(for choosing to live without air conditioning)
My response to the permie friend who posted this:
Not really, I’ve just done various passive retrofits for shade etc. Basic stuff. Lived without AC in Texas also.
I also don’t like feeling trapped in a shut-up house, and having high electric bills.
And I don’t like seeing people held hostage by the power companies, so i try to share DIY low-tech stuff.
Visitors have commented on how (relatively) cool it is inside the house.
And of course humans lived without AC for millennia. It’s too bad our “modern” houses are actually so primitive, in terms of not being very adapted to the prevailing climate. We can retrofit, though.
Also (added later):
We never had AC in school when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s. Never had it in college dorms or classrooms, even.
Grandparents’ houses had no AC. And their houses and yards and surrounding neighborhoods were a kids’ paradise.
When I was young and skinny, I got cold really easily. After menopause I gained a very large amount of weight. So i do feel the heat more. I don’t care; I would rather incorporate that into my liberation experiments than endure life with AC.
(Like most people, on a super hot day I can certainly enjoy a bit of AC by going to see a movie or going to the public library!)
From talking to people and from my own experience, I noticed the body seems to have a set temperature envelope that moves up and down according to the season and place. So, for example, I’m a person living without AC who almost needs a sweater when the temperature drops to 78. (Once winter comes, my temperature envelope adjusts accordingly.)
NOTE this is not meant to shame people who depend on AC. There are many reasons why people have come to depend on AC. Part of my work is pushing for a return to more ecologically oriented building designs. As in more oriented toward the prevailing weather of each place. This is an area of Permaculture design that sometimes gets overlooked but it’s very huge and exciting.
Another, trickier factor in AC dependence: We can’t overlook people’s health issues, many of which are caused by hyper-industrialized capitalist culture. Unreasonable job conditions, vast climate-controlled mega-stores, and such keep people stuck indoors for huge chunks of their lives, and then they can’t handle the ambient temperature of their place.
Yet, it’s often very possible to live without AC (or at least get by with a lot less) if you have a properly designed building or some good retrofits. Window shades, awnings, trellises, etc.
And TREES.
Oh — Another trick that I sometimes forget to mention is that at some points of the day, outside is cooler than inside! If you can manage to create an outdoor screened structure, it can be a real asset. Or if your area doesn’t have many mosquitoes you could just go on the roof or sit on the porch even if you don’t have a screen.
And before anyone says try that in Florida … i live in Florida! And before anyone says try that inland and not on the ocean … I’ve done that also.
PS. And YES, it is hot! It’s summer! That’s how summer works, especially in Florida. To conserve money and fuel, the best approach is to cool the person rather than to cool the air. Everyone has a different comfort zone anyway, so in a given building, different occupants will be having different levels of comfort. Better to work on cooling your own body appropriately. With iced drinks etc. Also in an open-air house, you will quickly notice the warm spots and cool spots of the house. And the locations will change at different times of day. Hang out where it feels best!
It’s about shade, and airflow. By the way, I’ve experienced, and other people have told me too, that sometimes it’s cooler to let the air flow in naturally than to have a mechanized fan blowing air. But there are ways to position a fan to enhance airflow rather than impede it.
Another motivating factor in my choice to do without AC is that we are frying the planet by trying to forced-air cool the entire insides of our buildings. Making the streets hotter, and increasing misery for people who don’t have access to the same level of artificial cooling. And then it becomes a vicious cycle, as people just want to hibernate indoors because “it’s so hot outside.”
Further Exploration:
• Passive cooling (Wikipedia): “Passive cooling is a building design approach that focuses on heat gain control and heat dissipation in a building in order to improve the indoor thermal comfort with low or no energy consumption. … This approach works either by preventing heat from entering the interior (heat gain prevention) or by removing heat from the building (natural cooling) … ” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_cooling
• Passive design architecture examples around the world 2025 (by Saumya Verma; Novatr): “This article will explain passive design, what principles passive building design follows, passive design solutions and provide examples of passive design architecture from around the globe.” https://www.novatr.com/blog/passive-design-architecture-examples
• Want more? There’s so much! Search for terms like passive cooling, indigenous natural building, vernacular architecture in hot humid climates, and so on! If you want to know how to stay cool in your prevailing climate, search for how people in other times and places with similar climates have done it. It’s great, now we have access to building wisdom from throughout history and all over the world!