too hot to build

Like other outdoor work, Major league baseball, or farming for example, construction is a weather dependant endeavor.

And you'd think that all things being equal, summer would be the best time to build things, just as it seems like the best time to grow things, or play catch. Most would agree that whether your setting trusses 20' off the ground, or plowing a field for corn, it's pretty nice to work when it's 68 degrees and there are puffy white clouds drifting across a sharp blue sky.

Unfortunately in Ithaca, it's not 65 degrees very often, especially in the summer. In fact, it tends to go pretty quickly to 80 or 85, even in late May or early June, and there are frequent days when it pushes 90 or more. Keep in mind that as a carpenter you're often working without shade, and with east coast humidity doing it's part, by mid afternoon you're not making sense to your co-workers because you're working with a fever.

That's why when folks ask me if framing through winter (as I did the last two winters) "isn't it just awful...you know being out there in all that cold, wind and snow?" I reply, "actually no, in fact I prefer working in the cold of an Ithaca winter to slogging around through the dog days of summer.

I was considering this question another humid 92 degree afternoon as I stumbled around the work site in a weather induced fever, lifting material, climbing ladders creating my own heat wave, and I found myself longing for the kinder, biting cold of winter.

During early winter when high temps might reach only into the low 30s, being out in it seems pretty okay, a bit unpleasant at first, especially if there's a wind, but okay. Hey, you're not going to get frost bite, and you can always add another layer. Anyway, you gradually acclimate. As the winter progresses and temps continue to drop, you just go with it, commenting about how cold it is to the person on the other end of the 2 by 12, checking the radar for possible snow squalls before heading to work, and agreeing on a low temp cut off point (LTCOP) with your work mates for the following morning. That is, the forcasted high temperature at which you'll all just stay home. In early winter its 32 degrees, then a week later its 28. By January you're okay with working outdoors all day at 25 degrees, but you pick up a box of those magical hand warmers on the way to work just to be safe. As long as you keep moving your okay, so you take a short lunch break to avoid getting too cold while sitting. Gradually as the winter reaches its depths, you find you can tolerate 19 or 20 degrees with out much complaint and are willing to continue working with temps as low as 15 degrees, if there's not much wind.

None the less, winter does bring forth some days that are just too cold or too snowy to build, and on those days you're glad to stay home with your family and make soup or something. What I decided the other day is that we need the same allowance for the summer. Frankly, there are days each summer when it is just too damn hot to be out. Days where it takes a couple hours after getting home just to get your body temp back to normal and your brain restarted. Days when it would have been better to have gone to the lake with the kids. How does the saying go something about...mad dogs and English men?