Quote from the NOAA:



Yep, the jetstream was just a TAD stronger than expected so Charley is making landfall early. This bodes well for us in Tampa as he will have to travel OVERLAND to get to us, which should weaken him somewhat.

Those in Fort Myers could be in a world of hurt, however.

Having watched Charley go from a weak Cat 1 to a Cat 4 in 24 hours has me a little scared; Visions of the aftermath of Andrew still burn behind my eyes: seeing street signs on steel poles BENT TO THE GROUND, seeing brick buildings partially destroyed, entire neighborhoods LEVELED.

The satellite animations are also rather disturbing, as the eye of the storm has gotten tighter, down to half its size, and the storm seems to have compacted slightly as it strengthens.

Satellite Animation NOAA

AccuWeather Satellite Animation (Enhanced Infrared)

Hurricane Categories And What They Mean


If you look at Charley, you will note that if measured from the pressure, he's barely a Cat 2. If you measure from the windspeed, he's a Cat 4. I expect his barometric pressure to drop, however, to match the windspeed conditions.

Having seen the effects firsthand of a Cat 5 (Andrew) in 1992, I am...

...a little apprehensive.

Panz

ADDENDUM TO THIS POST: (Since I can't edit it)

TECO did NOT do us Dirty. My own thorn tree did, its weight finally overloading the power service from the pole to the pipe on the top of my house; The exposed "Neutral" cable snapped, which is why the voltages were good without load, but the moment load was applied, voltages dropped faster than a..(insert perverted prostitute reference here).

I found this out only after I talked to my neighbors to note that nobody else was having power problems. I called TECO.

They came out LAST NIGHT AND PUT IN A NEW SERVICE DROP...

Cut out most of the old thorn tree with a nifty chainsaw-on-a-pole, took out the old cable, and ran NEW cable from the power pole to my house.

That's right. With a Hurricane imminent, the power linemen were out doing right by me.

Kudos to TECO. I have a brand new drop with which to weather this storm. Apologies for jumping the gun, ESPECIALLY considering how fast they fixed a problem caused, indirectly, by my own stupidity.

Just watching two linemen do THAT much work in less than an hour and getting me back online gives me solid confidence that no matter WHAT happens, power will be restored as fast as humanly possible. Those guys were great.

Ok, enough gushing. Just had to be said.

Panz
<img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Panzerboy:

I like redundency in my A/C (Easy for me since I am in the business.) options.

I have an undersized (18,000 btu in a house that requires at least 30,000 btu.) central A/C, a 5,000 btu bedroom window unit, and an 8,000 btu standby window unit sitting in the basement.

I purposely undersized the central air unit so that it would run for longer periods of time and remove humidity first and foremost and cool the air. On a 92 degree F. day in Wisconsin (We are not as humid as Florida.), the indoor temperature in the house will be 82 degrees F.and the central air will be running continuosly. If you walk into the house from the outside, the immediate sensation you will feel is the sweat literally flashing off of your skin as the dry house interior looks for moisture.

The fewer on-off cycles of your compressor motor, the less wear on your system, and the lower your electricity bills. Something a lot of people don't know is that power companies have to be capable for the peaks caused when electric devices initially start up which can be as high as 30% more than their constant speed usage. They have a way of figuring this into your bill, and you will pay more for an oversized unit that starts and stops often than you will for smaller sized unit that runs all the time.

The other thing that people don't realize is that in A/C cooling, BIGGER IS NOT BETTER. It is sold this way because the average contractor does not want an unhappy customer who does not feel cool enough with an A/C installation. A/C of today respond to temperature, not humidity. With energy concerns and smart home technology, that is changing although way too slowly. Stop and consider this easy to administer test. Go out on a hot day where you are uncomfortable and have someone throw a pail of cold water on you; feels great. As you stand there, your body heats up the water and you start to feel clammy. You may still feel somewhat cool, but you will feel clammy. Another pail of water and you are cool again, but you get back to clammy real fast. If you were able to go into a moisture free room after being out in hot humidity and the room was the same temperature as the outdoors, you would still feel cooler because your perspiration would be evaporating and your body would be cooling itself more efficiently.

Turning on an oversized A/C cooling unit is like the above example. The room gets cooled in a hurry, the thermostat shuts off and the humidity is still in the house. Because the house gets cooled down in a hurry and cold air holds less moisture than hot air, and the A/C unit did not run long enough to condense the water at the coils, you end up having the water condensing in the house itself. Now you have liquid water, usually at junctions where warm moist air is coming into the house and you end up with mold, "A/C colds", that preceived "A/C smell", and you wait for that next cold blast of air that you think will make you be more comfortable.

If you can afford it, the next time you install an A/C unit, either get a school educated (A real school, not some of these quicky education camps whose only purpose is to supply low paid quicky installers who couldn't figure heat gain or load if their life depended on it.) technician who will charge you for a detailed analysis of your needs, give you his computations when you pay him and explain how he arrived at those computations so that you can check them out with a second opinion. Then install a dual A/C system with each unit running seperately or together depending on wet bulb (Humidity) temperature, or one with a dehumidifier built into the total system. With a dual system you can have one of the condensors running continuosly to remove moisture and if the temperature is too high, the other one kicks in to help. Have them made odd (Example: For a 36,000 btu home requirement, one should be 12,000 btu and the other 24,000 btu.) with computer controls determining based on humidity and temperature which one should run or if both should run. The beauty of this is on a cold clammy night you could have the small one running to remove the humidity, but it would be too small to cool the house. Another advantage is that if one unit breaks down, you will have partial A/C until the broken one is repaired.

