Believe it or not, there are people in the Metro D.C area who choose to live without air conditioning.
Growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., where summers are short and heat advisories are rare, Elissa David never had air conditioning. Her parents didn’t believe in it. Now she lives here, where on some summer days the only thing higher than the temperature is the humidity, but she is sticking with family tradition: She never switches on the window unit in her fourth-floor Arlington apartment. She keeps her shades half-drawn, turns on a few fans and dresses in shorts.
To each his own I suppose, but I just don’t get it. For the record, we are definately fans of air conditioning here at the Mataconis homestead. More than once, actually, I’ve wondered if Benedict XVI would consider granting sainthood to Willis Haviland Carrier.
July 20th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Gee, Doug, we are not the purist that Elissa is, but we at least minimize air conditioning. We live in a large old, uninsulated farmhouse. Our air conditioning is mostly high ceilings and large leafy trees. That, plus we are not located in the heat island.
Since we spend the bulk of our time outside the house, there is no point to cool it. We do have a window unit for the bedroom, and one for the library, and one for the kitchen. We use these only as required. When it is ghastly out, they are enough to take the curse off.
There are those that claim we should ALL live in town because it is supposedly more efficient, less distance traveled (not necessarily less time), shared walls, and all that.
I’m not convinced, but then, I’m not refrigerated either. I think urban areas are enormous energy sinks, for just the reasons you mention.
Why is it that in the winter we set the thermostat at 75 and in summer we set it at 68? Wouldn’t the other way around make more sense?
July 21st, 2006 at 11:43 am
Ray,
You’re in a better situation to minimize a/c use than we are, I think, because of where you live. We’re in a three-story well-insulated townhouse that gets the sun practially all day. As our experience last week when the a/c failed showed, life without a/c is pretty unbearable. And even minimizing the a/c by turning up the thermostat doesn’t always work because the third floor traps the heat.
The problem isn’t people today, its the way they build houses. Thomas Jefferson, after all, managed to build Monticello in a way that actually made summers bearable in Charlottesville.