Do you have AC in your house/apt?

It seems like every year here the heat here starts earlier and lasts longer. We talk about getting min-splits or adding central air to the heat but DH always says he doesn't want to spend the money for only six weeks of very unpleasant warmth. And it might require upgrading the electrical panel. And because we may not stay here too much longer. Maybe people have just gotten accustomed to being comfortable since everything is climate controlled now but once upon a time, no one here had AC except for very hot cities. Now it seems much of the country does. Its not too bad if we don't move around much, sleep in the basement and have fans going all the time but still weighing pros and cons. My neighbor who doesn't have AC actually sleeps outside at night since it is so much cooler at night.

Hell, yes. I grew up with ac in the Detroit area. I think it was installed early 70s. Only happened as my father’s sister’s husband at the time was a hvac guy and it was a lot less expensive due to that.

I have central ac in my little rented condo. The last time I didn’t have ac was in the first apartment here in the Chicago area where I lived 1996-98. Little basement apartment in a three flat.

Yes, we have a C in our Hermann house, although it doesn’t do a good job for the second floor, which is slope ceiling.


We have a mini split in the sunroom there.


In our condo, we have a window air conditioner in the bedroom which is marginally effective. I’m at the condo and it’s 92° out and it’s ok.

I got central air conditioning for the first time maybe ten years ago, and haven't looked back. I had to upgrade the electrical, too. Part of the expense I justified by thinking it would increase the resale value. And it turns out I've lived here longer than I had planned. I explored the ways to work around without it and it just makes life more pleasant. Before retiring I was home less and in the hot hours of the day, so it seemed like it was less important. One thing, you can use the oven or otherwise heat up the kitchen without heating up the house as much

I would get a second job to pay for the air conditioning in my house. Of course, I live in Texas. Would your husband be okay with a window unit in the bedroom for those 6-8 weeks of the year? It increases your electricity costs - but, like I say, I think it's worth it. It's really tough to sleep when it's too hot.

We didn't have one for the first 5 years living here in Vermont but when we got the heat pump to replace our baseboard heaters, the AC came with it. We love it.I try to use the AC only when I get to the severely uncomfortable point. So far this year we've had it on 3 days.

Nope, but I live in the Pacific Northwest in a very temperate climate.

Heck, I was using the woodstove just a week ago for heat.

In my old house, no. Had a unit, but everytime I went to get it installed, whoever was going to help me, had issues (several medical, other issues as well).

We have a window unit on the first floor, and one of those portable units on the second floor. Our house is only about 900 SF, so with those 2 units and a few fans, we can keep things tolerable indoors.
Catherine, that's the same for us; we've run our a/c 3 days this year. I plan to track our usage this year.
We have been thinking about installing a/c, either mini-split or something like the Unico system, but I'm not sure we can justify the cost. As DH gets older, handling that window unit seems more burdensome, but I also hate all the floorspace the portable units take up. I'm certainly grateful for them on the hideously hot and humid days though. For most of our lives, we got by with just fans.

We have a window unit in our bedroom and are contemplating getting one for the kitchen and one for husband's office.

We have window units in two upstairs bedrooms, and plenty of fans. It's not perfect but it's livable.

Small 60s rancher. When we moved here in the 70s-young and strong! We had two window AC that we'd remove every season. Then added a huge one in the kitchen that was not moved, just covered in the winter and eliminated the other window AC as I hated how dark it made the rooms. Then we bought another for our bedroom. In 2018 we decided to get central. They had to put ductwork in the attic. It has been wonderful!!! It went out the other day in 90 degrees and we had to remember what we used to do. Whole house fan( which we had put in in 92- was a revelation! and floor fans in the night. Luckily the guy came the next day and put in more gas. Growing up in Pgh.we didn't even have fans. It was brutal, but we survived. Not now!

well, sometimes & sometimes not. see---it really isn't good to keep the whole house under AC. reason is, the change from inside to outside is too drastic. so anyway---lately i been refridgerating the back bedroom as my cool-down room, and the window open and fans going in the front room. today it is about 95 & very humid. so yeah---hydration is necessary. Zurra took many years to get accustomed to, with the heat humidity, bugs & vegetation. yup. hope that helps you some. thankk mee.

