Heat Cool and Insulate

Posts Tagged ‘heatwave’

A young British woman working in an office in London was seriously injured recently when her hair was trapped by the blades of a desk fan, causing lacerations to her scalp and severe blood loss. 24 year old admin assistant Emily Hutnyk, employed by a large tele-communications corporation in the center of London, used the fan to try and cope with the heatwave that recently hit the UK . Thermometers in the captial city rose to as high as 35 Centigrade (95 F) on July 1st, which meant if you worked in an office in London the conditions could become rather unbearable. Ms Hutnyk, like thousands of others, placed a cooling fan on her desk to help her cool down whilst working. Since desk fans are notoriously inneficient at cooling in very high temperatures, she repeatedly moved the appliance closer to her face. Tragedy struck when her long blonde hair became trapped within the grilles of the desk fan and got pulled in by the rotating blades. Only a few seconds later a clump of the victim’s long blonde hair had been caught by the blades and forcefully pulled out of her scalp, together with a significant amount of skin. “It was over really fast actually”, said Miss Hutnyk, “in fact I think it was worse for my co-workers to watch – personally I passed out within seconds so I barely remember it. I think my co-workers were acutally the traumatised ones – apparently my blood went everywhere.” Colleagues immediately called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital where doctors stitched her scalp and treated her for blood loss and shock. Her doctors are allegedly thinking about recommending implants to recover the lost hair, which was pulled out by the follicles.

A spokesperson from the company said: “This was a tragic accident and we take full responsibility for not providing proper cooling facilities in the office. We will be fitting each office with overhead ceiling fans and banning the use of desk fans to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future.” However a representative from the office workers trade union GMB called this measure unacceptable. “The problem is that offices are not equipped to deal with such high temperatures, and ceiling fans won’t do it. We are demanding that every office in the UK be fitted with at least a portable air conditioner both to help people concentrate on their work and ensure this kind of tragedy never happens again.” Miss Hutnyk, at the unions advice, is currently considering whether to pursue legal action against the company, which could be a landmark case in health and safety and employment law.

Tags: Cooling, Heating, hvac

Tags: Cooling, hvac, Heating

The weather in Britain is so notoriously miserable most of the time that you have to feel the Brits deserve the heatwave they recently experienced. During the end of June and beginning of July temperatures rocketed to a whopping 35 Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), the warmest since 2006.  It was also the hottest temperature in June for many years – the average for June is 19-22 degrees Celcius (66-72F).

However when you subject such conditions on a people who hardly ever experience it, you can be sure of a little madness flying about.

Lobsters & Melanoma

First thing you see when the sun comes out in the UK is people stripping down to bikinis to make the most of the sun.  You can visit any town in Britain during such weather and be sure of spotting hordes of people fighting for a good patch to sun themselves.  Several months down the line you can be sure of a few melanoma scares resulting from the overexuberant sun-worshipping.

The Grumbling Begins

True to form, the British mentality can’t deal with simply being happy and counting there blessings for more than a few days. Sure enough we soon started hearing people grumbling about it being too hot, and wishing for some cooler weather or even some rain. And, inevitably, there were petitions to demand the government do something about the awful hot weather and lack of air conditioning in public places!

Staying Cool

While one section of the UK population is stripping down to their underwear, the other half rushes down to the high street and sucks up the entire stock of desk fans like some sweaty, many-headed monster. According to Google, searches for the term “portable air conditioner” in the UK went from 9,900 in May to 49,500 in June!

Is That a Storm Cloud on the Horizon?

Unfortunately these Mediterranean conditions failed to stick around, and after a week of this there were equally severe thunderstorms and rain, leading to severe flooding in some parts.Climate change campaigners are saying this is exactly the kind of effects they have been warning about for so long.The funniest part of it is that the same people who were complaining about the heat the previous week, are now complaining about the heavy rainfall. You just can’t win.

Tags: , Cooling, Insulation

Tags: Insulation, , Cooling