If Your AC Isn't Doing Enough, Get a Dehumidifier
This problem is particularly common with oversize air conditioners. But even if your AC is sized just right for your space, it might still struggle to dehumidify the room at the same rate that it cools the air down. To get the coils cold enough to dehumidify, your air conditioner might try to overcool the room.
This is not only uncomfortable but is also a waste of energy. 'The core problem here is that the sensible and latent load are coupled,' Bonner explained, 'and we've only got one tool to handle both of those unique problems.'
Most window air conditioners, for example, have a sensible heat ratio of 0.7, which means they put 70% of their energy toward sensible cooling, reserving the other 30% for dehumidification. Variable-speed inverter ACs like the models we recommend are much more energy-efficient, but they also tend to put an even larger portion of that energy toward cooling — sometimes up to 90%, depending on how fast the compressor is running.
Those ratios might work for people who live in dry or even moderate climates. But I live in New England, just a few miles away from the Atlantic Ocean. As I write this, it's 81 degrees Fahrenheit outside with a relative humidity level of 79%. My Frigidaire FFAD2234W1 dehumidifier has a hose that drains directly into the sump pump, and on days like this, conditions are so humid that I still have to manually empty the water tank.
Still, I'd rather lug that bucket to the sink a few times a year than deal with the moist, musty chill of an air conditioner that can't keep up with the latent load.
We tested multiple sizes and types of air conditioners to confirm: A too-big AC can't balance heat and humidity.
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Michigan State University trustees approve memorial design honoring 2023 campus shooting victims
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Yahoo
37 minutes ago
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Parents Who've Snooped Through Their Kids' Stuff Are Sharing The Weirdest Things They Found, And I Wasn't Ready For Some Of These
Sometimes, parents just can't help but get in their kids' business. But when you go snooping, you might find things you were never meant to see, from the perplexing to the downright horrifying. This was the topic of discussion in an AskReddit thread, where u/SensitiveCorner2379 asked, "Parents who've snooped through their teenagers' stuff, what's the weirdest thing you've ever come across?" Here's what all the nosy parents and their kids had to say: 1."I went to my 10-year-old daughter's school for parent-teacher conferences and opened her locker to take a look inside. There wasn't much in it, but lying at the bottom was a book from our local library about how to plan a wedding. Not a fun one with pictures of wedding dresses and stuff. It was called Wedding Rites: A Complete Guide to Traditional Vows, Music, Ceremonies, Blessings and Interfaith Services. I was baffled, and her teachers and I had a good laugh about it. When I got home and asked her about it, she explained she and her bestie were trying to marry their dogs to each other." —u/ghostguessed 2."My mom was going through my sister's room after she returned from a trip to Berlin. Nothing wild, just getting her laundry together. She found a small baggie of white dust and rocks. She tasted it to see if she could recognize the drug, and when she couldn't, she confronted my sister. It was small pieces of the Berlin Wall that my sister had chipped off as a keepsake. My mother ate the Berlin Wall." —u/briesneeze 3."An entire dresser drawer of dirty dishes and silverware." —u/Hour_Mathematician83 4."I don't snoop, but I do clean and organize from time to time. My teen knows this, and also knows that unless I find some really illegal shit, I'm not really worried. Having said that, I found a suit of armor he had made out of watermelon rinds that he forgot to toss out. Whole new ecosystem growing on it all." —u/OddLeeEnough 5."For my youngest, the worst thing we've found is a fart bag where she and her bestie were trying to save up farts. They had one at her bestie's house too — her mom made them throw it out, saying it was 'unsanitary.' I just howled and left it alone. A fart bag. Hilarious, why didn't I ever try that as a kid?!" —u/wimwood 6."My son was 15 at the time. I went into his room and tried to get him to clean it, because it was a damn disaster area. I was ranting at him, 'Look at all the garbage all over the floor! Look at the dirty dishes!' Then I spotted a drinking glass, like a pint glass, on the floor. I said, 'You have GLASS on the FLOOR where you could step on it and slice your foot wide open!' I leaned down and picked it up. It had stuff in it. I took a closer look. He had stuffed it with a couple of socks at the bottom and taped a nitrile glove over the top. The glass was slippery in my hand. I stood there looking at it with dawning horror as I realized that I'd found his homemade Fleshlight. I just set it down on the floor and walked out. We've never spoken of it since." —u/edgarpickle 7."I was the teenager getting snooped on. I had undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time, and I was building a time machine from old PC parts that I got from people's trash. Thankfully, my mom found it because the way I'd designed it, I was going to electrocute myself to send myself back in time. Unfortunately, when I found my time machine was gone, I thought the government was onto me and basically kicked myself out of the house so they wouldn't find me. I was 14 or 15 at the time. I'm medicated now and doing much better these days." —u/konoha37 8."A full human turd inside of an empty face wipe container. No