How do people live without air conditioning

a reply to: valiant

England is in for a hard awakening with mold and damp because the climate in the region is returning to Victoria style winters and summers.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: JAGStorm

Invest in a window unit?

Oh darling, I have full AC.

My question was how do people without manage? I'm not talking about warm out, I'm talking about
when it is 100 degrees+. It just makes me feel sick. I know there are "Island born" people that can wear jeans and a sweater in that weather.

a reply to: JAGStorm

If you go to any equator nation you'll notice life slows down around 2pm. When the sun is highest in the sky.

People just deal with it, or retreat to ac driven places.

Here in California, it is very arid. I remember people using swamp coolers a lot in the 60s. They worked pretty good. Sometimes if it was real hot out, they would put a block of ice in it

a reply to: JAGStorm
It's all about acclimitization,recruit.
Remember: "When the going gets tough,
the tough get going."
Learn it, live it, love it!:
www.usariem.army.mil...

If you've never had it, you don't miss it?? I grew up without it and it can get hot even in upstate ny, never bothered me. Most of the time we were living in TX it didn't bother me. But once we got used to having it, my body adapted to having it. I imagine I would adapt to not having it quicker than most since I'm rather cold blooded by nature and wearing a sweater in 70 degree weather but once it gets into the high 80s and 90s I like the air conditioning.

Tried living without it since moving from FL to MI for 4 summers. It's doable, if you don't have an uninsulated slow cooker for a bedroom. It's a rental, not much we can do about that beyond window tint, solar screening & curtains.

A week or so ago, we said "f# this" and bought a window unit for our bedroom.

The rest of the house is fine, usually never gets much warmer than 90 downstairs on the worst day of heat, and the cooler, naturally tree-shaded north-facing bedrooms the kids have always top out in the low to mid 80's. But our south-facing bedroom in direct sun with zero shade until near sunset is a blast furnace that soars over 100* with ease. And it holds the heat like a bitch all night long, too, overnight bedroom lows in the 90's with high nighttime humidity is BS. Try sleeping in that s# -- you can't.

Our bedroom temp on hot days is now on par with the kids' rooms. Quite pleasant, in other words.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I'd be pathetic without A/C. I am a sorry 1st Worlder who cannot sleep in heat.

Growing up, my house was one of those where unless lava flowed through the hallways, we never put the AC on. Now in my own house that AC is on all summer.

With that said, I have spent countless nights in neato dirt piles around the world where their main export to the rest of the planet is apparently fire, brimstone, and yes lava. You simply do not do much during the heat of the day. It will bury you.

To your question: I think it is acclimatization.

originally posted by: ABNARTY
a reply to: JAGStorm

I'd be pathetic without A/C. I am a sorry 1st Worlder who cannot sleep in heat.

Growing up, my house was one of those where unless lava flowed through the hallways, we never put the AC on. Now in my own house that AC is on all summer.

With that said, I have spent countless nights in neato dirt piles around the world where their main export to the rest of the planet is apparently fire, brimstone, and yes lava. You simply do not do much during the heat of the day. It will bury you.

To your question: I think it is acclimatization.

I'm pretty much a princess all around. I don't like it too cold, or too hot. I absolutely can't sleep if it is hot, and humid.
If it is just hot, it is ok, but add humidity and i'm done.

I found that only partially drying your clothes after washing them and hanging them in your sweat box, uh, apartment does help.

Alaskan. No AC. No airflow as the high pressure system stalled out over Anchorage. No fans.

Lots of sweat and lots of water. No food, just beer (not the whimpy lager either!). Tried ice cream but all the beer didn’t mix well (might try stout or porter next time).

I like the clothes in the refrigerator idea but my refrigerator is too dirty! LOL! All that spilt beer...

:beer:

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
I like the clothes in the refrigerator idea but my refrigerator is too dirty! LOL! All that spilt beer...

:beer:

Cleaning the fridge is a great excuse to have the door open and cool off
I used to do that (clean the fridge even if it didn't need it) in FL when it got really hot and the AC could only manage the very humid upper 80's at best cranked all the way down (we got the building shaft there, insulated & well-sealed concrete block condo under a huge shade tree with an old workhorse AC unit, but still couldn't keep cool when it got to broiling temps outside)

Gadzooks!

I can't stand it - I'm one state over and wilting like a dog gone daisy. I am a winter beast... Not because I can make it through the -38 degree windchill we share, but, because 0 feels nice if it's calm, and 28 degrees feel down right balmy.

This global warming thing has me worried... it's been 1000's of years in building...

originally posted by: JAGStorm
I know, I know very first world problem.

