Comments On Article: It Is All About Home Management

I have blinds with blackout curtains over them in all of the bedrooms. Works great until summer when the house gets so stuffy that I open my bedroom windows at night! It's one thing that I'm hoping the attic fan on the bedrooms side of the house will help. It should reduce the heat held in those rooms from the attic. 

We finally have a nice day, and I can hear the roofers working on another house. I'm going to go weed after another cup of coffee. I made a tomato soup base (add cream before serving) for the freezer yesterday. Nothing special going on today, just the usual things, but in nicer weather. :) 

Thank you Janet W for the pictures and information about the knitted exhibition. I love seeing things about the work of The Land Girls and have forwarded a link to my knitting group! How lovely. 

Stephanie G, we used to have an attic fan, but in our old house the attic isn’t sealed well enough and our attic fan was pulling cooled air out of the house into the attic, which made the HVAC have to run more and use more electricity.  Our solution has been to open a window late at night if it cools down enough, and then run the HVAC fan overnight.  Sort of like a whole house fan, but we don’t have a second story and it isn’t powerful the way a whole house fan is.  In reality, our old house holds onto the heat no matter what (plaster and lathe walls plus stucco), so many hot nights opening a window and turning off the HVAC will see the temperature in the house go up 10 degrees even if it is cooler outside than inside, as the house releases the heat of the day back inside.

We did install that kind of fan in the garage, to help move out the hot air that builds up.  We need it to help keep the batteries cool.

If anyone is looking at HVAC replacement, I can’t say enough good things about the newer heat pump systems when it comes to cooling.  Our A/C ran 10 hours yesterday, keeping the house much cooler than we’ve ever set it, and used only 10 kWh to do so!  With the old HVAC 10 hours would have used 45 kWh, and it would have taken more than 10 hours to keep it as cool as it is set now.  We are set to 71°F during the day and 72°F at night.  Last year we would set it to 78°F during the day and 72°F at night, if I am too hot at night I can’t sleep (post menopausal heat intolerance).  I have been wearing a sweater inside the house during the da!  But we are still making far more electricity than we can use, and the A/C guy recommended we set it here and see how the solar keeps up.

Lorna, I knew you were from Australia when you referred to your husband as "DH".

We too have continued to clean out although nothing much left in the house to sort out, it's all been done.  However the man of the house realised as he ages that he will no longer need many of his tools so he asked one of our sons-in-law if he would like them and he accepted gladly - result it one very tidy workshop with minimal tools, just kept the sort that would be used around the house and come in handy. 

The mower shed is also nice and tidy - we bought a new, much better quality whipper snipper (weed whacker to you in the US, strimmer to the UK), and ditched the old one which wasn't working well and can't buy parts for it anymore, gave the big petrol one plus the good petrol mower to our other son in law who is on acreage, and just kept the small light battery operated mower for small bits that the ride-on can't get into - all in all we now have two lovely clear sheds.

As much as I'd like to do so, I have given up all my vegetable gardens and now only grow dragon fruit, passion fruit, plus a couple of pots of capsicums (bell peppers) and cherry tomatoes - apart from that, just a few herbs.  I have spent most of my life gardening and now find my back doesn't like it very much, plus water is expensive.  I don't grow flowers unless they self-seed, so have just a few ornamental pot plants and day lilies now.  I've given all my others to my daughter.

To keep up to date for the future, as well as making sure our house is in order, we have also continued to keep our affairs in order so we've made our enduring power of attorney and advance health directives and had them duly witnessed by a justice of the peace and signed.  Wills, funerals (cremation), and all other documents are already done and have been for many years, and recently reviewed to make sure they're still valid.  Hopefully we are ready for that next (last??) stage of our lives.  Medical is all up to date and we've had all the necessary health checks done.

We did this latter documentation due to the fact that my brother was admitted to hospital a few hundred kilometres away and not expected to live (he did) and the doctors needed to know all the details which he's not told us so we couldn't answer - I won't put that sort of thing on my own family.

Pam you sound like you have been doing exactly what we have been doing and we upgraded a lot of equipment too like a new ride on lawn mower, better whipper snippers, and a couple of self propelled petrol lawn mowers that I use to mow around the house paddock boundary and in all the hard to reach areas too. DH like your husband is finding due to his illness that he too cannot do the things he used to do so the tools we kept are more basic for the simple jobs that need to be done around the home.

