thermometer Archives

Air conditioners have been wanting to reach the north of Spain for decades without much success. Until the thermometer passed 40ºC

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Here a server is writing these lines from Vigo, with the thermometer reading 28ºC (a temperature that in a few days will fire at 35ºC) and without air conditioning or ceiling fans. My only weapons against the haze are a small table fan that is almost (almost) the same decades old as me and the assurance that, no matter how hot the heat was, the temperatures in Galicia would always be tolerable. The first (the antediluvian fan) may not have done much, but the second did. Or so it was until now. In view of the heat waves that are coming at home, we are already thinking about installing a system that allows us to cool off with dignity. And we are not the only ones. On the contrary. We are one of the many homes from the northern peninsula that already look at brochures of air conditioners and fans. Ready for the heat? In the south of Spain it’s hotter than in the north. That was true before, it remains true now, and probably not much will change in the future. As I write this I enjoy a peaceful 28ºC in Vigo, eight degrees less than what the mercury shows in Córdoba. The problem is that there they are probably much better prepared to weather the heatwave than in this northern part of the country. I’m not saying it. The INE says it. From 64% to 0.4%. Although she is almost 20 years old, the Household and Environment Survey from the INE clearly shows that acclimatization facilities are much more frequent in the Mediterranean or Levant than in northern Spain. While in 2008 54% of homes in the Valencian Community had air conditioning, a percentage that rose to 57% in Andalusia, and 64% in Murcia, in Galicia, the Basque Country, Asturias and Cantabria the indicator did not reach 2% in any case. In the Principality it actually marked 0.4%. The INE data is old, but the SER chain recently disclosed a more recent survey confirms that the air conditioning map is still clearly divided between north and south. According to that study, only 17% of northern homes are acclimatized to the heat, far from 86% of the Mediterranean coast. Another Idealista report shows a gap even bigger. Changing the mentality. If they repeated that survey in a few years, it is likely that the ‘photo’ would be somewhat different. The heat wave that has shaken Galicia, Cantabria, the Basque Country either Asturiasleaving in some cases record temperatures that exceeded 40ºC, with hospitalizations due to fainting and deceasedhas led many families to look for new ways to cool their homes. Take a quick look at the regional press to check it out. Skyrocketing sales. In May The Montañés Diary counted how the demand for fans had skyrocketed by more than 80% in some businesses in Cantabria. Installers and stores of air conditioners and portable appliances also noticed the boom. I had something similar recently The Voice of Asturiaswho has spoken with companies in the sector that have noticed a 25% increase in requests for information. The Basque Journal confirm also an increase in the sale of ceiling fans, just like The Region in Ourense. From shops to homes. The most interesting thing is that the demand for devices does not come only from businesses. Andonio Suárez, from a company in the industry, recently recognized to ‘Hoy por Hoy Cantabria’ who in their business “do not stop” touring the community to install air conditioners. Not only that. Their technicians have gone from working basically in commercial premises installations to doing so in private homes, homes of people tired of being in the heat. “It is practically 50% between homes and businesses,” resume. “Before we managed”. Patricia lives in the province of Pontevedra and is one of the people (more and more) who has begun to think about ways to cool her home, beyond the use of floor, ceiling or table fans. “We had always managed, but now we are studying switching to a portable air conditioner or air conditioner because the fans fall short,” he confesses. In mind, you have devices that do not require the installation of exterior elements, such as evaporative air conditioners or tubeless air conditioners. “We save trouble and can take them from one home to another.” Poorly prepared floors. “The summers are longer and hotter, and the heat waves are more frequent. This year we already had a month of May with a week of tropical nights in which it was difficult to sleep, another in June, and summer had not yet started. A month of July is approaching in which it does not seem that we are going to go below 30ºC on most days,” explains Patricia before remembering that many of the apartments built between the 70s and 90s in Galicia “are not prepared nor do they have good insulation.” for the heat. “It has turned against us”. His experience is similar to that of Manuel, another Galician who recognizes that his house is designed to conserve heat, something ideal in winter, but not so much for the months from June to September. “The increasingly hot summers have turned against us.” Hence, she has opted for two portable air conditioners that she places in the living room and in her daughter’s bedroom, the room that accumulates the most heat. “I had been thinking about it for a while. Years ago it was not something that compensated, since it was not really necessary; but in the last five or six years the heat has been much more intense, even reaching days of 30-35ºC continuously.” More than just heat. Both Patricia and Manuel have opted for portable devices, which, among other things, they admit, has made installation easier for them. For systems that require an outdoor unit, it is necessary something more than you want to cool off: it is important to take into account both the municipal ordinances that regulate noise, urban aesthetics and … Read more

There was a time when having a thermometer in the car was a luxury. This is how this ingenious invention solved it in the rearview mirror

