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No it does not. You wet your shirt with unheated tap water, wring it out, and wear it. Repeat as necessary every 15 minutes to 1 hour in extreme heat, no matter
by nszceta 5y ago
No it does not. You wet your shirt with unheated tap water, wring it out, and wear it. Repeat as necessary every 15 minutes to 1 hour in extreme heat, no matter how humid it is.
In high humidity by wearing a shirt doused in tap water you cool down by heating up your t-shirt. This method does not work if water comes out of your tap already hot. This only happens rarely. In dry environments evaporative cooling helps but it is not necessary to be effective.
I recommend using shirts made of elastic breathable material such as under armor shirts for comfort. Cotton tends to stick to your skin extra and feel really nasty.
- xyzzyz 5y agoElastic breathable material in my experience take less water in, so you have to repeat wettin them more often.
- phreeza 5y agoIf that is the effect you are going for, would wearing a camelback water bladder have a similar effect? It has slightly less surface area to interface with your body, but you can carry a much larger amount of water.
- mrkstu 5y agoAnd put it in the freezer intermittently...
- klyrs 5y agoTap water is colder than the inside of the house. Bringing it into the house reduces the heat inside. Putting it into the freezer heats the room that the freezer is in. You're better off replacing the water when it gets warm. Kinda fucked in a drought, though.
- JeremyNT 5y agoHow lasting is this effect though compared to evaporative cooling (which lasts for as long as you stay hydrated due to the replenishment of moisture from sweat)? The volume of liquid you're adding to your garment can't be all that much, and if you combine your body heat with a high ambient temperature it seems like the water should reach equilibrium rather quickly. I don't doubt it helps in the short term - I live in the southeast and I've done this when hiking many times (once my shirt's already soaked from sweat and I can find a cool stream) - but it only provides a temporary respite.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- phreeza 5y agoHere are some numbers: the evaporation enthalpy of water is 2,260 kJ/kg at room temperature. The specific heat of water is 4.2 kJ/(kg*K). So for a given amount of water, the evaporation is "worth" about 500 Kelvin of cooling in terms of energy absorbed.