No Air Conditioner Living - Page 2

[karika]

We are in PNW and have not had AC here. I am from east coast humidity where you will die without it. I have always preferred this climate. We have a portable swamp cooler that uses a water pan and has a fan, cost about $130. One tip a neighbor gave me is to fill your bathtub with cool water, it helps keep it cool somehow. I do all my cooking after cool down (7 pm or so) I will cook on the stove if necessary during the day. this will be my first summer without using the microwave. I gave it up this year due to concerns about what it does to the food. If possible, I would say you should build a sun oven for your bread. I don't make bread and xdh (whose home I am living in now) would not allow me to put something like that in his yard, but if you could, try that! Here is a link

hmmm this one is a purchase readymade type thing, not what I was looking for but it came up http://eartheasy.com/sun_oven.htm

this is how to make your own
http://www.williamgbecker.com/MakeSolarOven.html
an easier version
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-make-a-solar-cooker

[echospiritwarrior]

any ideas on what to do about other people's compressor noises

we're in a condo and there are three compressors about 30ft outside our patio. The sound of the upstairs neighbors unit also drives me crazy, ended up getting up a 5:30am with all the noise.

[riaketty]

Originally Posted by mamadelbosque

We've never had A/C here... you just get used to the heat & humidity at some point. People have lived w/o it for ever.

This.

We don't use our AC. However we live underground and live comfortably. We open the doors at night, and close them in the morning. If it's really hot we'll put a box fan in front of the door at night.

How much do you bake at one time? Would it be feasible to open your doors, bake in the very late evening/early night, maybe on a day where you can sleep in the next morning? Bake a ton at one time, freeze it. Do a bake day however often you need to.

Or wait for a cool day, reverse the fan in front of the window so you're blasting the hot air out?

[riaketty]

Originally Posted by lakeruby

We live in the deep south (north Florida) and have not yet made it through a summer without turning on our A/C, although we do try to hold out as long as possible. It gets rough, though, when the nights stop cooling down (usually by June) and it gets up to 100 during the day, with 90% humidity!

When we don't have the A/C on, we do use fans and we try to take a very cold shower before bed.

Do you think a dehumidifier would help? I'm not sure how much energy that would take vs AC, but it might be something to look into.

[Poddi]

Bumping this thread. We never lived in any place with A/C. It doesn't get too hot here although it CAN get up to 33 - 34 C (90 - 95 F) for a few days. And our house is west facing so it's usually pretty hot inside the whole summer. I found a great solution for out particular climate - window fans. Night time here is much much cooler and window fans can effectively bring the indoor temperature down a few degrees (from 85 F to about 75 F). If you don't have a window fan, placing a fan near the open window should help, too.

Just thought I'd mention that, it really works for any place with cool nights.

[yeahwhat]

I love my window fans too. There have only been a few nights this summer where shutting up the house in the day and opening it up with window fans didn't make it cool enoughfor me to sleep, so I ended up on a futon in the (unfinished) basement. Ok, one night I did consider sleeping on the cement floor. Aside from the every couple of years heat wave, it gets down to around 70 or lower most nights, so window fans work perfectly to cool the house. You do have to get used to the 10F+ degree variations in the house from early morning to evening. I also just do not cook on hot days. At most I'll boil some potatoes or eggs for salad the next day in the late evening with the exhaust fan running to pull the hot air outside.

[ParisApril]

We haven't had the A/C on here in a few years. The ceiling fan in the bedroom is a lifesaver at night. I love it!

For cooking on really hot days I try and cook outside. I use my toaster oven and a single electric burner on a small table outside. My modest outdoor kitchen. My SIL bought a bread maker for baking on hot days, she puts it in the garage. I have just been baking really big batches of breads on cooler days and freezing them.

[ChetMC]

No AC

DH and I have never really had air conditioning. We turned it on a couple of times when we were living in an apartment in San Diego. The problem wasn't the weather though, it was the design of the apartment.

When we moved to Montreal people said that we would need AC here and we've been okay so far. There were lots of cold showers during the heat wave, but we were fine. The people who we bought this house from left a couple of ugly window mount units, but we're not using them.