We also have 2 powers of attorney in place (being close friends) as DH and I are estranged from most family members due to let's say their bad lifestyle choices.

Just a suggestion too, is that if you still did want to garden, you can raise garden beds up to 90cm in height which is what they recommend for those with back problems or mobility issues. This is what we are currently doing with all our garden beds to make it much easier so we are not bending due to us both having back injuries.

Lorna.

Janet W, I love your pictures of the WWII knitting exhibit you visited! I would love to go see something like that.

Thanks GDonna for another wonderful post, I've been looking forward to it. Thanks everyone for your comments too. I always learn something new. 

Lorna, the biggest problem is water - we simply do not use town water to water vegetables or anything else so have to rely on our small tank - if I connect a hose to that, it drains it too quickly so just have to lug heavy buckets around - I don't like doing that!  I do have a couple of raised beds but they're in too much shade to grow much - and we are close to the 'food bowl' growing areas so just as easy to buy from the farm gate.  I've done enough vegetable gardening in my life to really not want to worry too much anymore despite it being the best way to do it.  

We have, for the moment while we're still sane, nominated each other for the power of attorney etc as we also have estranged family members - once one of us leaves this mortal coil, then we'll think of someone else but for the meantime this'll do.

Just popping in here before I head to bed to say that I just love how everyone has such interesting comments and conversations with each other.  I am in the background reading along and I enjoy learning from all of you and hearing what you have been doing. Some of you have thanked me for the post and I want to say thank you all for your comments.  Many of us are on different time zones depending on where you live.  I will catch up with you when I wake up.  Grandma Donna

Donna, sometimes we forget we're on different time zones but have to say welcome back, missed you during May.

Pam, between health and water issues I’ve given up the idea of vegetable gardening for now.  As you wrote, even if we were to build raised beds at waist height, the water would be an issue.  We don’t get rain in summer (we get very little rain March - November), and it would easily cost an additional $30+ per month to water a vegetable garden.  A community garden plot would be the best option since they provide the water, only those have to be worked in the ground, not raised beds.

Last night we reaped another benefit from our solar electricity.  There was a scheduled power outage that began at 9PM and went a little past 6AM (not the planned 1 AM), but we had electricity from the batteries.  In the past we’ve charged fans and lights ahead of time for planned outages, but this time we didn’t have to think about it at all.  It really showed us how our electrical independence will be a good thing going forward, especially with more strain on the grid where we live.  Eventually we will convert to an all electric house, with the exception of the dual fuel furnace to use if we don’t have enough electricity to heat the house, but we figured we would buy that HVAC system since we aren’t allowed to disconnect from the natural gas and will have a monthly connection fee regardless

We harvested the potato onions and garlic today. It's weeks early! In this year's attempt to grow rhubarb, the plant I put in the pot is starting to die, but the plant I put in the strawberry patch is still doing fine. The barn swallows built another nest on top of my porch light. I'm still chasing the grackles away, but they are getting the message. Our feral cat is letting us pet it now, and it came into the house for a few minutes. It caught a mouse last night, so it's a mouser. As soon as we can gain its trust, we'll take it to the vet for shots. 

I received an Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes Revised booklet from 1931 today. These were the government (Aunt Sammy was supposed to be the wife of Uncle Sam) recommendations for cheap but healthy food during the Depression. Healthy maybe, but cheap? No! Here's a sample menu for June:

Broiled beefsteak, hashed brown potatoes, summer turnips, lettuce salad, and fresh fruit ice. If you got the potatoes, turnips, lettuce, and fruit out of your garden, that would be cheap, but beef is incredibly expensive right now. A beefsteak is for special occasions in my house!

Here's another one:

Beef and ham gumbo in rice ring, string beans, toasted rolls, and cherry pie. Beef again. 

This one is cheaper:

Omelet, Swiss chard, potatoes au gratin, rhubarb conserve, raspberries and cream. 

I think I'll make some of the menus for Sunday dinners, but use chicken in place of beef in recipes. They do have a good selection of different vegetables, hardly ever repeating them. I like that kind of variety. 

