(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article.)
After securing water and safety, climate control was my next concern. Prior to the storm, we had weather in the 80s and low 90s. Our home sits in a field along a north-to-south bearing. Morning sun isn’t too intense but the long evenings, lots of floor-to-ceiling windows and western exposure were making me nervous about getting the house cool enough to be comfortable in. I was also concerned about the potential for mildew to take hold given the humidity and lack of central air conditioning. Fortunately, the temperatures stayed mild and the humidity quickly dissipated.
For the daylight hours, we placed box fans in a pair of the eastern facing windows pulling air in and a second pair of fans in the western windows pushing out with the blinds pulled down to the tops of the fans. After sunset, we reversed the western fans to blow the cooler night air into our bedroom. A pedestal-style oscillating fan was kept on anytime the generator was running to move air through the central portion of our house. After not having fans running the first day, it became an Easter egg hunt around the farm trying to find forgotten box fans in the various buildings for the second day. Our habit became to turn off the generator around ten.Continue reading“Lessons From Hurricane Helene – Part 4, by A.F.”