DH's theory is that people need to just get used to it. Going in and out of air conditioned environments doesn't allow people to properly adjust to the hot weather. DH finds it hard to be at work where they have AC and then to come home to a hot house.

My complaint is the modern architecture compounds the problem. When we were in Merrakech the old city was perfectly comfortable. One day we left the old city and walked into the new city where there was lots of asphalt and modern buildings at it was awful.

We see this too in our own neighbourhood here. There is an empty lot down the street and I swear it's three degrees cooler on the sidewalk there because the whole lot has six foot high weeds. The rest of the street is brick buildings that warm up and then radiate heat. Downtown is just 2km away and it's way hotter because it has no trees at all.

[Ruthiegirl]

I grew up without it in California and sweated out a lot of hot days. Didn't seem like a big deal, but we had a nice, cool, open house -- tile floors that stayed cool and high ceilings to draw the hot air up and away from our bodies.

I lived in the northwest where I certainly didn't need it for the few days it got hot in the summer.

I lived in Massachusetts where I sweated during the short summer season, but did fine without it.

I have lived in Germany, Greece, England, and Poland -- no a/c.

But now I live in the mid-Atlantic where the heat and humidity are outrageous and you bet I use it! My poor kids break out in heat rash when I try to go too long without turning on the a/c. My son will get patches under his arms that bleed and have become infected requiring lengthy courses of antibiotics.

We don't crank it high, we use it just enough to stay healthy. But really, there are some climates that are really stinking uncomfortable without a/c. Could I survive? Yeah, but I would be plotting a move out of the area really fast.

[redvlagrl]

Honestly, I can't believe that people insist on having air conditioning like it's a necessity or something. I'm from Australia and have never had a/c. The last place I was living, Adelaide is really, really hot. Like heatwaves each summer of a week or two of 45 C every day and not going below 38 overnight. I'm not saying it's pleasant, but it's not going to kill you. I grew up in Sydney where is it more humid.

Here in sthn Ontario people can't believe we don't have a/c. I can't believe they pay an a/c bill like it's a necessity (unlike heating, which is).

On really, really hot nights I suggest taking a shower and not drying off then having the fan on. It cools you down enough to get to sleep. If it's really horrifically hot, then wet your sheet and put it over you and put the fan on nedium.

[wrenb]

Originally Posted by ChetMC

My complaint is the modern architecture compounds the problem. When we were in Merrakech the old city was perfectly comfortable. One day we left the old city and walked into the new city where there was lots of asphalt and modern buildings at it was awful.

I have to agree. I lived in a late-1960s apartment and needed air conditioning in Wisconsin summers because there was no air flow. I moved a mile down the road to a house built in 1906. This house was built to keep cool in the summers, although not as cool as old houses in really hot areas, we have to heat this place after all.

We bought air conditioners to dry our floors when they were refinished a few years ago, but we haven't used them since that first summer. Although with the high humidity we've been having I did consider it and then decided that hauling the heavy window units out was too much trouble in the heat.

[listipton]

No A/C here either. We have central air, but it needed charged this year (we bought this house last fall....) and we just never got around to it. It's been fine until a couple of days last week and the past 2 days this week. We're debating on whether we will get it 'fixed' or not for next year. I definitely don't think of it as a necessity though.

[Sharlla]

baby was really fussy, heat index has been over 100 so turned ac on and set at 80 to take the edge off.
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[Ruthiegirl]

Originally Posted by redvlagrl

Honestly, I can't believe that people insist on having air conditioning like it's a necessity or something.

Oh, I don't insist on it and I know it is a luxury.....I just really, really like it some days.

[redvlagrl]

Originally Posted by Ruthiegirl

Oh, I don't insist on it and I know it is a luxury.....I just really, really like it some days.

LOL, for sure. People here think I must not feel the heat or that I don't think it's hot when it's 36 degrees. Of course I think it's hot. But for us, 7 or 8 really unbearably hot days don't make it worthwhile to get a/c. There are definitely days/nights where I'd like it. Those days I go to the mall and walk around for a while to cool off.