
How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America - mattraibert
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/keepin-it-cool-how-the-air-conditioner-made-modern-america/241892/
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gregpilling
I live in Tucson, Arizona, and I own a few houses built before A/C became
common. I have one house (a rental) made of mud adobe, which is essentially
mudbricks made into 14" thick walls. It was built in 1919 and has the
interesting feature that it takes a few days to change temperature. There is
always a week here that it changes from a nice spring to a hot summer and the
house takes a long time to make the transition. It also stays cool pretty
effectively with only a small window A/C unit. My current residence is a 50 yr
old double brick wall house that doesn't do as well, but better than you might
think for a house with zero insulation in the walls. Average bill in the
summer was $300 before I put solar in this year (3300 ft house).

I definitely agree with the article - this city would look a lot different
without A/C. But the mud adobe and high ceilings work surprisingly well. The
heat isn't as bad as you might think either - as one of my wife's colleagues
remarked "It is a city that you can eat at least one meal a day outside" which
means breakfast or dinner in the summer and lunch in the winter.

~~~
chopsueyar
Its a dry heat. I live in the Tampa, Florida area, and once it gets past 84
degrees, I feel quite miserable.

My current dwelling is a 50s ranchette with concrete block walls. The orginal
Jalousie (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalousie_window>) windows have been
replaced, but the house has no insulation in the attic.

The house had several window A/Cs, one was from the early 80s. I replaced them
with a 3-zone minisplit.

I cannot recommend the minisplit enough. Of course, this house is less than
1,000 sqft of A/C'ed space.

You're lucky, you can just use swampcoolers. We have to use electricity to
keep cool.

I've been to Arizona in the summer and prefer that kind of heat.

~~~
ams6110
So why don't you insulate the attic?

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chopsueyar
I am waiting to have spray-foam insulation installed. If I use traditional
fiberglass and a radiant heat barrier, I will then have to pay to have it
removed and disposed of, prior to the spray foam insulation.

There is a soy-based spray foam insulation I plan on having installed.

<http://soythane.mybigcommerce.com/>

<http://www.biobased.net/>

A bit more expensive, but I believe it is worth it.

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lukeschlather
>Minneapolis seems like an odd place for the first home air conditioner, but,
hey, if you've got the cash, who's to stop you?

I'm guessing the author hasn't lived in Minnesota. For one thing, the
temperature differential is much higher than in Southern States. It may reach
110 degrees F in Phoenix, but it almost never drops below 32 F. In contrast,
Minnesota gets temperatures from 0 F to 90 F.

There's also the question of energy use. The Minnesotan winter makes a huge
amount of energy (for heating) an absolute need for survival. When you're used
to expending all that energy 4-6 months out of the year, using a much smaller
amount to stay comfortable when the temperature peaks above 80 F or so is not
an incredibly noticeable loss.

When some sort of active climate control is a requirement for life, it's
unsurprising that Minnesota did it first - since AC is more a luxury in the
Southern states, even though the heat can kill you if you don't have some sort
of effective cooling.

~~~
Wilduck
Correction. Minnesota gets temperatures from -20 to 100. Tomorrow has a high
of 97. Definitely not an odd place for AC.

~~~
genieyclo
0 deg F is a t-shirt jog here in Minnesota during the winter. Cold is -20 to
-40 range. And within the last few weeks, we've had several days 90+ and 100+
deg F. There's a reason lots of the old people migrate with the ducks down
south for winter.

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yaks_hairbrush
Pretty much... I like to tell people that it's not really cold here until your
snot starts freezing the instant you go outside. That tends to happen at 10-15
below zero (Fahrenheit).

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Create
The journalist completely misses the point: high level of urbanisation, high
population density was allowed by skyscrapers. To have skyscrapers, you
famously had to have 2-3 conditions:

\- solid rock for the base to hold the structure (hence no marsh, see NYC)

\- steel, steel concrete (look at any skyscraper photos) for the structure

\- no open windows above the hight of 2-3 floors because of the wind etc.
(neither below, because of the smog) -> hence AC. And elevator.

AC was a key building block for the hubs of "Modern North America". The other
key was feeding (artificial fertilisers and huge mechanised farms). And an
Empire to finance it (just lift the debt ceiling PR euphemism in today's
economics terms).

~~~
mahyarm
You can open windows in apartments higher than 3 stories. I remember opening
windows on the 12th floor of apartments.

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mnutt
You can open windows on the 35th floor of my apartment building here in NYC.
It was built in the early 1900s, so perhaps it's related to architecture
choices / liability issues which weren't around back then.

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blantonl
Our family lives in San Antonio, TX where we are obviously dependent on air
conditioning during at least 9 months of the year, but we typically keep our
temps at about 76-78 degrees. I cannot even imagine keep our place at 72
degrees since the kiddos would complain it is cold and I would receive a $700
electric bill. Yes, electricity is very expensive in Texas.

However, we have a second home in Montana where we spend our summer away from
the heat and humidity of South Texas. It has no air conditioning and, some
summer days get well into the upper 90's here. It is amazing the techniques
we'll employ to keep the place cool during the hot days, and they always keep
the place in the 70's. We close certain blinds, open the upper windows and
lower windows at night. When it cools off we will allow the cool air to pool
in our downstairs areas and then close it off and "save" it. We will alternate
between upstairs and downstairs sleeping based on the weather.

Being from New Orleans, I treasure cool air, and being in Montana right now I
realize how cool it is. No pun intended :)

~~~
dhughes
Why not use that sunshine to generate power?

~~~
chopsueyar
Solar panels are expensive and not very efficient and require a decent amount
of square footage. Plus, batteries are expensive too and can take up a decent
amount of space.