toilet paper. I was more concerned than if I'd found a baggie of pot." —u/MooseMaster6000 9."'Science' experiments. Like the insides of stress balls emptied out. Hair gel mixed with glue. Glue mixed with stress ball goop. Pencils with layers of glue, like they'd been dipped. Glued fuzzy sticks — 'art,' apparently." —u/MsPennyP 10."My mom would snoop when I was a teenager. I got a diary and hid it. When she found it and opened it, all she found was, 'THOUGHT YOU FOUND SOMETHING GOOD, HUH?' in big writing. She laughed about it for the next 20-plus years. I miss her." —u/22grey 11."When I was a teen, my dad found homemade dildos I made out of pencils taped together, a sock, more tape, and Saran Wrap. He knew what it was and was mad. I wish he'd left it alone, but he confronted me, and I was adamant it was actually an art project. So, I painted them and left them on display to dry for weeks to try to prove my point." —u/salmontoothpaste 12."I once found the Subway wrapper to my sub that he 'helped me look for' five months prior — when I was eight months pregnant — under his bed. I was looking forward to that sub so badly. It had tomatoes and banana peppers on it, and when I saw he had taken them all off, it sent me into a rage. It just disappeared, and he helped me look for it in the refrigerator. It's been over seven years, he's 17 now, and I still bring it up." —u/Jaylamarie333 13."A rusted train nail. Not snooping. She folded it up in a sweatshirt to keep it safe, and I was putting away laundry. She thought it was an artifact. Couldn't believe something could be that rusty without being 100 years old." —u/SideBackground6932 14."When I was 19, I came home from a night out with my girlfriends to my mother, hysterical and crying, dramatically asking, 'How could you do this to me?!' She had found a sandwich bag with an unknown substance in it and somehow came to the conclusion that it was heroin, and I had secretly turned into a person addicted to drugs. It was small, bacon-flavored dog treats for our chihuahua, which I had portioned out so they wouldn't get stale. Pretty obvious that my mother had no idea what heroin looked like." —u/forestfairygremlin 15."Searching the kids' internet histories. Kid one: porn. So much porn. Kid two: 'How tall is the tallest bridge?' 'What layers can you see in the Grand Canyon?' 'Happy goat videos.' Kids, man." —u/AltrusiticChickadee 16."I was like 13, living in a rural area, and my best friend at the time was always up to something. For some reason, we got it in our heads that we could secretly raise chickens in the forest behind my house, so we bought an entire chicken starter kit, complete with feed, lights, and a book on how to do it right. We attempted to shoplift a few baby chicks in her sweater from the farm supply store, but got caught on the way out. The plan never materialized because no one would sell us baby chicks. Later, my mother found the starter stuff in my closet. It was a weird conversation. She was expecting to find drugs. She was mainly mad that the store didn't call her when we got caught attempting to shoplift baby chicks." —u/ingracioth 17."I found a notebook labeled 'Top Secret Plans.' Inside was a full blueprint for how they'd fake sick to skip school, complete with fake cough sound effects and backup crying strategy if I didn't buy it. I was half impressed, half offended. They even wrote: 'Mom might pretend to be mad, but she'll secretly respect the hustle.' They were right." —u/DeadBoneMusic 18."My dad was moving my car in the driveway, yelling out the car window about how it smelled like pot. He reached into the center console and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, 'And what about these?? I thought you didn't smoke cigarettes!' 'I don't, they're crayons.' Sure enough, the cigarette box was full of crayons. I was a stoner, not a cigarette smoker." —u/wildjabali 19."After he moved out, I found a huge pencil case with every single pen he had used throughout high school, like 90+ pens, all completely out of ink. I messaged him about it, and he's like, 'yeah, that's my pen graveyard,' like it was the most normal thing ever. It's not a homemade Fleshlight, but it definitely made me pause and wonder what kind of hoarder I'd created." —u/SternFern 20."A bucket full of snapping turtle eggs. My kid and their friend saw the turtle nesting, robbed the nest, and stashed the eggs near the heater, hoping to hatch babies. I wasn't really snooping, just trying to recover some missing dishes." —u/WakingOwl1 21."When my oldest daughter moved out, she thought she took her whole knife collection with her. Wrong. We found seven more knives over the course of the next year as we slowly cleaned the room out. Knives that she didn't even remember she had. It wasn't creepy like something was wrong with her, it was just like, 'how in the world do you amass this many collectible knives by the age of 18?'" —u/wimwood 22."At least eight glasses of water, like it was goddamn Signs. Literal piles of trash under her covers that she definitely slept with. Random half-eaten bags of various chocolates…so many. Just gobs of boogers on the headboards. Unopened Capri-Sun pouches that, based on flavor, are artifacts. Clustered used pimple patches on her dresser, in her dresser, on the walls — just so many. This child is an honors student, by the way." —u/donnerpartyintheusa 23."I found a pile of trimmed pubic hair under my high school-aged son's bed. I was just like 'Well, I guess someone's been shaving,' and threw it away in the trash and moved on with my day. Never said anything to him about it." —u/Ordinary_Ice_796 24."A YouTube watch history full of NJM insurance commercials. She's on the spectrum and was obsessed with insurance commercials for a minute." —u/pantsparty1322 25."I found a rolling machine in my teenage son's bedroom. I was horrified. He was only 13. I couldn't find any trace of weed in the machine, and it looked clean. I took a photo and sent it to my husband. He wrote back that it was a magic trick used to make banknotes disappear. LOL." —u/Evieveevee lastly, "I found while cleaning: a Costco-sized bag of grated Parmesan cheese with a spoon in it, sitting next to his bed." —u/donnahotterthnasauna Have you ever found any surprises hiding in your kids' rooms? Let me know in the comments! Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
