I asked this once before, but I don't think I really got a response. Has anyone spent any time in there Barth in 100+ degree weather for an extended time. Would it be even possible to live in a Barth in the summer in Yuma? I understand that some live in 5th wheels down there.

What do you thing any ideas??

We hit the 90's once in Hannibal, MO with deadly humidity and we only have one air. We were very uncomfortable in the day. I think it was 9 at night before it got under 85 inside. But it sure cooled off in the night, we were shivering by morning. I know that if we would have had two airs we would have been fine.

But with dry AZ heat, wouldn't that be a big difference?

Well, if 106°F rings your chimes, yes.

Each year I go to the Nebraska Star Party 30 miles SW of Valentine, NE, and the daytime temps have yet to retreat below 100°F. The single roof A/C in my Breakaway keeps the temps around 80°F - but I don't set the thermostat lower.

Since I'm at a star party where stray light is forbidden (at least we think it is - there have been no survivors who were violators to comment) I've made blackout curtains of heavy vinyl for the forecabin windows.

OTOH, at 106°F, the Heat Index in Valentine is 102°. However, I live in FL, and the saying goes, "It ain't the heat, it's the humidity!" Fergit that - at 105°, it's the heat!

One does have to note that Minnesotans don't put on more than a tee shirt to go outside above 35°F, and are probably susceptible to heat stroke around 55°...

The last of July we were at a southern gospel 3 day sing in Dillsburg Pa . The temp ranged from 95-105.Middle of the night high 80s. The campground electric system overloaded from all the sir conditioners and blowed up. My generator ran my 2 airs 37hrs straight.Inside temp stayed at 70 all the time. I left the gen. door open for more air and except for burning a lot of propane everything was fine.

80° at night? that's ugly! Nebraska temps dropped to the 50s or at worst the very low 60s at night...the generator was run about 10-12 hours per day - all week.

I don't know if the single Duo-Therm in StaRV II could have brought the temps down to 70°F, but there was headroom to go lower, and the A/C did go to low fan speed and occasionally shut off.

While we have been in Mesa for the past month, we were also here last spring living in our Barth. Several of the days did get to 100+, and as long as we were hooked up to shore power, the AC units did great. Kept the coach in a very comfortable range.

The temps in this hot dry climate are different than in the upper midwest. With low humidy, the heat does not seem as oppressive. And once you are in a shade, or in the evening, the temp does drop. Coming from both Indianapolis, IN and Ft. Myers, FL a temp of 100 in those two cities feels much hotter than 100 here in Mesa.

You certainly could live in a Barth while in Yuma in mid summer, but the larger question is why?

Thom

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bowers:
Has anyone spent any time in there Barth in 100+ degree weather for an extended time. Would it be even possible to live in a Barth in the summer in Yuma? I understand that some live in 5th wheels down there.

We kept a series of trailers on the Colorado River south of Blythe all through the 80s and 90s. We spent two or three weeks at a time there all summer with interruptions to earn a living. One air conditioner was always fine. However, we kept the inside at 80, which seemed quite cool when it was over a hunnert outside. In Florida, with high humidity, we found 80 inside too hot.

We have also spent a couple of weeks in the deserts in various motor homes without a problem.

Our own feelings are that it aint the heat, it is indeed the humidity. Even at Blythe, our discomfort level followed the humidity. When the farmers irrigated, or during monsoon season, the heat was worse, above or below 100. 110 is OK, but much above that is too hot, even when dry. I have also noticed that birds and animals are as responsive to humitidy as they are to heat. On a high humidity hot day, birds will walk around with beaks open and wings half out. They do not do this at low humidity high heat.

I don't know how useful this is, as everyone's discomfort thresholds are different. This is all very subjective. I grew up in Iowa Nebraska South Dakota, and those hot muggy summers can be much worse than anything Arizona offers.

BTW, a fresh coat of roof paint really makes a difference in the sun. I was laying down a fresh coat while my wife was inside, and she was surprised when she came out and saw the sun shining. She thought the sun had gone behind a cloud because it had cooled off inside.

In the '50s I had a traveling job out of Denver. As the junior member of the firm I got to go to Yellowstone in the winter (via a plane, a train, a bus, & a milk truck in that order) & Yuma in the summer.

This was before autos had air conditioning, & indeed the folks at Yuma Proving Ground didn't have any in their work spaces either. One trip was enough for me, but the hardy souls who worked there tolerated it. I was more uncomfortable living one summer in N.J with temp., & humidity in the '90s.

Air conditioning makes a lot of things possible. The problem is when you have to leave the air conditioned spaces. But remember, people lived on the deserts before A/C was invented.

We tolerated temps in the low 100s in Indio in Oct., with one RV A/C on a 40' park model, though it wasn't exactly cool in the hottest periods.

