(S)he's sooooo Canadian. :P

[SpiritAlight 1]

LOL!!! I love this topic.

Although I must admit, I am probably married to the one Canadian who HATES the cold and has such a low tolerance for it. We live in Northern New Hampshire and it does get chilly up here. Hubby had been spoiled by the Vancouver climate and was so unprepared for winters here!!! He is usually the one in layers and layers and I am the one saying, awww it is not that cold.

Hahaha. I like not being alone here on this topic...and neither is your husband.

I can blame having lived on the West Coast for almost 13 years, and spending too many Winter months sailing in Florida, etc. as the issue, but being back in Montreal and observing that not only I but my friends here simply abhor the cold. They make me laugh because at least I feel I have an excuse.

So I am wondering how to convince my fiancé that we really do need to live in Hawai'i.

I have sun-worshipping ways and he has light skin. Hahaha. Oops.

Mumsie, as always, you not only take the cake, but the entire kitchen.

Thanks for making me laugh so much.

I truly appreciate your mind.

Can you mail it to me?

[Texanadian 10]

I disagree with KarenCee on this one. It's that southerners have a different idea of cold. 65 and less seems to be jacket weather for Texans. We went to a restaurant the other day. It was 67 outside and a bit of wind. Carly put on a jacket for the "long walk" to the car from our front door. LOL She hates the summer and humidity with a passion. You'd think she would enjoy being cold. But she doesn't.

She seems suprised I didn't bring any jackets from Canada. I used to live on the west coast. Cold to me is freezing or a few degrees below. Anything above that and a sweatshirt is fine. How long does the cold snap last in Houston anyways? Assuming it does get down to freezing, it's only for a day or two.

We drove from TX to NW Arkansas over Thanksgiving. She was concerned because one of the days there was a slight chance of snow and she didn't own any chains. CHAINS??? Hahahaha. I've never used chains. And we were driving her Chevy Blazer for crying out loud. I don't think we're going to have a problem if 1/4" inch of snow comes down on the ground. Heck, I've never even used winter tires.

The ironic thing is that she freezes me out with the air conditioning in the summertime. She wants it at 69-70 during the summer. I didn't move to Texas to be colder in the summer than I was in BC. She even wanted to turn it on after we unloaded from coming home Thanksgiving weekend. I said for crying out loud, it's 45° outside. I'll open some windows and turn on the ceiling fan if you're cold. What a waste to run air conditioning in November when it's 45° outside. Go stand outside!

She does odd things. Like set the vehicle temperature on MAX A/C and then turns the cold/hot slider to the middle when it's 60° outside. I just move it over to VENT and set it on coldest setting. Her son isn't any better. I saw him set it for MAX A/C and move the cold/hot slider all the way over to hot one time around Christmas. Here try this *moves it to HEAT mode* Hey that works pretty good. I guess I can't fault him too much. It doesn't say vent and heater. It just has icons that point at your face or your feet.

[Autumnchik 6]

LOL!!! I love this topic.

Although I must admit, I am probably married to the one Canadian who HATES the cold and has such a low tolerance for it. We live in Northern New Hampshire and it does get chilly up here. Hubby had been spoiled by the Vancouver climate and was so unprepared for winters here!!! He is usually the one in layers and layers and I am the one saying, awww it is not that cold.

Hahaha. I like not being alone here on this topic...and neither is your husband.

I can blame having lived on the West Coast for almost 13 years, and spending too many Winter months sailing in Florida, etc. as the issue, but being back in Montreal and observing that not only I but my friends here simply abhor the cold. They make me laugh because at least I feel I have an excuse.

So I am wondering how to convince my fiancé that we really do need to live in Hawai'i.

I have sun-worshipping ways and he has light skin. Hahaha. Oops.

Good luck with that! My hubby would go in a heartbeat He is dying to move back to Georgia (where I was living when we met). He adores the heat (I blame all his backpacking trips to Central America .. LOL) ... whereas I really am uncomfortable in hot weather. Not sure where we can live that is a good compromise AND fairly close to at least one set of family.

[Melyssa 0]

I love my Caknucklehead, as my father calls him. But he:

1) Insists on watching every hockey game that he can find. Even between the stupid little teams that he doesn't care about.

2) Wears shorts/sandals in the cold weather.

"Aren't you cold?"

"No! Canadians never get cold!"

"But you're shivering."

"I'm not shivering! Canadians never shiver!"

Baaaah.

