Even though I enjoy cold weather, I always dread this time of year because of HEAT! I can’t tolerate heated air and I have a physical reaction any time I’m in a heated area. My head and neck begin to sweat profusely and I get very nauseas almost instantly.
I have a gas heater in my basement set at 62-64 degrees. The heat rises and keeps the main level of the house above 60 degrees at all times. I don’t use the fan or blower function, just rely on the ambient heat.
My garage is climate controlled, so my car is always between 60 and 80 degrees regardless of how hot or cold it is outside. If my car has to be parked outside in very cold weather, I start my car and turn on the heat set at about 72-74 degrees and let it warm up before I get in it. I turn it off or dial the air temp down to around 63-64 degrees the moment I get inside the car to drive.
I’ve never thought a lot about my reaction to heat and just considered myself exceptionally hot-natured. I wear short sleeves in 40 degree weather and never wear a jacket or coat unless it’s well below freezing. Here in Georgia, it may be 28 degrees one day and 65 degrees two days later in mid-winter. I often turn on my A/C in the car or in my house when the temp rises into the 60s even in January or February. I also run the A/C constantly from March thru October, at the very least.
I’m just wondering- does anyone else have a similar reaction to (and hatred of) heat?
I’m also in Georgia and would say my reaction is similar, though not nearly as strong. If I’m overheated at all - and that can come by walking from the cooler outside into a heated store or building, I will quickly get nauseated. These usually ease once I’ve adjusted to the warmer air inside (note that I do not have the reverse issue during the summer, going from the cool indoors to the hot outdoors). I’ve found that I can make the adjustment easier by drinking something cool or cold, so I almost always have a cup or bottle of water nearby.
Like you, I also don’t have the reverse reaction in summer either. I keep my A/C set at 72 degrees and walking out into 90 degree Georgia heat doesn’t make me sick. But indoor heating systems produce dry heat and the summer heat in Georgia is very humid. I think that may play a role in how it affects me.
My grandmother’s house is usually around 80 degrees in the winter. When I visit her, I usually go to the bathroom and stick my head under the sink faucet and turn on the cold water to cool off. Even then, I can’t tolerate more than 20-30 minutes in there. I usually pick her up and take her out to eat or just get her in the car and take her for a ride instead of staying in that inferno!
I used to think that cars with dual-zone climate control, where the driver and front seat passenger can choose different temps, were silly. But without it I don’t think my 94-year-old Nana and I could ride in the same car! I turn her side up to the high 70s and turn her seat heater on High (I never use the seat heater on my side). It works pretty well…
Huh. Where I am, you couldn’t survive for a significant fraction of the year without heating. Maybe it has to do with where you live? You might be so used to Georgia’s moist heat that anything else throws you off.
I belatedly realised it’s why I can’t work in offices. Women complain its ‘too cold’ - while wearing thin blouses, temp gets turned up, I have to leave.
It could be you have an allergy to dust mites or mold or something something else that lives in your ductwork and gets kicked out into the air when the heat is on. Perhaps you could get tested for some of these things? You also might consider getting your ducts professionally cleaned.
I should say that indoor heat affects me too, only differently. Makes me feel panicky. If somewhere is too hot for me, I want to crawl out of my skin and get the heck out of there. I can control it but it makes me feel very uncomfortable and I try to get out of that situation as soon as possible.
Like others here, I have no problem with summer heat.
I bought a new car several months ago (a 2015 Volvo S60) and it’s kind of funny/ironic how many “heated” features it has. All of the following are heated- Front and Rear Seat Cushions and Seat Backs, Steering Wheel, Windshield, Windshield Washer Nozzles and Headlight Washer Nozzles! They were all part of the Climate Package that cost an extra $1550 and I didn’t even want them. But the only car in the color I wanted with the other options I wanted had the Climate Package, so I have it anyway.
A lot of new premium/luxury brands have Heated and Ventilated (or Cooled) Front Seats, but Volvo doesn’t offer them yet. The interior is Black Leather, so the Cooled Seats would be awesome…
I suppose a car company based in a Scandanavian country (Sweden) is more concerned about dealing with cold/icy weather. Still, I wonder how well those Cooled/Ventilated Seats actually work in other cars???
I’m the only woman in the world who sleeps with the window cracked when there’s a howling blizzard outside.
I get anxious and panicky if I’m someplace that’s overheated and stuffy. And I’ve been known to have the fan at my office desk on when it’s 20F outside because the women in the office won’t put on a fucking sweater, and want the heat at 75F.
Oh, and it got *really *bad when I started perimenopause. Thank god for hormone replacement therapy.
I get the “stuffy” feeling quite easily if there’s hot air circulating. I hate having hot air blown at me, like when the heat is blasting full-on in a car; it makes me choke and I can’t breathe. I’d much rather just be cold.
Years ago I had an eccentric friend with a somewhat similar but far more intense issue. She was strongly averse to any “artificial” (my word, not hers) manipulation of the air in her environment.
At one point she lived in an apartment building and called the landlord to complain because he turned on the heat when the temperature dropped below a certain point (as required by law, no doubt). He must have thought she was out of her mind.
She hated air conditioning as much as heating. Unlike the OP, she didn’t object to the warm temperature itself, as long as it was natural. I still chuckle remembering her enthuse about outdoor exertion, chattering manically, “I love to sweat! I love to sweat!”
It all seemed (barely) within the normal realm of human behavior, if decidedly on the quirky side. However, when she began to complain about fans, I started to wonder if she had some rare undiagnosed condition, physiological or psychological. A pity I’ve lost touch with her and her name is far too common to Google. I’d love to know how she is doing today.
My car has ventilated seats. You don’t feel the cool in the seat until the car cools off. When the car’s been sitting in hot sunshine in 105F heat, the cooling in the seats take about 15 minutes to be felt. Same scenario with 90F heat, maybe 5 minutes. Were the car in the shade, the cooling comes faster. My car has a light gray interior, your experience may vary with the black.
This is the second car I’ve had with Black Leather. The first one was a '94 Acura Legend that I bought in 1997. I lived in a downtown Atlanta loft when I had the Acura and there was no covered parking for the car. On 95+ F summer days, after sitting in the sun for 8-9 hours at the office, those Black Leather seats could almost give you 2nd degree burns if you were wearing shorts. I learned to start looking for shade trees under which to park even if they were a half-mile hike into the building!
I often wished that I had bought the Legend with Cloth instead of the Leather. The base Volvo S60 has Black Textile (instead of Leather) but it still costs over $35k for the base model with no options. It doesn’t have Leather, Moonroof, or electronic TFT instrument display, Navigation, Upgraded Wheel/Tires, and Chrome window trim that only costs another $2600! It would be hard to sell or trade a base S60 without losing your shirt. The vast majority of them are sold to rental or corporate fleets and the rest are used by the Volvo dealers as Service Loaners.
What kind of car do you have with ventilated seats?