How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

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).<p>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.

&#62;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?<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.

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:<p>- solid rock for the base to hold the structure (hence no marsh, see NYC)<p>- steel, steel concrete (look at any skyscraper photos) for the structure<p>- no open windows above the hight of 2-3 floors because of the wind etc. (neither below, because of the smog) -&#62; hence AC. And elevator.<p>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).

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

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.

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.<p>However, I feel like this section (which I consider beneficial without question) was glossed over.<p><i>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.</i><p>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 <i>Air Conditioning</i> (eliminating humidity) vs. <i>Air Cooling</i> unit.<p>[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.<p>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.

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.

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).<p>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.

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