Fighting Thermodynamics

It’s too darned hot.

I have a particular weakness, and it’s this: I can’t take the heat.

I’ve always lived in parts of the world where it’s mostly not too hot; unfortunately this means that when it does get hot there isn’t air conditioning.

It all comes to a head at night; if it’s hotter than about 24° (75° Fahrenheit) then I find it really, really hard to sleep.

Things That Don’t Help

Fans help; a bit, but not enough.

Water is the worst. It helps for a while but increases the humidity—and humid heat is much worse than dry heat.

Something That Helps

The reason I’m writing this is that I discovered something that does help.

You’re probably familiar with freezer packs and their use in keeping food cool.

Well, EZCoolDown sells similar cooling packs, but for people:

EZCoolDown

The difference is the melting point of the material in the packs.

For freezer packs, the melting point is obviously below 0°.

For the packs from EZCoolDown you have a choices between 15° and 21°.

This makes them very different, in three ways.

First, you don’t need a freezer; they freeze solid in the fridge. This makes them much easier to “reset”.

Second, the temperature difference to your skin is much less. In fact, if you’re feeling hot, they are very pleasant to touch. And this fits with how you use them: either as a collar or strapped in to a vest.

Third, because the temperature difference to your skin is not so high, they “stay cold” for quite a long time: in my experience, a couple of hours.

Real, Efficient Cooling

There are no tricks here; a cool pack is a cool pack. It cools you down directly.

Compared to cooling down the whole room with air conditioning, wearing a cool pack against your skin must be hugely more efficient. Exactly how much is left as an exercise for the reader; my guess is that it must be comfortably more than an order of magnitude and the only question is how many orders of magnitude.

Results

EZCoolDown keeps me cool long enough to get to sleep; if I wake up, I might go and get another one.

If like me you can’t take the heat, and live in a country where air conditioning is rare, it’s a game changer. You might also be interested if you do have air conditioning available but want to explore reducing your energy use.

Feedback 📮

👍 Thanks!

👎 Not for me.

🤷 No opinion.

Comments.

So far today, 2024-05-13, feedback has been received 10 times. Of these, 0 were likely from bots, and 10 might have been from real people. Thank you, maybe-real people!