June 21, 2026 by usatoday24

Today we have basic elements in our cars that have remained almost in the same place for decades. For example: the thermometer. For many years we have been able to know what temperature it is outside from the comfort of our car (although sometimes we wonder if the sensor works as it should). However, long before this element was incorporated into the instrument panel or the central screen of our car, some manufacturers opted for another place: under the driver’s side mirror. And at a time when analogue predominated, there was no other choice. The luxury America of the seventies The analog thermometer in the exterior mirror It was an invention born in the United States, in the context of the great American luxury cars of the seventies. A time when the most prestigious brands in the country competed to offer the most extravagant equipment possible, from Cartier watches integrated into the dashboard to garage opening systems or autonomy indicators. Click on the image to go to the post The mechanism was simple as well as ingenious. And just as they collect On the Curbside Classic forum, where owners and enthusiasts have debated this type of vehicle accessories for years, the thermometer worked using a spiral spring made of a material sensitive to changes in temperature (normally two metals with very different thermal expansion coefficients, such as brass or iron-nickel alloys). One end of the spring was fixed to the inside of the mirror housing; the other, to the small outer drum. As it expanded or contracted with heat or cold, the spring rotated the drum, which displayed the corresponding temperature on a graduated scale. There were no cables or electronics. It was pure precision mechanics. Additionally, some manufacturers included lighting built into the fixture, either through a light bulb or fiber optic which came from the dashboard (like in some Cadillacs). This last method was better, since it did not generate heat and did not alter the thermometer reading. Cadillac first, Lincoln later The brand that first offered this peculiarity was Cadillac, the jewel in the crown of General Motors. According to they count In The Autopian, Cadillacs equipped these thermometers in the side mirror around 1976, even before its direct rival Lincoln. The Cadillac Seville, the brand’s flagship model at that period, was one of those that included this accessory in its equipment, which was also available in other models in the range such as the Eldorado, the DeVille or the Fleetwood. Thermometer in a Lincoln. Image: Vanguard Motor Sales (Instagram) From Hagerty Media, in an article about the 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, they say that the thermometer in the side mirror was an option available in that year’s catalog at a price of $18, which placed it among the most affordable extras within a menu of options that included everything from cruise control ($104) to the alarm system ($114) or the radio cassette ($239). The Buick Park Avenue, GM’s other big bet in the premium segment, also carried it from its early years as an equipment package to differentiate itself from the rest. As it appears on the equipment sheetthe original Park Avenue from 1975 already included the mirror with a thermometer along with other elements such as air conditioning and automatic rear leveling in the suspension. For its part, according to account In the middle, Lincoln, Ford’s luxury division, incorporated the illuminated thermometer into its models starting in 1978. A luxury that is difficult to find today Lincoln rearview mirror with built-in thermometer and wiring for automatic mirror control. Image: eBay Just like express the middle the middle, today it is extraordinarily difficult to find these mirrors in good condition. A mirror with thermometer for a 1988 Lincoln Town Car can reach between $140 and $660 on second-hand platforms such as eBay depending on the condition of the part, while one intended for the 1976-1979 Cadillac Seville can exceed $800. The Lincoln thermometer of the eighties already incorporated the double scale Fahrenheit and Celsius, something that the models of the late seventies did not have, as they only showed the temperature on the Fahrenheit scale. However, Cadillac started getting rid of its analog thermometerssince at the beginning of the 80s they already included more advanced temperature systems in their vehicles where the outside temperature was also displayed in digital format. The leap to digital The arrival of increasingly advanced electronic systems made these thermometers obsolete. In the first half of the 1980s, manufacturers they began to integrate digital screens on the dashboards that showed, among other data, the outside temperature. It was the era of “high-tech”, and digital had enormous appeal for the luxury buyer. The first car with digital instrumentation was the Aston Martin Lagondapresented as a prototype in 1976, although its cathode ray tube technology was too expensive for the mass public (imagine how expensive, if buying an Aston Martin wasn’t exactly cheap in itself). It was the arrival of liquid crystal LCD screens, and in particular the technology TN LCDcheaper and lighter, the one that democratized digital panels in cars during the first half of the eighties. From that moment on, show the outside temperature on a display inside the passenger compartment. It went from being a novelty to an increasingly common featurefirst in premium cars and, over the years, in increasingly accessible segments. In the mid-nineties, it was already a relatively common element in mid-high range cars. And if you have ever wondered where the sensor that measures the temperature and that is reflected on your car’s screen is located, usually It’s on the front bumperaway from the heat of the engine. Seen in perspective, the thermometer in the side mirror was a product of its time, but seeing it today, even in images, gives it a glimpse of very picturesque mechanical elegance. Cover image | The Autopian (eBay) In Xataka | Eddie Hall had a Bentley and many millions in the bank: he used both to set the most unlikely … Read more

