Hot Hot Hot

Here in Perth yesterday was the hottest day in November since records have been kept.  That’s more than 100 years!  It was 40.4°C.  The last three days have now exceeded 40 and tomorrow is the same.  Further north the bush fire forecast has gone from Extreme to Catastrophic.  The prevailing wind is driving this hot weather across Australia to the already burning east coast.  No doubt what little moisture that is left in the air will be sucked out as it goes through the deserts in the centre of the continent.  The latest strategic forecast is the bush fires will continue to burn until the country starts getting substantial rain in the autumn.  This is going to be mostly a fire containment battle.

We had our own nearby bushfire last week just five kilometres from the house.  A retirement village had to be evacuated with one of the units being destroyed.  The most dangerous part of the evacuation was the sole entrance/exit road from the enclosed village was on the fire side.

I’ve been going out to the workshop in the morning working on small projects for a couple of hours.  The ceiling and walls are insulated but the roller door is not and it faces west.  Consequentially the afternoon sun turns the workshop into an oven.  Our afternoons are spent inside where we have two of the three air conditioners running.  At least we don’t have to worry about the cost of air conditioning as the solar panels are running at maximum capacity.

The house is double brick and the door frames are steel which means there is little movement in them from the heat.  The same can’t be said for the timber doors and the one to the study has been damaged with one corner of the plywood facing peeling away from the frame after it was caught in the door jamb.  This afternoon I glued and clamped it.

I’ve made a box for the camping gas hot water heater from scraps of timber.  I even found some old hinges and screws for the lid.  It’s great to once again have room to be a hoarder of anything that might be useful one day!