3) His parents keep sending us little bits of money along with "Woohoo, the exchange rate is greaaat now isn't it??!" notes.

(Easily countered by bringing up the rampant inflation in Alberta's booming oil economy, however.)

I love my Canadian.

The exchange rate appears to have dropped a bit unless our bank looked up the wrong information. We were hoping we'd get more than what we did in exchange for a cheque for a decent amount of money. But nope - we lost about $50! We thought it was because that was how much it cost to deposit the cheque, but nope - that only cost $2. So yesterday the rate was apparently 97 point something cents... I know that's still pretty good but we were kind of disappointed. Too bad we didn't exchange my Canadian money earlier!

Hmm I wonder what my husband finds "Canadian" about me because I don't care for hockey

That's sweet of your husband's parents to send (and keep sending!) you guys little bits of money!

[Flames9_RN 358]

They say the Cdn dollar will continue to fall, and prob end up around the .85 cent area in mid 2008. At least thats what they said last week!!

[Mephys 2]

Live rates at 2007.11.28 17:18:36 UTC

1.00 USD = 0.989538 CAD

United States Dollars Canada Dollars

1 USD = 0.989538 CAD 1 CAD = 1.01057 USD

Dang I got screwed last week-end I bought something thinking I would get more from my money

[Krikit 1,164]

I disagree with KarenCee on this one. It's that southerners have a different idea of cold. 65 and less seems to be jacket weather for Texans. We went to a restaurant the other day. It was 67 outside and a bit of wind. Carly put on a jacket for the "long walk" to the car from our front door. LOL She hates the summer and humidity with a passion. You'd think she would enjoy being cold. But she doesn't.

She seems suprised I didn't bring any jackets from Canada. I used to live on the west coast. Cold to me is freezing or a few degrees below. Anything above that and a sweatshirt is fine. How long does the cold snap last in Houston anyways? Assuming it does get down to freezing, it's only for a day or two.

We drove from TX to NW Arkansas over Thanksgiving. She was concerned because one of the days there was a slight chance of snow and she didn't own any chains. CHAINS??? Hahahaha. I've never used chains. And we were driving her Chevy Blazer for crying out loud. I don't think we're going to have a problem if 1/4" inch of snow comes down on the ground. Heck, I've never even used winter tires.

The ironic thing is that she freezes me out with the air conditioning in the summertime. She wants it at 69-70 during the summer. I didn't move to Texas to be colder in the summer than I was in BC. She even wanted to turn it on after we unloaded from coming home Thanksgiving weekend. I said for crying out loud, it's 45° outside. I'll open some windows and turn on the ceiling fan if you're cold. What a waste to run air conditioning in November when it's 45° outside. Go stand outside!

She does odd things. Like set the vehicle temperature on MAX A/C and then turns the cold/hot slider to the middle when it's 60° outside. I just move it over to VENT and set it on coldest setting. Her son isn't any better. I saw him set it for MAX A/C and move the cold/hot slider all the way over to hot one time around Christmas. Here try this *moves it to HEAT mode* Hey that works pretty good. I guess I can't fault him too much. It doesn't say vent and heater. It just has icons that point at your face or your feet.

[Krikit 1,164]

Sorry about that. No idea how that last post happened. Anyhooo...

We drove from TX to NW Arkansas over Thanksgiving. She was concerned because one of the days there was a slight chance of snow and she didn't own any chains. CHAINS??? Hahahaha. I've never used chains. And we were driving her Chevy Blazer for crying out loud. I don't think we're going to have a problem if 1/4" inch of snow comes down on the ground. Heck, I've never even used winter tires.

The ironic thing is that she freezes me out with the air conditioning in the summertime. She wants it at 69-70 during the summer. I didn't move to Texas to be colder in the summer than I was in BC. She even wanted to turn it on after we unloaded from coming home Thanksgiving weekend. I said for crying out loud, it's 45° outside. I'll open some windows and turn on the ceiling fan if you're cold. What a waste to run air conditioning in November when it's 45° outside. Go stand outside!

OMG, that drives me batty!!! Why does everyone run their AC at max.... even on "cold" days? I carry a sweater around with me everywhere we go because I know I'll need it when I go inside. (I mean, seriously..... if the sprinkler system came on it would produce snow.) I had some bright spark "explain" to me that the reason they keep it so cold is that the place warms up when there are a lot of people inside so by running the AC at max they're able to keep the place "comfortable". Excuse me? Is that not the function of the temperature regulator?