It is hot here, I have my air set to 71 and it is running non-stop. I live in a pretty cool place, Wisconsin.
I just can't imagine not having air conditioning in the South or other hot climates.
I read a story that in India the temperature was a high of 120F, and that only 6% of people have air conditioning.

My God, I must be spoiled rotten.

I grew up in GA and pretty much everyone had air conditioning of some kind. However, I remember going "out to the country" when I was a kid and some of the old houses didn't. Open doors, windows, and judicious use of fans. I guess you just got used to it. However, now that I get older, it is hard to live without it.

I find the heat in Chicago unbearable. Even worse than down south. The humidity here in Chicago just really aggravates me now. I know about 20 years ago we had like 10-20 deaths from a heat wave.

We have central air in our house, but it struggles to keep up on 90+ degree days. We don't have a lot of tree cover so our upper floor will still get up to like 76/77 degrees mid day even though thermostat is set around 72 degrees.

AC is why you know the green movement is fully of bovine excrement. No way countries like India are not going to get on the AC bandwagon as they develop more. AC use is one of the biggest draws of energy in the US.

a reply to: Edumakated

Chicago is no joke. People think because it's more North that it isn't a problem. But weather patterns have always existed for the possibility of tornados, this means extreme instances.

originally posted by: Gothmog
I have always lived in Georgia
For most of my early years , there were no air conditioners. (except window fans)
Temps hung in the 90s with closing on 100% humidity.
We were used to the heat back then.
I like the cool air , but yet spend a lot of time outside , feeling the heat.
Folks nowadays are spoilt rotten
I would survive even at my age .
A lot of folks would not.

LOL from Georgia too, we didn't get a house with AC till I was 13-14 late 70's, and even then it was a window AC. Lived in cut off blue jean shorts no shirt and barefoot most of the summer, had fans too, but we mostly were outside playing the creek or we had a half-finished partially underground basement it was cooler than the house. We had 6 people and our house was small, but lol we didn't know any better nobody had AC. We would occasionally ride our bikes up to the theater sit in the AC and watch a Godzilla or Disney movie like Herbie on the ones with Kurt Russell 3 times and then ride our bikes back home

Thought about that when the power when out at 3 am the other day. it was out almost 12 hours, it was okay in the morning but by 11 it was already heating up.

We don't have air conditioning. We live in among the trees and they keep things cool pretty well. It got up to seventy five in our house today, it was eighty seven outside in town but not where we live among the trees. In August we do get a few days over eighty in the house. A ceiling fan takes care of the few days we have summer at our house.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
I know, I know very first world problem.

It is hot here, I have my air set to 71 and it is running non-stop. I live in a pretty cool place, Wisconsin.
I just can't imagine not having air conditioning in the South or other hot climates.
I read a story that in India the temperature was a high of 120F, and that only 6% of people have air conditioning.

My God, I must be spoiled rotten.

I can relate to what you're saying. I live in Wisconsin too. People think it doesn't get hot here, but it sure does. Not just the heat, it's the gosh durned humidity - line from the song "Thirty Point Buck"

In my condo, we just have a small unit that goes into a hole in the wall kind of thing. I have it set on 74 degrees. It actually works pretty well. Between the three ceiling fans we have and keeping all the curtains/blinds closed, we are comfortable. I usually turn it off at night and put a box fan in our bedroom window, but it's too damn hot to do that. Later this week we're looking at temps in the mid 90's. I don't like the heat, makes me very crabby.

I feel for those of you living in the south, especially Texas. I think I'd just wilt and die there.

We never had AC until a few years ago. My parents house had
trees around it. Transpiration helps to cool the air. They kept
the drapes closed on the southern side during the hottest part of
the day, to keep the heat out.
Dad would put a window fan in upstairs in the south side bedroom,
facing outside. Then open the windows on the north side. The fan
would suck the cooler, north side air through the upstairs & out the
south window. It always cooled off the whole upstairs by bedtime.

If it was really hot, he would turn on the fan in the forced air furnace,
in the nice, cool basement & blow that cool air through the ductwork to
the upstairs!
When our kids were growing up, all we had were window fans & a ceiling
fan. It was all we needed. I've read about putting wet sheets over the
windows & using a fan to pull the air through, cooling it off. But I've
never tried it. YouTube has interesting DIY, homemade air coolers!

If we were just starting out today, we would bury piping/ductwork
underground, & pull that cooler air through the house in summer &
the warmer air in winter.

WOQ

I heard it's good to take a hot shower for 1 or 2 minutes then switch to the coldest temperature. It's supposed to be good for the lymphatic system because most of our evolution we dealed with extreme temps. Only recently we had air conditioning and heating.

But yea air conditioning is amazing.

www.youtube.com...