Kimberly F I am so impressed with your solar system! I know that the battery capacity is a lot better these days, which is important in our less sunny area. Our last electricity bill was $85.25, but that was before we turned on the A/C! You are making me rethink rooftop solar. I know there are different kinds of attic fans. Ours is a rooftop fan, not a whole house fan. It only activates when the air gets hot enough in the attic to release it. It's a passive energy system, so it can't work without the hot air to activate it. I just hope it can remove enough hot air! I learned that heat in the attic makes your roof life shortened by making the materials brittle. But thank you for mentioning that about the fans. These kinds of tips are always helpful to someone, I think! They are personal knowledge tips, and I think that makes them more valuable. :)

Stephanie G, we chose to install 3 batteries, each with a capacity of 13.5 kWh, so just over 40kwh.  Most of the year we don’t need this much battery capacity, but in summer we definitely do, just to keep cool overnight, and then we need it for the several times per year that we have multiple rainy and cloudy days in a row.  Also in winter we have fewer daylight hours and pull our basic electrical needs from the batteries for about 16 hours per day, and now that we have switched to the heat pump HVAC unit we will be using electrics for our heating needs.  Most people probably would choose to have less battery capacity, but our goal was self-sufficiency from the grid.  We are also thinking long term, as it is predicted to get both hotter (more days over 100°F) and more humid in our area over the next couple of decades.  Also, I was wavering on the  third battery but since it qualified for the tax credit if installed on 2025 but wouldn’t if I changed my mind and wanted it in 2026-2028, we decided it was worth it.  The tax credit was 30% and the installer didn’t charge extra to install it, but would have charged installation if we had added it later.

How much things cost and when we can save money is so important now, even for discretionary purchases.  A set of books (new translation of the Hebrew Bible) my husband has been eyeing for a few years went to 50% off on Amazon.  He still hesitated, and I told him we would be foolish not to take advantage of the sale, especially since it was still full price other places.  He takes bible classes year round and these are considered the best translation for what we call the Old Testament

I mentioned your attic rooftop fan to my husband, and he says now that we have our new HVAC system and new ducting, we should have far less leaking in the attic and might be able try an attic fan again.  It seems with our old system, not only was the attic fan pulling cool air out of the house because of gaps around the filter housing, but it was also pulling it from the leaking ducts in the attic.  Ours was solar powered before and only supposed to work based on convection (heat).  The one we had installed in the garage has a thermostat and comes on if it gets over a certain temperature in there.  I didn’t know the attic temperature affects the roofing materials, it must affect the underlayment, since for us the asphalt tiles get incredibly hot from the sun — thanks for the tip!

Good luck taming your feral cat!

Stephanie, when I was still living at home (growing up), we lived in nice house with a whole house fan in the center of the hallway on the bedroom side of the house (left side) and off the living room.  That same hallway had a floor furnace in the floor for heating.  

My mother would lift the windows up about 8 to 12 inches and turn on the fan and the hot air went out of the house and the curtains blew inward with breezes coming through.  We did not have a air conditioner until later shown in the photo. We slept at night when it was hot weather with the fan on and the air coming through and almost always that air was very cool after midnight and we rested well.  This is how they used to cool their houses and also the older houses, a house we lived before  this one, the windows opened top and bottom.  We could let hot air out by pulling the top down.

If you notice in the photo the upper sides of the house the air would go out those vents when the fan was on.  

They sell solar fans that go into to side vents to remove the hot air out of the attic.  there needs to be vents on each side of the house as ours was back then.  Living during that time, late 1940's, 1950's and 1960's, we used very little air conditioning because most people did not have it until later in the 1950s.  Air conditioning was not sold for household use until the 1950's, or I might say not affordable until then.  

I just wanted to put a little history up here.  We lost our way at some point because when I went to school there was no air conditioning and the rooms inside and out had window up toward the ceiling to let hot air escape, even in the inside walls of the rooms there were windows above the doorway.  

Our problem is how they have built our houses today.  I sure wish I could design my own house, it would be built the old way.  :)  A photo of the house I lived growing up and before I became a country rural girl.  Grandma Donna

Grandma Donna, thank you so much for sharing your experience with whole house fans and showing us your house!