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The Trend That Is Dating Your Living Room According To Designers
Putting wall-mounted flat-screen TVs over the fireplace has become such a go-to design trend that people have largely forgotten that TVs used to be ornate furniture pieces in their own right. Likewise, fireplace mantels were the stuff that family photos, not TVs, sat on. Over the course of time, as the flat-screened TVs have gotten bigger, fireplace mantels have gone from hulky, to, if not lilliputian, at least a much smaller size. This is so much the case that rooms that still feature those monstrously oversized traditional fireplace mantels look tired, outdated even, like something you'd see on reruns of classic shows from the '70s and '80s, like "Dallas" or "The Six Million Dollar Man." So what's the solution to this dilemma? For the modern flat-screened TV owner, there are other fireplace mantel choices that make more sense than these outdated stone fireplace designs. Mantels that are lower to the ground and less bulky than more traditional mantels come to mind. This design choice allows you to place the TV above the fireplace at a more comfortable height. Here's a good rule of thumb. Sans fireplace, the ideal height for your TV is around 26 inches to 27 inches off the floor, with the middle of the TV, or eye level, being 40 inches off the floor. The average height for a fireplace mantel is around 54 inches to 60 inches above the floor. As such, you may want to think about lowering the mantel's height so that it aligns with those measurements. It's also wise to explore different fireplace and mantel designs because a change in one often necessitates a change in the other. Read more: Ditch These Dated Backsplash Trends For Timeless Alternatives Designs That Work Better For The TV/ Fireplace Combo For many fireplace owners, traditional stone or brick mantels have gone the way of the Dodo, as have traditional fireplace designs. There's almost no way around this problem unless you reconsider the design of both the fireplace and the mantel that sits on top of it. Linear fireplaces, for example, are wider than they are tall and usually sit about 12 inches to 36 inches off the floor. If you work on the lower end of those parameters, you could add a small floating mantel as a visual counterweight between a linear fireplace and the TV. The design of the fireplace also allows you to lower the height of the mantel so that the TV hangs at a more comfortable height for the space and for TV-viewing. It additionally alleviates some of the restrictions that a frame-style fireplace can introduce into a design problem like this one. Floating mantels range in length, width, and height, with some of them being little more than a shelf inserted into the wall above the fireplace – something that would accommodate the TV/ fireplace combo well. Or if your fireplace boasts a more traditional design, consider looking at a custom-designed mantel. This permits you to work within the parameters of the room's architectural elements, and can include space allowances for the TV. Ideally, you can design a mantel that allows the bottom of the TV to hang 3 inches to 4 inches above the top of the mantel. If you don't have that kind of clearance between the mantel and the TV, it could interfere with your view of the TV. What To Do Instead Of The TV/ Fireplace Combo If you're lucky enough to have a new-build home, the problems caused by the TV/ fireplace combo might have already been solved for you with a creative fireplace makeover. For example, your abode might feature a mantel that's already both slimmer and shorter than older mantel/ fireplace set-ups. This arrangement means that the TV will sit lower. You'll avoid neck strain with this arrangement. However, the television still competes with the fireplace for focal dominance, which is one reason why this combo is problematic for many designers. A better option for correcting the problem rethinks the design of the space by moving the TV from directly above the fireplace. One solution could be a faux fireplace mantel that serves as housing for a flat-screen TV. In other words, instead of having a fireplace below the mantel, you build a false mantel and place your TV inside of it where the firebox normally is. This solution also means that you'll still have some mantel space to decorate without the design dilemma caused by the fireplace/ mantel combo. Or, you could embrace a design that features an asymmetrical placement of the TV with the fireplace. This allows you to put the TV and the fireplace on opposite sides of the same wall or even on opposite walls altogether. In both cases, a mantel can be a part of the architectural design of the room, leaving you with plenty of space to decorate a fireplace like a professional. And if you still love those big, bulky mantels of old, this design tactic allows you to embrace this classical style. Enjoyed this article? Get expert home tips, DIY guides, and design inspiration by signing up to the House Digest newsletter! Read the original article on House Digest. Solve the daily Crossword