[Texanadian 10]

Krikit, I've done lots of research into air conditioning technology. You and I being in Florida and Texas have the humidity to deal with, which throws a wrench into the whole thing.

In cars, everybody uses MAX instead of NORM because MAX recirculates the air and dehumidifies better. Faster fan speed = more cooling but at a slight expense of dehumidifying. Slower fan = more dehumidifying but not as much cooling. So for this time of year (73° and 75% humidity) I run the car on MAX, full cold on the cold/hot slider, and the lowest fan speed. I might switch it to VENT if I get too cold.

My wife will get in the vehicle and turn the cold/hot towards the middle (which of course warms up the air temperature thus not dehumidifying as much). When it's 60° outside as it occasionally is, VENT is all that's needed as the humidity isn't really an issue. The dewpoints are too low to make it feel muggy.

When I got here in August, I'd walk into a store and freeze! Unfortunately most of the newer "high efficiency" (higher SEER) air conditioners in homes and stores get that high efficiency by running larger coils that are warmer than the old "low efficiency" systems. A smaller coil is colder and removes more moisture from the air. Thus an old system would maintain 75° and 45% while a new system maintains 75% and 55%. To get around this, most people turn their A/C down to 70 in order to get the humidity down to a comfortable level. Sometimes our apartment will have the A/C turned down to 68° just to maintain 50% humidity....As a matter of fact, right now at this very second (1:30PM Dec 2nd, it's 80° and 66% outside. My apartment is 71° but 62% inside). I just turned the A/C on and it's blowing 54° out the ducts. If the system were a good system (and it isn't because our apartment puts in the cheapest junk A/C's they can) I would be getting 51° or cooler blowing out the ducts.

In an ideal world, 40° duct air in a home would be perfect. Great dehumidifying and a faster cool down. But not cold enough that it would ice up the system. But people would complain that the air blowing is too cold.

In Arizona, these high SEER A/C units work great. It's 115° and 4% outside. Something that sacrifices dehumidifying for higher efficient cooling is great. In Florida when it's 90° and 70% outside, you want something that spends more time dehumidifying than it does cooling. You may have noticed that you need to turn the temperature down at night before bed. That's because the weather changes from 92° and 60% during the day to 74° and 95% at night. The temperature is cold enough outside that the A/C runs sparingly. Doesn't run long enough to take out the moisture.

To throw some examples out there, in Houston the general rule of thumb for an average house is 1 ton of A/C per 500 sq ft. So a 2000 sq ft house would have a 4 ton A/C unit with a 4 ton coil. Some of the newer homes will have a 4 ton unit and a high efficiency 4.5 ton coil. Bad bad bad. It will keep the house cold, but clammy. Lots of new houses in Houston have mold problems because they're always over 60% inside. For Houston (and Florida too) you want an undersized coil. Something like a 4 ton unit and a 3.5 ton or even 3 ton coil. Undersizing the coil results in about 30-40% better dehumidifying than a traditional matched setup. I know of a house in Houston that's huge but with way more insulation than normally is used. With the added insulation, the A/C would run less but by doing that wouldn't take out the moisture. He wound up getting a custom built 10 ton A/C with a 7.5 ton coil. Now it maintains 78° and 39% inside.

My wife's vehicle blows about 45° air out the ducts. Pretty good for the summer. Cools down good enough. Fairly dry. My vehicle blows 31° out the ducts. Sometimes I can even get it down to 30°. As a result, my car dehumidifies the air almost with the snap of the fingers. It's VERY comfortable. Of course it obviously cools the car down faster as well. Most houses blow 50-55° out the ducts.

If you measure the delta temperature difference in a home (room temperature vs temperature at the ducts), you can determine how good your air conditioning system is. 15° difference is considered good (I would say decent) while 20° is considered excellent (I would say what it should be). The hotter and muggier the weather is outside, the worse the system generally performs. In the summer, you might get a 17° difference. This time of year, you might get a 21° difference. My apartment right now with it's 71° room air and 54° A/C air is a 17° delta temperature difference.

My car has a fantastic delta temperature difference. This summer when it was 94° and 65% outside, I thought I'd see how cold I could get my car. MAX, full cold, fastest fan speed. Blowing 34° out the ducts, I managed to get the inside temperature to 65° and 30%. My hands were going numb and I was starting to shiver. That's a 31° delta temperature difference. Fantastic. In most summer driving, I would turn the fan speed down so it's not THAT cold inside. Most of the summer I ran about 75° and 30% in my car. Felt perfect. My wife's car runs about 80° and 30-35% which feels normal. About the same as most cars feel when it's reached normal summer in-car conditions.

