About Swelter Almanac
Short answer
Swelter Almanac is a plain-spoken reference for keeping a house, and the people in it, cool through Sun Belt heat without wasting energy.
Updated
What this site covers
Swelter Almanac is written for households in the desert Southwest, Texas, Florida, the Gulf Coast and the Southeast. Most answers split by climate, because what works in dry desert heat (evaporative coolers, opening up on cool nights) often fails in humid heat, where moisture matters as much as temperature.
Pages run from the cheapest moves to the costliest: shade and roofs, fans and ventilation and thermostat settings first, then room units and central A/C in extreme heat, then heat safety for when a house gets dangerously hot.
What it does not do
Swelter Almanac is not an HVAC contractor. It does no installs, repairs or inspections, sells nothing on its own pages, and cannot diagnose a particular system. Where a job belongs to a professional, such as anything involving refrigerant or electrical parts, pages say so and explain what to ask a licensed technician. Nothing here replaces medical advice; in a heat emergency, call 911.
How pages are researched and dated
Every figure comes from a primary source: federal agencies such as ENERGY STAR, EPA, the CDC, the National Weather Service, DOE and the IRS, national laboratories, the Florida Solar Energy Center, university extension services, state agencies and standards bodies. Each page links its sources inline and ends with a note on what it is based on, when those sources were read, and what was left out because it could not be confirmed.
Numbers that could not be read on a live primary page are left out rather than repeated from secondhand copies. Each page shows the date it was last updated, and pages are corrected when an error is found or a rule changes. There are no invented people, reviews or test results on this site, and the byline names the publication rather than a made-up author.
Who owns it
Swelter Almanac has the same owners as four businesses: PlumbingSupplyAndMore.com, a plumbing and HVAC supply house; Central Plumbing HVAC, a Pennsylvania heating and cooling company; and two water-treatment shops, SoftPro Water Systems (owned by the people who run Swelter Almanac) and Quality Water Treatment (owned by the people who run Swelter Almanac). A few pages link to them where a part or a water test genuinely fits the topic, and every such link is labeled. The full list, and how those links work, is on who owns this site. How the site handles privacy and video is on privacy and video players, and photo sources are on picture credits.