My house was built 100 years ago, and it should be well built for the weather, but it is hotter now than it was then.  For one thing, we have th urban heat island effect now that my town is really a city and not an agricultural town surrounded by fields and groves.  The house does better with colder days, with the angle of the sun coming in the front rooms and warming the house.  It also does really well with temperatures under 90°F as long as it cools down at night, because the house absorbs the cool over night and takes longer to heat back up.  Good fans make a big difference in those scenarios.  When I was a child in this area we would get heat waves but we didn’t have prolonged spells.  Now my city can expect more than 100 days per year over 90°F, and on average 25 days over 100°F.  We once had a July where 26 days where over 100°F.  More recently, we have had a November with 20 days over 90°F.  We also have more humidity than when I was a young adult.

We decided that to continue to live in our house as the climate gets yet hotter, we will require air conditioning.  The good thing is that we need very little heating.

Kimberly F, thank you for your comments this week and interesting conversations.  Thank you all for contributing to our conversations here on this forum.   Janet W, thank you for your wonderful photos of the ww2 knitting exhibit. 

Darlene R, you and your hubby will be in my prayers with the new diagnosis of hubby's dementia.

Also, Brefort A, I have translated your comment for others to read from French to English, I am so happy to see you all again.  The month of May must have been very intense!  It was hot here in France for a few days too, but today we are back to more pleasant temperatures.   During May, I did a lot of sorting, tidying, and deep cleaning.  Take care, See you very soon. 

Thank you, everyone, for the information on house fans. :) We can't use a whole house fan, and I wish we could, because of the horrible humidity we get here. You don't want to open a window to that! We had terrible ventilation in this house when we bought it, with no cross breezes at all. We put in a front door screen and a back door screen to get the air flowing. We have a main bathroom with a two-sink counter, a shower, a jet tub, two walk-in closets, and there was no ventilation at all! Not a fan, not a window that opened. The only fan was in the little toilet room, and the doorway and little ceiling fan in there wasn't going to be enough to suck up all the moisture from the bathroom. We put a window in there, and it was the only window on that side of the house but it still helped move the air around in the whole house. All of our floor vents are on outside walls, so we got some nice, painted metal air deflectors to direct the air conditioning to where the people were, because we didn't usually stand around lining the outside walls. :) We needed the cool air directed to where people were sitting. All of that helped to create air flow through the house on the nice days with no humidity. It was just the attic heat that we could feel pressing down on us. The roofer originally wanted to replace the vents we have on the roof with fans. For some reason, we have one fewer roof vent than the other houses, so instead we are adding a large attic fan on one side of the roof. It might be big enough to pull air from the other side of the house, but we'll see. That way we corrected to the right number of roof vents.

Grandma Donna You are so right about the old ways being forgotten. No one else has screen doors here. Hardly anyone opens their windows, and most people don't even open their curtains and blinds! I can't imagine what their electricity bills must be. Until the summer humidity hits, we don't turn on our A/C. We open all of our screen doors and windows and enjoy the lovely breezes. And the cheaper electricity bills. :) 

Goodbye, everyone, until next post!

Thank you Stephanie for your new information.  It sounds like you are figuring out the next best thing to handle the lack of air flow and the high humidity.  We have terrible humidity here too, some days as soon as we walk outside our skin starts sweating within minutes.  During the military during the Vietnam war we lived in Oklahoma for a few years and it was very dry there and very hot temps  could be tolerated than back home.  When we got home from the military, I had a very difficult time adjusting back to the humidity and even 80 degrees was miserable.  I may be repeating this if I have said it before, seems like I did. 

I am glad you got your comment in, I am about to turn off the comments until next post.  See you the week after next. 

This is Friday night June 5th, 2026 and as I said in my last post that I have a new posting schedule and Forum schedule.  

I will be writing a new blog posts on the First Monday and third Monday of each month and will open the forum after each post Monday through Friday of the week of that post.  

I will then close the forum on Friday evenings of the week that I post  and then reopen the forum the next post.  You will be able to read the comments at any time but not comment until the next post is written. 

I hope you all have a good week next week and will see you again Monday June 15th 2026.  

Grandma Donna :)