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Post by Markpd on Jul 19, 2022 12:30:22 GMT -8
I guess so, I love that smell! Still no more rain here, even though I could hear thunder not hugely far off (and I saw rainbow in the Woking ish direction).
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Post by betty on Jul 19, 2022 16:12:28 GMT -8
I love the smell of rain - wish I could smell it now - no drop in temperature here yet.
We have FINALLY dropped below 28 degrees (1am UK time) though - so I think I am happy that they are OK that high without ice and chilled stuff. All just had another chunk of cucumber if they want it, and I will be up early again tomorrow to open all the windows.
Please someone - do a rain dance for all us gerbil owners*
*if one of you here is the euro lotto winner - please buy us all a portable a/c unit - we're all friends here, right?
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Post by Markpd on Jul 20, 2022 10:28:42 GMT -8
Yea agreed!
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Post by LilyandDaisy on Jul 20, 2022 10:48:44 GMT -8
I do hope that's the last of the extreme heat for this summer. According to the BBC forecast, it's going to be cooler until the 2nd at least, which is as far as the forecast goes.
It took a few hours with the windows open today to get the rest of the heat out of the house.
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Post by Markpd on Jul 20, 2022 10:52:20 GMT -8
Same here, was still 26C indoors over night, and has only dropped 1C since then despite the windows being open and being windy.
And yea fingers crossed we get no more heatwaves this year at least!
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Post by LilyandDaisy on Aug 10, 2022 11:17:16 GMT -8
It's going to get hot again from tomorrow, though thankfully not as hot as last time.
I have some blackout curtains now so hopefully they'll help.
I have a gerbil staying with me who is deaf. As a result, if he's sleeping out in the open he won't respond at all when you open the tank or even move things around. I have to actually touch him to wake him up. There were several moments during the last heatwave when I wondered if he was alive because he was so unresponsive!
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Post by Markpd on Aug 10, 2022 12:26:32 GMT -8
I was just thinking about this thread . Yea, here at least it's meant to be 2-3C cooler than the last heatwave, but it's going on for twice as long. Hopefully the slightly cooler nights will help.... Good to hear you've got some blackout curtains, it'll be interesting to hear how much difference they'll make. Re the deaf gerbil, I bet you had several heart stopping moments! lol.
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Post by LilyandDaisy on Aug 10, 2022 12:47:39 GMT -8
Yes, many heart-stopping moments! And even now when I know it's because he's deaf, I have to tap him awake anyway just to be sure he's ok because it's deeply unnerving when a gerbil doesn't respond at all to the tank opening. Not to mention his habit of sleeping on his back like he's dead.
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Post by Markpd on Aug 10, 2022 13:34:54 GMT -8
Omg, sleeping on his back! That's so weird! Can you get a photo of him like that? And yea I can imagine a gerbil not responding to every little sound is unnerving!
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Post by icecontroller2529 on Aug 12, 2022 6:58:15 GMT -8
It's hot in Amsterdam, too, and blocking out the sun as much as possible doesn't mean the room is pleasant to be in. We put ceramic bowls into the gerbilaria to offer them a cooler place to sit in. And we freeze water in simple sandwich bags and put this on top of the gerbilaria. To avoid wetness, I put the ice bags into metal bowls (fruit bowls) and place a cloth underneath. It stays cool for many hours with those big chunks of ice. By the way, I wait until noon with the ice so that they get the cooling during the hottest period of the day.
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Post by Markpd on Aug 12, 2022 15:19:09 GMT -8
Yea I was doing similar things with ice packs, what's the highest temperature you've seen this summer?
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Post by icecontroller2529 on Aug 13, 2022 9:08:15 GMT -8
Yea I was doing similar things with ice packs, what's the highest temperature you've seen this summer? No idea. We don't have a thermometer.
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Post by betty on Aug 13, 2022 12:52:40 GMT -8
For this heatwave - I have experimented with a trick from France - although not quite as rustic!
I thought that although I stop the sun coming with with sheets of wood and/or blackout curtains - but the end of the day the thermal build up in the window area does seep into the room - so I thought - why not outside?
Places in France and Southern Europe all have shutters on the outside as they stop the sun even coming in through the glass and so they are not even allowing heat into the room in the first place. So, as my gerbil room faces the side garden than no-one sees - I made some shutters out of sheets of double-layered cardboard (too many gerbil stuff deliveries!!).
Anyway - they aren't the most attractive things - but they are only a trial idea. That seems to have done the trick!
Although the temperatures in the gerbil room are still above 25 (apparently 31 outside today) - the room actually FEELS cooler when you walk into it. I am certainly liking it after just 1 and a half days!!
I might start to get a quote on making it a permanent thing??
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Post by tanzanyte on Aug 13, 2022 13:09:20 GMT -8
We are partly under street level at the front of the house and it's amazing the difference this makes to our living area so I'd imagine it works well Betty. We're on holiday at the moment and the house we're in is like an oven, yet the temp is no hotter here than it is at home. It's made me realise how lucky we are as the gerbils aren't having to put up with a stuffy, sweltering house so it's no wonder Mymble has still been sunbathing throughout the heatwaves. Are there places that sell outside shutters? The few that I have seen seem to be for aesthetics rather than working shutters.
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Post by betty on Aug 13, 2022 13:35:08 GMT -8
This is the issue - but I like to be ahead of the crowd. I am sure that there will be plenty of new things going on with houses in the UK that we haven't neededd before - but are now becoming serious considerations.
Since I started researching air con units and talking about them -I have found that at least 6 other people have already bought one themselves too. I love hearing that they are loving them and can't belive how amazing a cool house is! I suppose it is one of those things that you only realise the benefits of when you already have one - like a dishwasher. I can wash up myself - but everyone out there says they love it - it saves time, keeps the kitchen tidier and sooo much easier. So, I think it will come good soon enough. We already have it in cars - so why not our homes?
Same with the shutters - we never needed air com last year - we didn't really have enough heatwaves - but how things have changed this past 12 months - climate change has really bitten!
All change.
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