Christmas began yesterday

As you may have gathered from other posts, we suffer from condensation in our flat. This year, it's been far worse than usual: We've got some decent radiators keeping the place warm, so the air can stay a lot more humid. Every window in the place is dripping with condensation every morning.

So we figured it was time to bite the bullet & buy a dehumidifier yesterday. Then my parents rang on anopther subject, and when we mentioned why we were out shopping, they told us we weren't to buy a dehumidifier under any circumstances.

Three guesses why. . .

So it seemed a bit silly that we spend a month squeegeeing our windows dry because of Xmas, so they offered to let us have it now. Early, and it does spoil the Xmas thing a tad, but it's far too practical not to, really. So yesterday afternoon, we took receipt of a big & rather posh dehumidifer.

By night-time, it had gathered 3 pints of water in its holder. The whole place was much, much warmer. Think about it: How long would a kettle have to boil to evaporate all that water? That's how much heat was locked up in the evaporated air. Getting the water out makes a big difference. And we've still got quite a bit to go: The radiators are good at heating the place up, the summer was so mild that the winter is a very cold one, so there's lots of water to get out of the air and down the sink.

And I have an email in my inbox that I've been waiting for for weeks. The contents?

Hello,

This is to confirm your recent GP2X order has now been sent to you.

Oh yes! Games, movies, music, all in one compact, Linux-based handheld package. I've been waiting for this for months!

Lastly, I'd like to complain about another Christmas-period water-based bugbear of mine. Frosted car windscreens.

There are three ways to get the layer of ice off the windscreen. In order of popularity:

• Get a (usually plastic) scrapey thing and chisel the ice away. This is a bad idea for one simple reason: Scraping like this puts microscopic scratches in the glass. And the rougher a surface is, the easier water can condense onto it, and the more frost you'll get forming. You're exacerbating the problem every time you rasp the ice away like this. The only way to do it without this problem is to use a softer scraper (a rubber squeegee is good) and run the car heater on the inside at full blast. This melts the ice from underneath, and you can simply slide the ice off. Very few people seem to do this, however. They scrape it off in a way that sends shivers down my spine.
  
  
• Get a can of spray-on de-icer. This is great, only it's solvent-based and rots rubber. That means the seal holding your windscreen in place, and the blades of your wipers, are both being disintegrated every time you use it. Plus you need to buy a new can regularly.
  

Note that these approaches are the only ones you can buy in the shops. Too many people think this means they're the only ones available. That's because the third alternative is better than either and completely free, thus disliked intensely by shops.

• With any water-holding recepticle, such as a bottle, jug, or kettle, pour cold water (Not hot. Hot water on icy glass can result in spontaneous shattering!) over the ice. The water, although cold, is still liquid and therefore relatively warm. It will wash away the ice. Then use the wipers to remove the water before it freezes. Voila, your car is free of ice in seconds, completely free and without doing any damage to anything.

Year after year I see people wrecking their windscreens by chiselling at the ice with platic, or even metal, scrapers. They spend ages at it, without even using the car heater to help them, and it's totally uneccesary. Turn on the heater and give it a minute and you'll be able to slide the ice away in seconds; Or better still, keep a bottle of water in the car and just wash the stuff away!