minutes. When I started to feel a bit more normal,I went up to the locker room, and put on fresh clothes,which were less flammable than those of the other employees who worked in places that they were not exposed to molten steel.
The hardest part was after I started running a vacuum furnace,and they needed someone to fill in for one of the melt floor jobs,in the summer, I would go there, and not have had the chance to get used to the heat, but just had to deal with it coming from a normal shop job. The vacuum furnace,had a huge dome,which created a very, very strong vacuum, about as low as in outer space. But once a shift or so,we had to open the dome,and go inside and re set the furnace and molds for the next heat. The man going down onto the bottom had to wear wooden slatted shoes on the bottom of our regular boots, to keep them from melting. That part was actually the hottest job in the shop,but it only lasted a half hour.
The last 10 years,I worked 3rd shift,so now,I still have a hard time sleeping at night. When working, I used Ambien during the days to sleep, but now,my doctor doesn't like the idea of my staying on that drug for ever.
You all stay cool,and make sure you drop an Ice Cube into your glass of Bourbon every night. Just for keeping cool,of course.
pigpen51
I think you win...
DeleteYeah...I'll second that
DeleteJesus Christ, that's off the scale man. Here I thought working around Heat Treat furnaces in the Summer was bad.
DeleteThat is nothing compared to pouring molten steel.
At least the furnaces had doors on them and used liquid Argon to drop the temperature fast before you opened them up.
Damn.
Damn, man! I thought the summer in Memphis in 1981 when I worked in a bottle factory was hot. But molten glass doesn't compare to molten steel. I remember walking out after work when it 105 in the shade and even in the sun, it sure felt good. I don't know the temp inside was, but those of us working near the furnace and bottle molds were rotated into the air-conditioned breakroom for 10 minutes every half-hour or so. That was just one summer, though.
DeleteMy old machine shop was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. When we moved, the new shop actually had air conditioning and real heat. At the old shop there was a bottle of salt pills in the cabinet to help people get through the heat - I should have saved them, as would anyone believe that today?
ReplyDeleteI spent a summer replacing the 1200 tubes in a Coast Guard ice breaker (Polar Star). Hottest job I ever did, until it was time to test - run steam through the pipes, with me inside checking for leaks. It would get up to 150+ in there, and they kept me going with a hose from a 5-gallon Igloo full of Poweraid. The ship was on dry dock, and was being painted with a couple dozen fire hoses right out of the river, as you couldn't touch the hull otherwise.
ReplyDeleteYears ago a buddy of mine wanted my help to dig two holes in the ground. He worked for a sign company, and these holes were for the base of the sign. They normally sent out a deep hole auger machine to drill these, but they didn't want to spend the money. So they hired us for $200 bucks (circa 1982 dollars).
ReplyDeleteThe job was in Lancaster, CA, in the summer. I should have said no.
We drove 100 miles from the cooler part of southern California, out to the Mojave desert at Lancaster. This is the "high desert", and has a local record high temp of 115 degrees in June.
The holes had to be 2 feet wide, six feet deep, and a certain distance apart.
We arrived around 7:30am, when it was still on the cool side. The first 3-4 feet of the holes were easy. Then we had a problem: our shovels only worked down to about four feet, to lift the dirt out... We couldn't reach it with our hands. Our only useful tool was a post hole digger, that held about two fistfuls of dirt...
We took turns digging and lifting the post hole digger up to the other guy, who would empty it out.
I think we finished around 3pm. I was sunburned, and I had sweat so much that the salt from my sweat had dried on my skin and turned it almost into sand. I think we had heat stroke.
4+ hours doing the last two feet of both holes, good Lord, it was hard.
It was surely the hardest hundred bucks I ever earned.
And I never again volunteered to help my friend dig holes again.
I believe you libertyman. I remember crank salt-tablet dispensers in the mess hall at our Boy Scout Summer Camp in SE Missouri during the early 60's. We ate them like candy. No wonder I have high bp.
ReplyDeleteWe had salt tablet dispensers when I hired in at the age of 18. They did help with cramping, and probably with keeping your electrolytes in balance. But I am sure that they are not good for you. Once Gatorade became popular, I think that salt tablets lost their value.
Deletepigpen51
Thanks for sharing all these great stories. You guys rule!
ReplyDeleteretired. house faces west, in NM. no clouds. AC makes noise and moves air, but does not cool. Recently I was guzzling fruit juices continuously all day long. pee, guzzle, do something, pee, guzzle... I remembered a friend saying that he learned he has diabetes when he found himself drinking while peeing. frequent thirst and frequent urination, two major symptoms. I switched to taking a nip of fruit juice every two hours and chugging bottled water in between. back to peeing every two hours. apparently I am borderline diabetic, and I stepped over the border.
ReplyDeletemy cardiologist says 2300 mg of sodium max per day. a gallon of milk, or gatorade, has 2300 mg of sodium. I was drinking a gallon of gatorade during a workday, and a gallon of milk every night.
do yourself a favor and learn to operate on just water
According to my urologist, who is one of the two best in California: your friend is Saw Palmetto extract with pygeum. Seriously. Take twice a day, will cut down trips to the can by half of more.
DeleteBTW, Those are symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Suggest a trip to a urologist to confirm. And yeah, water water water.
100F is 40C for us non americans.
ReplyDeleteWe've had 40C I think 3 times in my life, so pretty rare.
It's pretty oppressive too and I certainly couldn't tolerate living or working in those conditions, so congrats to those of you who do.
Incidentally you should drink magnesium & potassium rich drinks rather than just water in such conditions to avoid heart attacks and hyponatremia...
Got up to 98* here in Ct.
ReplyDeleteTomorrows forecast is not quite as hot, but more humidity.
I used to work for a manufacturing company that had a large, in house machine shop. The manufacturing and machine shop combined took up about 16000 sq ft. split almost equally between the two and neither was air conditioned. The rest of the 25000 sq ft of the building was office space. On hot days, we opened the doors between the office and manufacturing spaces and put huge fans in the doorways to blow cooler air into the non-air conditioned parts of the building. While not ideal, it did cool the non-air conditioned spaces down somewhat, at least enough to make the working conditions a little more tolerable.
ReplyDeleteNemo