You gotta try it before you'll know for sure, but if any member of your party is determined it ain't gonna work, they'll be correct, no matter what you might think.

When it starts hitting 100 on a steady basis we head north. I figure that when i get to where i don't want to drive much anymore we will just spend the summers in the higher elevations of AZ. where the summer temps are often 30 degrees cooler. ( Side note; Rusty my first job in AZ. was up by Flagstaff, 93 miles one way. I would leave at 4:30 in the morning and lots of times i would stop about halfway and shut the car off, get out and listen to the elk bugleing while i was looking at the stars. At almost 7000 ft elevation even with the naked eye it was pretty damn impressive. Right in that area there are a couple of telescopes but i have forgotten the name of them.) This last winter i met a guy in Yuma who was going to stay thru the summer in a small trailer. I will be curious to see how he did. When we first got to Hawaii i never thought i would get cold but after a year and a half i did during the winters and the summers did not feel as hot or humid as the first one did. You adjust over time. The 2 summers that i worked in AZ. i was in Erenburg and Lake Havasu and both times when i left home it was in the 80's and low 90's and when i got to the jobs it was 120-122 degrees. And even with low humidity that is HOT!

Shadow man, you brought up an interesting concept - temp drops a few degrees (about 3°F) for each 1000' of elevation.

The scopes at Flagstaff are likely those of the Percival Lowell Observatory - the place where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, which used to be a planet....

I've worked in 140-145°F conditiosn, but only for brief periods of time (less than 2 hours, fixing some recalcitrant gear on a ship of which I was the Chief Engineer)...come out of there, and 115°F will cause chills!

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bowers:
Would it be even possible to live in a Barth in the summer in Yuma?

Aren't we missing the point. Can't ya'll smell the smoke? I think Dave's thinking about doing the snowbird thing...

Bill N.Y.

Rusty; On Maui we lived at about the 1100 ft level, we got to where we could feel the temperature drop just before we got home. No, its not the Lowell telescope up on Mars Hill. These are about 25 miles southeast of Flagstaff and i think they are run by the navy if i remember right. Also on Maui i worked for 6 months on the top of the mountain ,( 10,000 ft.) on a new telescope that they were putting in. Got very cold up there before i was laid off.....even saw a little snow once or twice. Had to have a fleece lined Levi jacket sent in from the mainland.

That is the great thing about snowbirding,....too hot? too cold? too wet? too dry? Flooding? Tornadoes?, a mountain suddenly eruting?, Don't like your neighbors? ........Move! We can usually be gone in an hour or so without having to hurry. But in an emergency we could be gone in 4-5 minutes if we had to .

Since somebody mentioned altitude and temperature, and Maui, I will continue this forum's mandatory thread drift. I used to have a condo in Kihei. Now and then I would ride my bicycle down the hill from Haleakala, just after sunrise, shedding clothes along the way, ending up wearing just shorts. It was a real trip to feel the temperature change, particularly in winter. Close to 40 miles, I think. I even did it uphill once, but I went so slow and stopped to take pictures, so the temp changes were not as dramatic.

Bill, where was your condo in Kihei? we lived there the first 6 months on Maui until we bought a house in Haliimaile, and i worked in Kihei and Wailea for about 4 years. My wife worked at the Mana Kai hotel on the south end of Kihei for about 5 or 6 years. Rusty; i got out a map and that observatory is owned by the USGS and it says it is the Perkins Telescope.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadow man:
Bill, where was your condo in Kihei? we lived there the first 6 months on Maui until we bought a house in Haliimaile, and i worked in Kihei and Wailea for about 4 years. My wife worked at the Mana Kai hotel on the south end of Kihei for about 5 or 6 years.

Our condo was in a complex called Kihei Kai Nani. On the land side of Kihei road, pretty much midway between the Kihei Fish House and the Intercontinental Wailea hotel farther south. That was in the 70's, so names may have changed. We rented it out to vacationers in winter and used it ourselves when vacant and we could get on a plane. Summer we rented it to construction people. It was almost across from a beach park that started with a K. .....Kamaole or something like that. Nice tidal pools for the kids. There was a nice house just north of the park on the beach, and the owner let me use his Laser, so I had a sailboat almost any time. He was a racer, so was fussy about his sails. I had to travel to and from the mainland carrying my own sail in my baggage If I wanted to sail with the Humpbacks.

So, Stevi may have driven past it every day. Pretty decent place back then. I subbed for a supe at OGG in the nineties when AA started flying there and went to visit the place in my off time, and it still looked pretty decent. Kihei seemed a lot more built up than I remembered in the 70's. I wish I had held onto the place.

I don't remember a Mana Kai hotel, but we didn't go south too much. They were building the Intercontinental Wailea at that time, and I don't remember any other hotels there.