Coming up on 34 years in this house and never had a/c. Ceiling fans and other fans. We survive.

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Originally Posted by happystuff

Coming up on 34 years in this house and never had a/c. Ceiling fans and other fans. We survive.

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We made if for 31 years before we caved. Always wanted ceiling fans, but our ceilings are too low and DH and some of our friends are too tall, so risk of decapitation was too great, lol.

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Originally Posted by rosarugosa

We made if for 31 years before we caved. Always wanted ceiling fans, but our ceilings are too low and DH and some of our friends are too tall, so risk of decapitation was too great, lol.

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Haha! I so identify, rosa! We do have ceiling fans and we issue hardhats to everyone over 5'9" who comes through our doors! (not really, but we definitely jump to turn off the fans if they're on!). Our house is definitely either a house Mr. Tumnus would be comfortable in!

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the change from inside to outside is too drastic

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I agree. I recall living in Texas how it felt to go back and forth from frigid AC to 100+ heat in the summer. I always wonder how people would survive in that heat if the power went out for days on end. DHs said his grandparents would sit outside under the pecan trees in the hottest part of the day and not move around much. Big noisy box fans in the house.

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Originally Posted by rosarugosa

We made if for 31 years before we caved. Always wanted ceiling fans, but our ceilings are too low and DH and some of our friends are too tall, so risk of decapitation was too great, lol.

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LOL. That reminds me of a party I went to in college in Miami. A friend’s parents were selling their house so it was empty and for some insane reason they let him host a party. It had ceiling fans and we had put a table for some sort of beer chugging party under it. At one point my friend D won a round and threw his hands up in celebration. One of the blades hit his arm and got knocked off. No injury. Then a few rounds later my friend B won a round and also threw his hands up to celebrate his win. Another blade got knocked off but this time the blade hit B’s wrist before flying off, causing B to begin to bleed profusely. Enough that he had to go to the ER for stitches. The joke for a week after was that D and B both fought the ceiling fan but that D won the fight and B lost the fight.

More to the point of this thread my grandparents spent the last 30 years of their life in an old farmhouse in southwest Missouri. Five or six years before grandpa passed away they finally decided to get a window unit for their bedroom. They loved it so much that the next spring they splurged on central a/c even though that meant having ductwork installed, a transformer upgrade, etc. It definitely made summer visits to such a hot, humid place much more pleasant even though they always set it at around 77 or 78.

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Originally Posted by jp1

More to the point of this thread my grandparents spent the last 30 years of their life in an old farmhouse in southwest Missouri. Five or six years before grandpa passed away they finally decided to get a window unit for their bedroom. They loved it so much that the next spring they splurged on central a/c even though that meant having ductwork installed, a transformer upgrade, etc. It definitely made summer visits to such a hot, humid place much more pleasant even though they always set it at around 77 or 78.

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Old people get cold if it is cooler than 77 or 78.

signed Iris, old person

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

Old people get cold if it is cooler than 77 or 78.

signed Iris, old person

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Indeed. The only old person I’ve ever known who didn’t was my mom.

Here in the arid west the debate was roof mounted type swamp cooler vs central air. I understand swamp cooler don't work well in humid climates, but they are fairly common in my hood. There are some clear trade-offs either way. I'm not sure I remember correctly, but believe the swamp cooler would not have require an electrical upgrade. My folks had a swamp cooler in a place where summer's could get over 100 degrees several days during the summer and they were satisfied with it, but it did not have the cooling capacity if central air.

Swamp coolers definitely use way less electricity than refrigerator air conditioners since really all they are is a big fan with a big soft pad that has a constant flow of water on it. I also assume they are cheaper to buy since mechanically they are quite simple. When I was a teenager in Denver back in the 80s they installed swamp coolers on all the buses. They had had a small number of buses with "regular" a/c but it was unreliable, seriously hurt fuel economy, caused overheated engines, etc. The swamp coolers were a fantastic alternative. The windows of the buses all had little signs on them telling people to leave them open an inch so that the swamp cooler could do it's thing.

