Life before air conditioning

[Capt Worley PE]

Yes, it is true, there was life before AC. This is how people lived without modern cooling.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/7424

http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Features/staycool.shtml

 

[FLBuff PE]

Yes, it is true, there was life before AC. This is how people lived without modern cooling.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/7424

http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Features/staycool.shtml

What is this AC of which you speak? I vaguely recall that it was present in my parents house, growing up, but I have not lived with it since moving to an elevation of about 6600 feet.

 

[snickerd3]

my parent's didn't get AC until I was half way done with college. It was nice living in a dorm with AC, other than the middle of the night fire alarms caused by people opening their windows whilst the AC was on.

 

[Dexman1349]

What is this AC of which you speak? I vaguely recall that it was present in my parents house, growing up, but I have not lived with it since moving to an elevation of about 6600 feet.

Yep, Only had one house with AC in my life. I did have AC while living in the dorms & in a nearby appartment complex during college though.

My current house is only cooled by fans and open windows, not even a swamp cooler. My wife is really pushing to get AC simply because the top floor of the house (where the bedrooms are) gets uncomfortably warm during the summers, making sleeping difficult.

 

[FLBuff PE]

Yep, Only had one house with AC in my life. I did have AC while living in the dorms & in a nearby appartment complex during college though.
My current house is only cooled by fans and open windows, not even a swamp cooler. My wife is really pushing to get AC simply because the top floor of the house (where the bedrooms are) gets uncomfortably warm during the summers, making sleeping difficult.

I've been considering it for the same reason. Mini-Buff's bedroom is upstairs. The master bedroom is downstairs. The evenings up here this summer have been quite cool (in the 40s), so the thought of AC has gone away for this year.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

For whatever reason, half the people I work with are staunchly anti-AC. I have three big window units I run all summer.

We've had a heat wave here the past week and some folks are triumphantly boasting how while they couldn't sleep, they still haven't isntalled their AC this year.

I say **** that. It's worth the extra $40/month for me to be comfortable.

 

[Chucktown PE]

My parents both grew up down here with no AC. Niether of my grandmothers' beach houses have AC. We spent the summers there when we were growing up and it never really bothered me. Each of them had a bed on the screened porch of their house and I always slept out there.

 

[z06dustin]

I live in Phoenix. People literally die here without A/C.

 

[Supe]

My parents still don't have AC.

I won't even rent a place unless it has central air, but then again, it was kind of necessary while I was living in TX. I still don't know how I made it through Hurricane Ike with no power for 2 weeks living in a third floor apartment.

 

[Dleg]

I survived most of a childhood in Denver without AC. It gets into the low 100s during the summer, but it's dry.

On the other hand, there is no way I could survive life here int he tropics without AC. Even if I could physically handle it, I wouldn't be able to stomach the effects on my personal belongings - mold, rust, etc.

I've known a few mainlanders who have moved out here and thought they were being very "islander" by living without aircon (that's what we call AC out here). Fools! Any islander who can afford it will run the aircon. I remember when I first moved out here, the first "possession" I bought was a board game - Risk - to play with our group of friends in the evening (back before the movie theater was open and half the other things there are to do nowadays). We put it away on the shelf in his non-aircon house, and two weeks later the board had molded and warped so bad, it was unusable.

 

[cement]

I'm up at 7500' in that dry denver climate so we really don't need AC. We run a fan a few nights a year. I had ridge vents put in when we change out the roof and it's even more comfortable now. some of the neighbors are getting "free" central AC when they change out the furnace, but I'm not buying that.

 

[EM_PS]

I indeed remember life before AC. Grew up without it in any house i lived in, and pretty much every car. Didn't ever come to realize its comfort (outside of the work place) till i was in my late 20's (mid-90's) and the first house i bought had central air. Nowadays, i wouldnt wanna live without it. For my pops, even in houses that have central air, he still only turns it on in an 'as needed basis' failing to realize the efficiency of an HVAC system left to run as designed. I get where he's coming from though, already at least half of our year up here requires windows to be shut; you want to have some time where the house can be wide open & aired out.

 

[TouchDown]

Can you guys from Colorado say.... Samp Cooler?

 

[Dleg]

Samp cooler?

My parents put in a swamp cooler, and yes, it works quite nicely.

 

[rudy]

With 100 degree weather this summer, A/C is a must. But those underground homes sound viable. I wonder if they are more prone to bugs.

 

[Dleg]

I'd love to live in one of those old Cold War missile silos. I saw one on HG TV a couple of years back that some hippy in Kansas (or Nebraska?) had converted to a home. Seemed really cool to me.

 

[ElCid03]

My parents both grew up down here with no AC. Niether of my grandmothers' beach houses have AC. We spent the summers there when we were growing up and it never really bothered me. Each of them had a bed on the screened porch of their house and I always slept out there.

We had AC in the new barracks, but it was awful to have in some ways. There's nothing worse that August in Charleston, especially when you've been standing around in 95 degree heat with 100% humidity during parade while being eaten by the sand fleas. (Discipline folks, is holding your M-14 at present arms for an extra 20 minutes while the sand fleas go to town because Strom Thurmund fell asleep in the Jeep while reviewing the Corps. True story, I thought that he was going to die right there in the middle of Summerall Field!)

You would go from the extreme heat to 72 degrees of ac goodness and get sick as a dog rather qucikly. October through March were quite wonderful though; you walk around in shorts the week before X-Mas. I miss that place, but not the jacka%% teenagers from Summerville who though that it was fun to race down I-26 at 100 mph+.

 

[Guest]

I had A/C living in Florida - it is a must have commodity to survive the heat/humidity combination.

In Michigan - I have central heat/air but I really haven't had a need for it yet. Been a pretty mild summer. I had to laugh getting into a car with a few yuppers yesterday - they were crying about how hot it was and it was maybe 80F !!!

JR

 

[Capt Worley PE]

The house I grew up in is a little odd. There's a Big House and a Little House. The house was built in 1938-39 and is a log cabin. Because no one knew how to work with logs (forgotten art), they built the Little House to familiarize workers with the construction technique before they started work on the Big House.

The Little House got central AC in 1964, but the Big House didn't get it until the early nineties, after I moved out. We'd spend days in the Big House and sleep in the Little House. Since both were built for no AC (big screened porches, large windows and overhangs, thick logs), even in 100+ temps, the Big House maybe got into the mid eighties downstairs, but was unliveable upstairs.

 

[EM_PS]

I could honestly live without it in the house. with judicious use of fans & ceiling fans, you can get by pretty easy in MI anyways. My sister has an old farm house that has no air, but is in wooded area. Even on the "hot" days here (into the 90's), i know her house stays pretty cool & I'm quite jealous of her significantly lower utility bills. My wife couldnt nor wouldnt live without it so i just try to keep the thermostat at a reasonable number. I wouldnt do without it in the car however.

There was one summer a few years back where we had like over 30 days (non-consecutive) where the temp was 90+. I thought that was an f'n rough summer!