In the meantime, buy a window unit that your generator can operate for the main living area in your house and isolate that area with closed doors or hanging blankets so you can be comfortable in at least one room of the house.

My brother wants me to come to Florida as he thinks I could make a fortume in A/C by being the contractor (Bad knees don't allow me to install much.) and consultant, but I have caregiver responsibilities up here that come first.

Good luck!

Bountyhunter

I didn't really go into my situation; However, I agree that you can make a fortune in AC down here.

My unit DOES run all the time, as my home has terrible insulation. For me, bigger IS better because the smaller unit just wasn't cutting it. At all.

As for now, I have all the vents in half the house closed off, a bigger drop installed in my computer room so our computers don't overheat, and vents only open into the enclosed area of the house that contains the return. The thermostat is set low enough that the unit runs constantly. It helps that the thermostat is in the part of the house that's closed off. I merely set it to a few degrees below its ambient temperature and run the A/C.

I am familiar with many of the concepts you describe. I had a TECO representative come in and do a thorough analysis of my current AC System and needs (It was a Mammoth 2.5 ton Water-To-Air unit, which, while relatively efficient by itself, becomes an energy hog when you're on a well pumping water to a system that has been gink-rigged to open-flow water at full pressure all the time it's running, meaning that the energy consumption of the 1200 watt well pump also running constantly to supply the A/C has to be factored into the efficiency of the A/C system)...even with all that mess, it had a SEER rating of 8.

I now have a straight-cool system with a SEER rating of 12 that is finally actually keeping my computer room cool enough so we don't fry our AMD's.

Window units, while a wonderful idea, are out, as we have casement windows in this house, with separate panes of glass 11" x 14.5" in the casements. What we HAVE considered, however, is a portable unit that vents into the attic that would technically live in the Computer Room (Our "Lifeboat" of our house in a storm) that could be run off of the generator.

Believe you me, we have indeed considered that. However, we just dropped a bunch of money for a decent A/C unit. It will be probably at least a year before we can afford to do anything else equipment-wise.

My next step will be to blow in some insulation so the cooling system will run even more efficiently.

Much for the reasons you describe, 85 degrees and humid is a heck of a lot more miserable than 100 degrees and dry.

But I've got my temperature maintenance system adapted to where it does what it's supposed to do and I'm happy with it. I realize that it makes professionals wince and roll their eyes but I've learned to adapt.

And I requested the 3 ton upgrade, knowing full well my conditions and needs. I wasn't sold a bill of goods. At first, the A/C guy recommended against it until he came in and observed exactly what I just described, then he helped me get exactly what I want.

He used to maintain the old water-to-air monstrosity I used to have; Let me tell you how happy he was to rip that thing out and put in something decent.

Come on down to Florida and teach me how to be an A/C tech. I could use the education AND the money!

Panz

florida devastation prayers go out

Panzerboy:

Be careful with insulation installation.

Mold is becoming such a big problem because people think they can overrule Mother Earth and put in plastic and other impenetrable barriers to stop moisture. It ain't going to happen!

Go with insulation that breathes and although it may not be as efficient, it beats the hell out of tearing down a house that has mold culture behind all the walls.

On a "This Old House" show they showed a house being built in Switzerland. The thing that caught my eye and attention was how they built the exterior wall leaving bottom and top openings for air flow. If I ever build a house or addition, I intend to put up such outside walls. Technology that works with nature is better than trying to fight with nature.

My personal belief with no scientific backing that I know of would be to paint the inside walls with a good latex paint and leave non-breathing vapor barriers completely out of the picture.

Bountyhunter

Don't forget the ceiling fans also. We just have a couple window A/C units but after I installed a couple ceiling fans those window AC units can almost keep the whole house cool if I wanted to. Before the fans we would have to keep the doors shut to keep the cold air in those rooms. Also don't forget the window coverings, keeping the curtains closed to keep the bright afternoon sun out so it doesn't heat up everything helps out too, plus you get to run around the house with fewer clothes <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, considering my house was built in 1948, with walls of textured white plaster, I haven't even CONSIDERED painting anything.

But the insulation I was planning on using was the blown-in stuff. My attic is open to the air through the roof vents, and I also have an Attic Fan (original equipment before A/C) for summertime cooling, which received extensive use when the A/C was out earlier this summer.

But I agree. I tend to work with mother nature, having seen firsthand what happens when you get arrogant and try to compete with her.

Speaking of which, I view Charley passing me by with a mixture of disappointment and relief.

Back to the same-old, same-old. Had my Hurricane Vacation with Sonny's Barbecue...now it's back to Macaroni and Cheese.

I mean, who'd a thunk it? Charley makes landfall and the first thing he wants to do is go to Disney World?

Tourist!

Panz

Eye passed nearly directly overhead. Around 9:45 EDT, things were very... exciting. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Now, it's blowing a little, and sprinkling a little, but I can hear crickets, and cars in the distance. I just checked... I lost some shingles, and there are branches everywhere, but apparently no major damage that I can see. Power's out but I'm well Equipped, so that isn't a problem.

Anyone else in Florida?

No power here either, east of orlando, was not under the eye but in the neighborhood. Lots of trees and branches down, will be running the chainsaw for a few days i think. But no damage done to the trailer, yes i am trailer trash and no i didn't stay here during the blow. Hope the rest of our Florida ETS family came through ok.