Comments on: Life Before Air Conditioning

By: bob bobby

bob bobby — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:04:00 +0000

this was good and helpfull… lawl :B

By: Sue | Air Conditioning

Sue | Air Conditioning — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:16:00 +0000

I am very grateful that where I live in South Africa, yes it gets way hot and an air con is necessary especially in a car when driving a lot, my home is airy an cool enough just to put on a fan not necessary to have an indoor air con. The only real benefit to having one would be that it would help a great deal with allergies.

By: litchik

litchik — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Our city home has a central stairway with a skylight at the top. There used to be a way to open it, but that is gone. Now we have a window set it the head house for the roof deck that we can open to encourage the hot air to leave.

The rooms all have doors, and, of course, windows. In the summer we open the windows and doors to encourage cross-ventilation. In the winter we keep the windows, and the doors closed. This keeps the rooms warm without sending the hot air to the skylight.

We do have central air and use it in high pollen season due to allergies and asthma, but most of the time we prefer to know the weather. We actually do like the seasons here in New England. It’s one reason we stay. That, and we’re walking distance to good old open air Fenway.

By: Nihilady

Nihilady — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:51:00 +0000

The school I went to in upstate NY circa mid ’90’s did not have a/c. I grew up in Houston so I can handle the heat+humidity but one year we had a freak heat wave during finals.. That was so much fun I was delirious.

By: bgweil

bgweil — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:48:00 +0000

I’m a slave to the AC – I admit it, I get ill when I get too hot. . .

We honeymooned in Paris during a freak heat-wave some years back. . .figures. During the day, we’d lounge in parks, or hit the AC’s museums.

At night, it was stifling in our 5th floor walk-up hotel room – no AC, bien sur, and it took hotel management 3 days to procure a window fan.

We opened the window, and used a very wet bath towel as a blanket, taking turns re-soaking as needed through the night. . .

It was effective, and everything’s an adventure when you’re honeymooning in Paris. . .

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:22:00 +0000

I grew up without a/c and I hated it. My parents finally got a window unit and put it in their bedroom while we suffered in our beds in our very hot rooms. I couldn’t sleep and vowed that when I moved out I would set the a/c at whatever temperature I wanted and that I would never worry about the bill.

We may not have big porches in FL but we have huge screened in back yards with nice cool pools. That is where we sit and socialize if we are outside. Having company is not an issue. Just turn on the grill and bring out the cooler.

I like the look of front porches, but I am NOT going to be hot in my own home if I can help it.

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Christina, do the insulation! We recently had blown-in insulation added to my 104-year-old house. There are tax credits for such improvements now.

By: Christina

Christina — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:03:00 +0000

We grew up never having air conditioning. I got used to it. We spent a lot of time outside, in parks, and if it was really hot, we’d go for a drive. All the cars we had (and that I had) a/c. When I got out of school, my parents moved into a place with air conditioning. Too bad I wasn’t there long. I got married and moved out. My husband is spoiled and hates not having it.
Now we’re in a 102 year old house with no insulation. The humidity gets to 98 percent and that’s what kills me. I’d rather get my house insulated than have to deal with adding a/c. We get the exact opposite in the winter. That’s fun.

By: Deepak

Deepak — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:42:00 +0000

Seriously, we lost a bit of our cultural identity when AC and TV took us off the porch.I loved reading this article,

By: Silva

Silva — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:06:38 +0000

I especially agree with the McMansion comment. I would always annoy my ex-boyfriend whenever I complained about them, but they were so badly designed. Because of those, I was worried my mom bought a heap of junk when she bought her new home, but luckily it was custom and they put in all these energy-saving features and designs. She hasn’t even turned on the AC yet, and she’s in Arkansas. It doesn’t have a porch, since it’s in the woods, but it has a nice shaded deck that’s built into the hill. I love old houses more, but I don’t feel that her house is typical of the new ones built. I only hope that the higher energy prices will spur people to try to build things like they used to.

The house where I grew up was a HUGE house built in the late 40’s in DC (read: expensive then, and expensive now). It had cathedral ceilings in the dining and living room, with huge windows on one side. Granted, it was split level, but it was still three stories. My parents would literally spend a couple grand in the summer and winter heating and cooling it. It’s so annoying how the builders expected the occupants to just use central air (obviously a new feature in homes at that time; I’d hate to think of the bills the first unit(s) would produce, since the house was actually designed with air conditioning in mind) for all their needs. You couldn’t even cross-ventilate, considering that each level had windows on only one side. My mother was glad to be rid of that place.