~~~
mmagin
Probably some kind of absorption chiller like this is a more sensible idea for
solar powered airconditioning: <http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/yazaki-solar-
HVAC/>

~~~
chopsueyar
Good link. I have been looking for something like this?

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techiferous
I've heard that air conditioning had an effect on culture, too. Before A/C,
you'd sit out on your porch to cool off and as a consequence get to know your
neighbors. After A/C, you'd retreat indoors and live a socially isolated life.

~~~
maw
I live in a relatively wealthy part of Mexico City. I don't know my neighbors,
and, for the most part, I don't think that they know each other either.

Nobody here has air conditioning or proper heating. The climate is very
benign, rarely getting hot or cold. There's little need for interior climate
control, and even less insulation: windows are paper thin and don't shut very
tight, among other things. (However, a lot of people do have small portable
electric heaters, which are very inefficient to begin with and made more so by
the lack of insulation.)

Maybe having or not having AC plays a role as to whether you get to know your
neighbors, but it's not the only and certainly not the defining one.
Television and not working where you live are, I suspect, far more important.

~~~
chopsueyar
What type of internet connectivity is available in your area? How much is
housing/cost-of-living expenses?

~~~
maw
It's adequate to work remotely, at least if you don't need to upload large
amounts of data often.

As to cost of living in general, that's the kind of question that sounds very
simple but turns out to have a rather complex answer. Get in touch (see the
contact info in my profile) you're interested.

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jamesbkel
I definitely agree with author's point about how A/C has shaped American life
- not necessarily for the better and perhaps with significant downsides, most
notably at a social level.

However, I feel like this section (which I consider beneficial without
question) was glossed over.

 _And hubs of business and technology in hot regions of the globe, such as
Dubai, may never have taken off... Computers throw off a lot of heat, too. The
development of the entire IT industry might not have happened without cooling
technologies first pioneered by air conditioning._

That said, I'm just as guilty as the next American. Living in Boston, there's
not much I can do about avoiding snow, so at least I have the comfort of my
A/C if it gets really bad in the summer. Though I do try to be responsible and
limit use to primarily _Air Conditioning_ (eliminating humidity) vs. _Air
Cooling_ unit.

[update] As a follow up for anyone in climates which experience hot days but
cool nights: if you own a house with an attic, a whole-house fan is a great
investment vs. central A/C. In a matter of minutes a whole-house fan can
create massive delta temp if it's cool outside at night. It's actually quite
shocking how effective it is.

If you're home all day then perhaps not for you, since the best use is to get
home from work and turn it on around dusk, turn off overnight (I have a timer
set on mine) and next day close up all the windows first thing before work.

~~~
lutorm
We're using the window procedure to keep our house near Boston cool, and it
definitely works. Most of the time it's sufficient (except when I turn on the
3x24" monitors...), but when there's a heat spell and nighttime temps don't
drop below 22C or so, it heats up to a very uncomfortable level over a few
days and we have to use the AC at least to keep the bedroom at a reasonable
temperature.

~~~
chopsueyar
It would be cool if you could automate a system like that with window sensors,
multiple temperature sensors around the house, and the ability to
automatically enable/disable the A/C and the attic fan.

It could text/email/call you to open the windows, and not stop bothering you
until it detects the windows are open.

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datboi448
I've lived in the two heat extremes in Texas. Dry Dallas and humid Houston.
A/C is definitely important but I've always found myself needing to use it
less in Dallas. I can open the window in the evening and let the breeze blow
into my room and close it before I leave to class in the morning. In Houston
A/C is necessary even into the night as the heat in water vapor lingers
around.

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cstross
As a point of note, domestic air conditioning is close to universal in Japan
... but in the UK, less than 3% of dwellings have a/c. Even in parts of
southern Europe that get pretty hot, such as Italy and Greece, domestic a/c is
relatively uncommon (with penetration in the 20-40% level despite regular
32-42 celsius temperatures on summer).

The nature of the housing stock is partly responsible, of course. The average
British dwelling is 75 years old; retrofitting central aircon to a cramped
dwelling with stone or brick walls that wasn't designed for it is a lot
hairier than installing pipes for hot water radiator driven central heating.

~~~
asdkl234890
> _Even in parts of southern Europe that get pretty hot_

Mediterranean climate - dry heat, nothing like the American South.

~~~
ido
As someone who grew up near the Mediterranean shore I assure you it's not dry
heat, at least not close (tens of kilometers) to the sea (which is where most
people live).

Tel Aviv has a similar climate to Atlanta only with less rain (which doesn't
mean it doesn't get extremely humid, just doesn't rain as often).

~~~
asdkl234890
As someone who lived outside the 10 kilometer radius, but did vacation there,
I agree with you. I forgot about those last kilometers.

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c1sc0
A thought just occurred to me: instead of bailing out Europe's Southern
countries, why don't we just install airco instead?

