When you live in central Texas, the heat is part of the bargain. Yes, we get breakfast tacos and more queso than you can shake a tortilla chip at. Amazing BBQ, some damn tasty burgers, and a spring and fall that most of the country would kill for. We spend our winters usually somewhere in the 50s and 60s and nobody owns a snow shovel.
But the summers are a motherfucker.
May and June are generally okay. The heat comes and goes. The nights are still pleasant. But with July, it starts becoming oppressive. And that only ratchets up with August. For a little taste, here’s what the next week looks like in Austin.
The daytime heat you mostly work around. If you have stuff to do outside, you do it in the morning or the evening, when it’s not quite so ridiculous. Even in August I can still go mountain biking, just so long as I’m done by say 10:30 at the latest.
The real morale-killer is the nights. See, the forecast up there is a lie. The only time you’ll actually experience the 70s this time of year is at like 5 in the morning. As I write this, at 11 PM, it’s still 88, and it’s muggy. The portable AC that I use to keep the bench moderately comfortable in the summer months can’t cope with it, and it will only cycle on about 2 minutes out of every five.
Up until mid-July I was pushing through pretty well. I managed to polish off my big Trumpeter P-47 and, even though I’m procrastinating on the 1/32 Corsair and using the heat as an excuse, I managed to get my 1/32 P-51 off the ground.
But having just returned from several days in Key West, I find myself in a state of nope.
As a quick aside – I actually think the heat in Key West is worse than it is here. It may technically be 15 degrees cooler, but it’s SO DAMN HUMID that you’re basically sweating the entire time. Didn’t help that the pool where we stayed was so warm that it wasn’t refreshing at all. The only time I felt comfortable was when we went snorkeling.
But now that I’m back, I just can’t keep the bench going in this heat. Which is annoying. The bench is my decompression time, and life is plenty busy right now! Maybe the need for that decompression will force me out into the heat again in a few days, but for the time being, I’m planning to wait until things moderate a little bit before tackling anything of note. At least until my AC unit can run at least half the time!
Doogs Models 
Hey man. I live in North Carolina and I feel your pain. I’ve been suffering by with just a fan to keep cool in my garage workshop. What portable AC unit do you use? I’ve been looking to get one.
It’s an LG one – not sure the unit # but I picked it up at Home Depot a few years back during a 4th of July sale.
Cool it bro. I’m in Perth, Western Australia and just been through 4 days in succession @ 40 -41 Celsius (104 -106 Fahrenheit) with temp all night not getting much below 29 C (84F). Just installed a spray booth in my AIRCONDITIONED modeling room upstairs -Yay
I can totally sympathize. The weather here sounds identical… but maybe not as humid. I hear people say around here, “Let’s wait until this evening when it cools off.” What planet ar they from!? It doesn’t cool off in the evening here. When I button up the propery at night, sometimes as late as 10, its generally still in the 90s. Like you, we don’t see that mythical 70-something weather until early morning. Case in point: I just went outside at 5:45 am and it is 76. Ridiculous. But, at least I don’t have to deal with the heat at the bench anymore. I move into the main part of the house when my daughter got married, so I can work in the AC now.
That’s too bad. I’m a real hog in the summer, I sweat just thinking about it so I can understand how it’s a motivation killer. My job keeps me outside working in it all day long, but I’m fortunate that I can come home to a workspace in the basement. Yay, midwest!
I assume you don’t use the garage for a vehicle? Any way possible to insulate and tie in to the HVAC of the house? (Probably lots of fucking around for a two-month problem).
I live in Clovis Ca which is next door to Fresno. It looks like we have mirror wether conditions as you do in the Austin area. I too build in the garage, I have a pretty good swamp cooler in the garage which makes it a hell of allot more tolerable, even borders on the line of cool around the work bench.
Yeah unfortunately it’s just slightly too humid for a swamp cooler to do much good. The AC unit is wonderful until it the heat/humidity combo sends it reeling!
Ha! Bakersfield here. Identical weather to yours, Brent. A swamp cooler can work wonders as long as it stays in the upper 90s.
Doogs- Great to hear from you! Keep cool, and keep the updates coming… love your P-47.