My understanding is that the reason they are viewed as "just not as good as central a/c" is that they basically are capable of bringing the inside temperature down a certain amount from the outside temperature, and that that "certain amount" is measured by the outdoors humidity level. In other words if it's 10% humid out they can bring the inside temp down 25 degrees from outside, if it's 20% humid outside they can bring it down 20 degrees, 30% humid outside 12-13 degrees, etc. (I have no idea the actual numbers, but they are somewhat close to what I've listed.) So in 110 degree palm springs it might get the temperature inside down to 85 since humidity is super low there. Much more comfortable but not exactly cool. When we would go to visit relatives in my mom's hometown in western kansas when I was growing up everyone used swamp coolers. Humidity was super low and the temperature rarely got much over 100 so they were a cheap, effective alternative to standard a/c.

I've said several times to SO and various friends, on the really hot days here in coastal california, that the $20k we spent on our heat pump/central a/c is the BEST money out of all the upgrades we've done on this house. We don't have to use it that often but when it gets super hot out, especially for days on end, it's AWESOME. Checking our nest thermostat we haven't used it since two weeks ago today (it's only gotten into the low 80's every day but one where it hit 90). Most nights it gets into the mid or even low 50's so we can open the windows, open the skylight, put fans in the windows, and by morning my office is 60 degrees and the rest of the house more in the 65 degree range. When I get up I close everything up and it stays cool enough that by the time it's starting to get uncomfortable upstairs the temperature outside is already falling so we can just open the windows and start cooling the house naturally all over again.

I remember decades ago when I lived in New Mexico, not using the swamp cooler for at least the first year maybe a year and a half because I had no idea what it was. It was a switch on the wall. I was used to Midwest cooling systems, either central air or window air conditioners. This “swamp cooler” thing was utterly foreign.

It did lower the temperature New Mexico.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

Old people get cold if it is cooler than 77 or 78.

signed Iris, old person

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Not my late boss, when I moved in to take care of the cat, he was running the a/c at 62. Diabetes was always making him hot.

As to swamp coolers, they can be less expensive to more expensive, depending on size. A lot of mechanics garages use them, however the humidity they use to cool, will reach sections of the shop and heat it back up, so you need to be in direct line of ventilation for them to work, step outside that zone and it tends to get hotter.

Swamp coolers around here are a reasonable choice for people with baseboard heat or other wise no ductwork adaptable to central air. Or budget restrictions. It cost me around $2,000 to upgrade my electrical panel for air conditioning and that was several years ago. My folks house in a dry climate could keep the house in the mid-70's on 90 degree day. They require some annual maintenance to drain the water from the system before winter. For people in dry climates the humidity they add to the indoor air could add some comfort. In my decision making, and probably for most who can afford it, central air was the best choice.

I had people come to my house and give design plans and cost estimates for both systems. I did consider energy use as a factor. My house is smaller and well insulated and the salesperson touted the energy efficiency of modern air conditioners. Ultimately it hasn't added that much to my energy bills as closely as I can tell. Brother has lived in a hot southwestern climate, but has single pane windows, poor insulation, and an older air conditioner. His electric bills are comparatively sizable.

Yesterday, DH used a digital meat thermometer and measured the temp on each floor around 4pm. I don't know how accurate that is but the top floor measured 90 degrees, the middle 85 and the basement 80. It finally cooled off to around 75 in the basement bedroom.

Nope, like Bae, we live in beautiful WA State where on the few very hot days you just bust out the fans and strip down or find a lake to jump into.

okay---in my hillbilly shackk, i just have a window AC in my cool-off room. but yeah---i'm gonna take & put another old window AC in the small room of my backyard cottage, ta use as a cool-off(and warm up) room. yup.