Fix your work schedules looking at the clock instead of the thermometer

July 3, 2025 by usatoday24

I leave home at 4:00 p.m. and, armed with value, I go to pick up the car from the mechanic. It has ended with him and Previous reviews They have the collapsed workshop, so he asked me to pick it up as soon as possible. On the portal, I cross a neighbor who enters the stifled street, with his forehead peeled by droplets of sweat and defeated attitude, as if he had loaded a heavy slab. “It’s hot?” – I tell him knowing already an answer, “he has always been hot in summer, but this is hell,” he replies. “Who comes up to the street with the heat it does,” I say while I open the door of the portal and take a step back remembering the apocalyptic vision of Sarah Connor Abrasada by nuclear flames in ‘Terminator ‘. Has always been hot in summer According to The data Aemet, it is true that as my neighbor had told me, has always been hot in summer…But not so much. The temperatures recorded in recent weeks leave last June as The warmest of the historical seriesand joins the long list of records of extraordinarily warm months. NASA itself He supported with data that they are now warmer than those of yesteryear, taking into account that their records date back to 1880. In addition, these heat episodes are increasingly frequent because summers are increasingly long. On average, it is estimated that the climatological summer has been stretching between four and fifteen days per decade. Our grandparents adapted While it is true that Spain has always been a country with hot summers, there is a factor that we should not overlook: today We do not face the rigors of heat as our grandparents didbecause we We do not change our working days depending on the temperature as they did. When I was a child, my grandfather told me that “in her young years”, it came out before the field was made to work the earth “with the fresh” before the slab of the heat of the Andalusian countryside fell on the day laborers. At noon, when the sun tightened, they sat down under a chaparro (oak) to eat in the shade and then nap until early in the afternoon. Then, they went to the farmhouse in which he worked and performed there other tasks of cleaning, maintenance and care of animals until the end of the day. ALWAYS TO THE SUN CAKE. In winter they usually did the other way around and reached the field when the frost had dissolved. That is, they took advantage of the first rays of light to perform the toughest agricultural tasks to avoid high temperatures and rigor of the sun in the hours of greater insolation. As much as it was the mowing, harvesting or planting season, they tried to avoid the central hours of the day, and instead, they advanced or delayed their working days to adapt to the weather. There was no one closed and strict schedule For the whole year. On the other hand, at present, the Adaptation of the tasks and working days It is minimal and the schedules have been standardized. It doesn’t matter if it is an office, mason or mailbox work, and it is not taken into account whether on the street it is freezing or mercury marks the 46 ºC. The schedule is the same for everyone throughout the year. Heat -inflected hours This standardization of schedules makes it normal for an employee of the Municipal Maintenance Service, one of the groups that most work accidents and Deaths due to heat blows has suffered In recent daysbe cleaning the sidewalks at two o’clock in the afternoon in full wave of heat, or that an installer is placing a label on a facade at three. According to data from the Carlos III Health Institute facilitated By the National Institute for Work and Health at Labor (INST), it ensures that per year there are about 1,300 deaths attributable to heat. Around 4% of fatal accidents that occur in the workplace are caused by heat blows due to prolonged exposure at extreme temperatures. The most exposed professions are those that cannot develop their main outdoor activity: agricultural sector, cleaning operators and public works, assemblers, construction workers or gardeners. Thermal stress also affects professions that develop indoors that due to the nature of work, they are exposed to machinery or heat sources such as industries, hospitality, laundry, greenhouses, etc. Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid, Aragon and Galicia They are located At the head in terms of mortality due to heat, coinciding in many of those cases with personnel used in the sectors that we have mentioned before. Unlike our grandparents, these sectors now have fixed schedules that, in many cases, develop between 8 in the morning and 18 hours, leaving them exposed to work during those hours that our grandparents tried to avoid at all costs. The tools are there Approval in 2023 of Royal Decree Law 4/2023 He came to make the adaptation of schedules and tasks that already enjoyed our grandparents, so that companies, rather than look at the clock, must look at the thermometer to design the working days of their employees during extreme heat episodes. The Occupational Risk Prevention Law It offers companies to modify schedules and even cut the working days during these heat episodes to protect their employees. In addition, following the Dana that razed Valenciathe Law was extended Adding the possibility of having a four -day paid permission when, in extreme cases, the working day cannot be adapted and it is impossible to carry it out without exposing itself to a real health risk. The last modification also contemplates the possibility that companies can benefit from a climate ERTE. “No one has to take risks,” insist From the ministry. However, despite the tools that allow companies Protect the health of your employeesthe National Institute for Safety and Health at work ensures that occupational accidents during heat waves … Read more

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