Humidity Really Hot And In A Drought

Humidity has been as high as it can get. The temperature is around 100 f or 37c and no rain for months. At least 3 to 4 more weeks of this sort of weather is forecast and could be longer.

We have a lot of gum stock at present and a lot more will be coming from auctions over the next 3 to 4 weeks. I can not keep my hands dry enough to handle gummed stamps in the normal daylight hours.

I have been forced to set the alarm clock for 4am to do the orders and make new gummed stock safe as it is the time of day that is the coolest with the least amount humidity.

We have over 3,000 stamps that have been taken off paper that have fungus spots on them. A mild bleach solution is fixing the fungus but I am soaking the bleach off the stamps affected in large volumes of water compared to the amount of stamps. A very slow process but what else can I do the bleach has got to be totally removed from the stamps.

To dry the stamps off paper at the minute we can not use any sort of drying book. The drying of stamps must be laid out, upside down on towels stretched over a loose ply wood make shift table. We have positioned a fan under the table that faces upwards and this is drying the stamps taken off paper with no trouble under these conditions. The force of the fan is going around the stamps and not blowing the stamps around. It took some time to get this answer to the stamp drying problem.

Never before have we had to go to this extent to work with stamps at this time of year for such a long period of time as this.

It has been a really strange Summer so far and I keep getting the picture in my mind that some others on this forum are in freezing conditions. How different is that?

John do you have air conditioner? even a window unit in your stamp area might do the trick. You guys sure getting one heck of a heat wave
I am in the total opposite major winter storm going on here at the moment I have 9 inches of snow to shovel in the drive way. Here is a link to the local weather http://www.steinbachonline.com/inde...temid=100377.
Try and stay cool my friend I wearing a wool hat sitting in frontof the heater

KGV, sounds rough what with the ants and all. Hope you come out unscathed at the end of the bad weather !
We have air-conditioning in 4 rooms it's great for warming, cooling and drying.
Having huge adverse weather conditions here too with the first floods in 20 years these past few days. Caused major power outages and made many temporarily homeless.
The top picture is the village up the road from us. Our house is about 200 metres from the top right of the picture. We were lucky.



The security wall between the Palestinian Territories and Israel collapsed due to the amount of water and overflowing of the river. It created a 'Tsunami' and 300 homes were flooded in just a few minutes...all those you can see in the picture.
Below are the cars washed up...I was there later in the day and scores of trucks were taking battered cars to garages and dumps !



Good luck with the Stamp drying and hope you get some better weather soon.

Londonbus1

Not that many of us can afford the electricity costs that we now have in S.E. Queensland. Air Conditioners use a lot of power in this sort of weather.

All of Australia now has a carbon tax. The electricity infrastructure is no longer run by the government it is now run by private companies. So the power bills have gone up. We now pay around $650 per 3 months for electricity.

A so called normal household with air conditioning and the rest of the electricity gadgets in S.E. Queensland pays around $2,500 to $3,000 per 3 months in the hotter months.

So the air conditioning that is in our house is a very old type. It is an open window or windows.

LB we feel for you people your pictures remind us of the bad weather conditions we have had in the last 2 years.

Sadly I think this is just the beginning of it all.

KGV & Londonbus;
Sorry to hear about your troubles. Here, in Southern California, it's about 55 degrees F and a beautiful, clear and sunny day. I love California at this time of the year. No smog, no (or few) tourists and no forest fires. Just occasional rain.

KGV Collector, even though I feel sorry re all your predicaments (ants, humidity, health problems etc) I really enjoy reading all your posts.

I really wish that 2013 will bring you and your family
all the best that life can offer.
You seem seem like really nice people that deserve good fortune.

Maybe a dehumidifier could be cheaper to run??Power costs here are a rip off too, though I didn't know Ozzy had rip off prices also-and we have far more water here.We have not had rain for weeks and have some of your heatwave stretching across the Tasman.Not as hot as where you are but for our normal temps, it is stinking hot.I just have fans and damp rid for excess humidity.The levels here go into the 90s%.

lithograving thank you for the very kind words. It is very nice to have your support. It means a great deal to us.


Hi Kiwimike666sta.

The design of our house is with many breeze ways from the cool side of the house (south) to the hot side of the house (north). Our stamp area takes up an open area dining room and the emergency bedroom that is also of an open design. It makes for a huge area to cool or heat. 25 years ago when we designed and built our home breeze ways were the go and not air conditioners or dehumidifier.






Our power bill went from $350 to $650 per 3 months. Until the electricity issue is sorted out we will be continuing to be power wise as we can. The government gives us no other choice.

The truth be known our income is so small that if the selling of our stamps did not work we would of lost our home and a lot more.

Because we are very careful and have a strong belief we have been blessed by Him and all our needs plus heaps more have been and continue to be given to us.

For me to share the journey means so much.

Why is electricity so expensive in Australia? Do you have a carbon tax?

[quote]Why is electricity so expensive in Australia? Do you have a carbon tax?[/quote

Yes we have a new carbon tax plus the government has turned a government electricity system to a private company run system.

The private companies really want to make a big profit.

All of this issue is not finished in Australia yet as the private companies have set prices for power on very high electricity usage levels but the people of Australia have reduced there power consumption by high amounts and because of this the power companies want to put prices up again. What a mess!