Keep it Cool - Heat Safety Tips

Child Safety Tips

• Make sure your child's safety seat and safety belt buckles aren't too hot before securing your child in a safety restraint system, especially when your car has been parked in the heat.
• Never leave your child unattended in a vehicle, even with the windows down.
• Teach children not to play in, on or around cars.
• Always lock car doors and trunks--even at home--and keep keys out of children's reach.
• Always make sure all children have left the car when you reach your destination. Don't leave sleeping infants in the car ever!

Adult Safety Tips

• Slow down. Reduce, eliminate or rescheduled strenuous activities until the coolest time of the day. Children, senior and anyone with health problems should stay in the coolest available place, not necessarily indoors.
• Dress for summer. Wear lightweight, light-colored clothing to reflect heat and sunlight.
• Put less fuel on your inner fires. Foods, like meat and other proteins that increase metabolic heat production also increase water loss.
• Drink plenty of water or other non-alcohol or decaffeinated fluids. Your body needs water to keep cool. Drink plenty of fluids even if you don't feel thirsty. Persons who have epilepsy or heart, kidney, or liver disease, are on fluid restrictive diets or have a problem with fluid retention should consult a physician before increasing their consumption of fluids. Do not drink alcoholic beverages and limited caffeinated beverages.
• During excess heat period, spend more time in air-conditioned places. Air conditioning in homes and other buildings markedly reduces danger from the heat. If you cannot afford an air conditioner, go to a library, store or other location with air conditioning for part of the day.
• Don't get too much sun. Sunburn reduced your body's ability to dissipate heat.
• Do not take salt tablets unless specified by a physician.

Source: NOAA's National Weather Service website

Act Now to Protect Low-Income Programs from Reckless Cuts!

With only a few weeks left before Congress must vote to raise the debt ceiling or face default, negotiators are working overtime to come up with a deficit reduction package. Low-income families and children have much at stake in this debate as critical safety net programs and ladders to opportunity are on the chopping block. It’s not too late to take a stand against reckless cuts to these programs and make your voice heard. In fact, here are a few easy ways to get involved:

Call your senators. Beginning Wednesday, July 13, through Friday, July 15, grassroots advocates concerned about the threats to human-needs programs will participate in national call-in days. Take a few minutes to call your senators and ask them to protect programs supporting low-income Americans and ask them to support fair increases in revenues to fight reckless cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and other important services. You can call toll-free at 888.907.1485. If you’re unable to make a call this week, we urge you to send an email to your senators with the same message. Click here to send an email—it will only take three minutes or less.

Discuss the current budget battle with members of Congress. On Thursday, July 14, at 2:15 p.m. EST, join a national call on which you’ll hear from members of Congress like Rep. Chris Van Hollen, leading advocacy organizations, and service providers about what’s at stake for low-income families in the budget debate. RSVP by Wednesday, July 13, as call-in lines are limited. To RSVP, click here.

Urge your networks and colleagues to do the same. Please forward this message to colleagues, friends, and family. With the lives of millions of low-income families and children hanging in the balance, the time to act is now.

Article taken from: American Action Progress Fund

World champ is a knock out with Habitat for Humanity

The best boxer in the world is supporting Habitat for Humanity. WBO welterweight Super Champion and currently rated the world’s number one pound-for-pound boxer Manny ‘Pacman’ Pacquiao has been named a Habitat Hero Ambassador for HFH Philippines. The honor was unveiled at a private dinner hosted by Fernando Zobel de Ayala, a member of the Habitat for Humanity International board. Pacquiao, who has won ten world titles at eight different weights, is also a congressman representing Saranggani province on Mindanao island in the southern Philippines. He considered poverty to be an even greater opponent to those whom he faced in the boxing ring. Pacquiao’s first gesture of support was to donate a 3.5 hectare plot of land in Saranggani which will enable 200 to 250 homes to be built. Read more about Manny and the dinner. 

Story from Habitat for Humanity International 

Are you sitting in the heat?

From our friends at Paterson Education Fund:

How hot is it in your office? I bet you didn't start with day with 86+ temperatures in your room with no air conditioning! But thousands of NJ's children are sitting in air conditioned classrooms today. And even releasing them early won't undo the damage to asthma sufferers or children with other vulnerable conditions.

We spend a lot of time in NJ talking about our 21st century high standards for education. Our kids have to try to meet the standards in 19th century factory conditions. 

Tell our govenor and your legislators to get serious about school construction. And post your office temperatures at 10 and noon to PEF's Facebok Page. We'll share.

Sitting cool, but the kids are not.

Paterson Walking Tour

Use your birthday to change the world!