Normally on a day like today, I'd turn on my portable dehumidifier in the living room. That would take the 71° 62% living room and turn it into 74° and 45%. The dehumidifier blows air out the back of it somewhere in the range of 95° and 20%....But it's broken right now and getting fixed under warranty.

[Allie 5]

I get a good chuckle out of the fact that 2 inches of snow is such a big deal here and 26 degrees is drastic The weather forecast called it an intense winter storm and were warning of severe weather conditions. Everybody is just creeping along with thier studded tires on.

We had a couple inches of snow overnite on Sat and today the newspaper states there were 56 accidents in Spokane County because of the heavy snowfall overnite.

I was telling Lorry about how common getting as much as 20 inches of snow in a single storm back in N.S. is and the -20 temps that Jan and Feb bring. What is winter here is a very nice break to what Iwas accustomed to and very enjoyable.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

I'm another Canadian who does not like the cold and am loving the weather here in Georgia. I must have acclimatized though - my first winter here I barely wore a jacket because the coldest it got was to around freezing overnight and daytime got up into the 50s. Well, now I wear a light jacket when it is in the 50s, hehehe. I always carry a sweater with me to wear inside buildings during the summer - yes, the A/C is too cold for me to be comfortable. We keep ours set to 79 in the house, and have the windows open whenever we can. The biggest problem is really dealing with the humidity not the temperature. We keep the temperature pretty cool in the winter too - 64 F - but it doesn't seem to feel as cold as it did in Canada when I had the inside set at 68 F. Peculiar. (I didn't bring a winter coat with me either - hehehe, but if I want one they sell parkas and ski jacket type coats in the stores - and people wear them when it is in the 40s! At least I still just wear my fall jacket).

Edited December 3, 2007 by Kathryn41

[Flames9_RN 358]

I love the cold,lol!! One can always make themselves warmer when its cold outside, but if its super hot, not much u can do (if ya dont have AC)

Things go crazy here in the DC area if one gets a bit of snow! I'm amazed on how a bit of the white stuff shuts everything down!! I missed only ONE day of school in Sk due to weather, and even then the classes were not canceled, i just missed the bus, and mom didnt feel like driving,lol

[derekkj 0]

I love the cold,lol!! One can always make themselves warmer when its cold outside, but if its super hot, not much u can do (if ya dont have AC)

Things go crazy here in the DC area if one gets a bit of snow! I'm amazed on how a bit of the white stuff shuts everything down!! I missed only ONE day of school in Sk due to weather, and even then the classes were not canceled, i just missed the bus, and mom didnt feel like driving,lol

I actually heard a forecast for flurries on Wednesday, Scott. So run and get your milk and toilet paper while you still have a chance!

[trailmix 77]

I get a good chuckle out of the fact that 2 inches of snow is such a big deal here and 26 degrees is drastic The weather forecast called it an intense winter storm and were warning of severe weather conditions. Everybody is just creeping along with thier studded tires on.

We had a couple inches of snow overnite on Sat and today the newspaper states there were 56 accidents in Spokane County because of the heavy snowfall overnite.

I was telling Lorry about how common getting as much as 20 inches of snow in a single storm back in N.S. is and the -20 temps that Jan and Feb bring. What is winter here is a very nice break to what Iwas accustomed to and very enjoyable.

I see all the schools are closed in Spokane this morning.

It's kind of interesting how it's such a different mindset. Sometimes I wish the Canadian's were a bit more weather sensitive, in terms of closing roads down or closing schools etc. I think we go to the other extreme*.

* I don't think Canadian's are allowed to say that, but I just did.

Edited December 3, 2007 by trailmix

[Texanadian 10]

I think it's safe to say that cold weather in the US is a whole different ball game compared to Canada.

I don't know about Georgia, but I would assume it's the same as Texas in that when a cold front comes, the humidity drops like a stone. In Houston it might be 75° and 60% humidity. Then when the cold comes it will go to 50° and 16% humidity. 16%? I don't think the west coast of BC ever gets that dry. Probably why 64° feels comfier than 68° did back home.

Damp cold sucks. Then again, I remember my mother travelling to Saskatchewan one time during the winter. She got off the plane and it was -30 and windy. Dry as paper. She said she went through about half a container of moisturizer during the 3 days she was there.