We all get things we don’t need for our birthdays, why not use this special occasion to raise money for a cause you really care about? This feature allows any Facebook user to create a Birthday Wish and ask their friends to donate to the cause of their choice as a birthday present.

Cause will walk you through really simple steps to create your wish and promote it to your family and friends.

Get started on your wish: http://wishes.causes.com

Tips

• Make it personal – pick a cause that is meaningful to you and reflects your interests. Your friends will feel more invested in supporting your cause if they know why it means something to you.
• Don’t be afraid to ask. Your friends can’t donate to your birthday wish unless they know about it! Use our tools to send emails and set status messages, but don’t forget to talk to your friends about it, post the link everywhere you can think of, and get the word out.
• Say thank you! Don’t forget to thank your friends who donate; we’ll let you know who donated and remind you to thank them. A personalized heartfelt thank you means a lot.
• Tweet about it! Shout about it! Planning an event or birthday party? Include a link to your wish in the invite.

Check out our Causes page here: http://www.causes.com/causes/202643-paterson-habitat-for-humanity

Tips on Keeping Your Home COOL

Puzzling out how to keep your house as cool as possible during these hot summer months? Trying to remember the conventional wisdom but not quite sure how it goes? Those window fans, for example, should they be placed to draw air in or out? Upwind or downwind of the dwelling? And what about windows, shades, and awnings? Are windows on the North side of the house better left closed or open during the day? Are awnings better than shades?

1. Reduce the cooling load by employing cost-effective conservation measures. Provide effective shade for east and west windows. When possible, delay heat-generating activities such as dishwashing until evening on hot days.

2. Over most of the cooling season, keep the house closed tight during the day. Don’t let in unwanted heat and humidity. Ventilate at night either naturally or with fans.

3. You can help get rid of unwanted heat through ventilation if the temperature of the incoming air is 77 F or lower. (This strategy works most effectively at night and on cooler days.) Window fans for ventilation are a good option if used properly. They should be located on the downwind side of the house facing out. A window should be open in each room. Interior doors must remain open to allow air flow.

4. Use ceiling fans to increase comfort levels at higher thermostat settings. The standard human comfort range for light clothing in the summer is between 72 F and 78 F. To extend the comfort range to 82 F, you need a breeze of about 2.5 ft/sec or 1.7 mph. A sow-turning ceiling-mounted paddle fan can easily provide this air flow.

5. In hot climates, plant shade trees around the house. Don’t plant trees on the South if you want to benefit from passive solar heating in the winter.

6. If you have an older central air conditioner, consider replacing the outdoor compressor with a modern, high-efficiency unit. Make sure that it is properly matched to the indoor unit.

7. If buying a new air conditioner, be sure that it is properly sized. Get assistance from an energy auditor or air conditioning contractor.

8. Buy a high-efficiency air conditioner: for room air conditioners, the energy efficiency ratio (EER) rating should be above 10; for central air conditioners, look for a seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER) rating above 12.

9. In hot, humid climates, make sure that the air conditioner you buy will adequately get rid of high humidity. Models with variable or multi-speed blowers are generally best. Try to keep moisture sources out of the house.

10. Try not to use a dehumidifier at the same time your air conditioner is operating. The dehumidifier will increase the cooling load and force the air conditioner to work harder.

11. Seal all air conditioner ducts, and insulate ducts that run through unheated basements, crawl spaces, and attics.

12. Keep the thermostat set at 78 degrees F or higher if using ceiling fans. Don’t air-condition unused rooms.

13. Maintain your air conditioners properly to maximize efficiency.

Warm Weather Window Solutions

14. Install white window shades or mini-blinds. Mini-blinds can reduce solar heat gain by 40-50 percent.

15. Close south and west-facing curtains during the day for any window that gets direct sunlight. Keep these windows closed, too.

16. Install awnings on south-facing windows, where there’s insufficient roof overhang to provide shade.

17. Hang tightly woven screens or bamboo shades outside the window during the summer to stop 60 to 80 percent of the sun’s heat from getting to the windows.

18. Apply low-e films.

19. Consider exotic infills in your windows, a new technology that fills the space between panes with krypton or argon, gasses that have lower conductivity than air, and which boost R-values.

Tips for your A/C

19. Provide shade for your room A/C, or the outside half of your central A/C if at all possible. This will increase the unit’s efficiency by 5 percent to 10 percent.

20. Clean your A/C’s air filter every month during cooling season. Normal dust build-up can reduce air flow by 1 percent per week.

22. Turn off your A/C when you leave for more than an hour.

23. Several studies have found that most central air conditioning systems are oversized by 50 percent or more.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/keep-house-cool-23-tips.html#ixzz1Nx0DYJKZ