In humid city's in the USA and other countries do most homes have air conditioners?

It seems like most people have air conditioners in Philly.

It’s very common in the U.S. Most better-off families have a unit that does the whole house. While poorer (generally speaking) people have one of the window units that does a room or a certain area.

We leave ours on during the hottest times and turn it off at night until the lows are too hot for me to sleep.

In Florida, you could barely survive without air conditioning in the summer. They are ubiquitous. We didn’t have central air in our older home in New Jersey until about 10 years ago. I don’t always leave it on, but it certainly is a great comfort on the hotter, stickier days and nights.

Tennessee is one of the worst states for the humidity in the summertime. Nashville sets in a bowl with mountains completly surrounding it. in the sumer, the mountains prevent cooler air from breaking the cycle of hot, humid weather…...therefore, most homes have heavy duty air conditioners to combat the heat.

In Mississippi they did.It was the only way I could get through a doorway with my gigantic head of hair!~lol!

When I spent time in Connecticut a few summers ago (House swapped for a few weeks with friends of the family), there was no A.C., and it was ridiculously humid.
At least, humid compared to what I’m used to in southern California. Maybe I’m just weak.

There all over the place, even here where I live and we’re pretty far north.

Where I live it is usually hot and very humid in the summer. New homes generally have air conditioning, people who can afford it have it installed in their older homes, and some folks have window units.
I have none, although we do have a window unit that we can put in if there is a long spell of very hot weather predicted.
I prefer fresh air and work hard at keeping on top of passive ways of keeping the house cool in summer, like pulling shades and closing up the house in the heat of the midday and then opening up when it cools off. We have shade trees too, that helps.

@Sarcasm Yes, you are just weak..:) All you guys in southern CA are weak like that. Just kidding. I used to live in MS and it was just horrendous. Have lived in SE all my life and the entire southeast is air conditioned. I never vacation in the SE unless I am on a beach.

Air conditioning requires a power source to run. The parts of Africa I know do not have a steady supply of electricity, and even if they did, it is an expensive luxury for most (you do not need it to survive).

Even in Hawaii, where the climate is similar to parts of Africa (there are so many micro climates across Africa it is hard to say exactly which you mean…), air conditioning is often considered a luxury. It is prevalent in the city but uncommon in rural areas. City folk are such pansies. They are afraid of sweat and fresh air. They also insist on formal dress (long sleeve shirts, slacks, fully covered dress shoes, sometimes suits) so that they require AC to stay comfortable. People should be more reasonable. In climates like Hawaii, people should dress accordingly. Then you wouldn’t look stupid walking around outside, and you wouldn’t need to cool buildings down so much.

I grudgingly designed air conditioning for a living for a while (grudgingly because I also view it as an unnecessary luxury in tropical climates where temperature varies maybe 10 degrees over the year and no one is going to die of heat stroke or frost bite). Expensive is a relative term so I’ll say that it is a hefty added cost. In commercial buildings, energy cost due to HVAC can be 30% of the total cost of electricity or more.

Indoor air quality in an AC environment cannot compare to fresh air. Industry would debate this, and point to their standards for fresh air, but the fact is while AC may not be terrible for you, fresh air is always better. You can design an AC system to supply 100% outside air, but this is not viewed as economical because you have to treat all of your air constantly which requires energy (as opposed to recirculating most of it and treating just a little bit of fresh OA).

In tropical climates with tradewinds like Hawaii, there are a lot of passive methods for achieving adequate ventilation and comfortable temperatures. Large overhangs, openable windows, orienting large glass windows towards the north or south as opposed to east or west (particularly west as afternoon sun is the strongest here), creating a bit of stack effect, good insulation, presence of water or shady areas in the wind path of your house to cool the air before it enters are some of the ways you can stay comfortable without needing AC.

I think good city planning also helps. It has been proven that cities are heat sinks in themselves.

@lilikoi loved your tips and others tips on keeping a home cooler. I am in a apartment block in the city, so pathways etc., will not work. Someone mentioned closing curtains which I do, and it does help a lot I think. I would love more tips if any one has any. I do now have air con but am dreading my first air con bill! Here we have to be cautious at night with open windows as people climb in and rob you or hurt you. I have spent two summers with closed windows and a fan. I decided no way no more.

I’m in VA and have never lived in a home without air conditioning. My current location has window units (I could not get to sleep otherwise), but everywhere else has had central air conditioning. It’s not the temperature that will get me but the humidity.

@Just_Justine The apartment building constrains your options. They may have been able to design the building to encourage natural ventilation (overhangs or fins make a huge difference!), but it’s not cheap to retrofit if they haven’t done it already. Closing curtains does make a difference. You might suggest they put bars on the windows so that everyone can keep them open, but that would impact the aesthetic. In your case, I think the simplest thing to do would be to AC. Split-systems are more efficient than window units, but window units are much cheaper. What part of Africa are you in? Just curious.

I’m sure I must know somebody who has air conditioning in the home, but I can’t actually think of anyone. I have lived half my life in the Northeast, with its hot and humid summers, and half in warm but arid Northern California, where the truly hot-hot-hot days are few. My mother in Massachusetts did have a room air conditioner in the living room. I’ve never used anything but fans.

We keep the doors closed and shades down in summer until the outside and inside temperatures come about even in early evening, and then we open up and turn on the house fans. That way we retain the nighttime coolness for most of the day.

Workplaces and public places such as theaters and stores are apt to be violently air-conditioned in hot weather. I have never understood why in summer people want to keep indoor temperatures lower than they would dream of tolerating in winter. If a certain temperature is comfortable, why isn’t it comfortable in any season? Having to bundle up in July and shiver indoors only to be stopped by a wall of heat when you walk outside seems crazy to me.

In US having an air conditioner has more to do with how hot the climate is, rather than the humidity in my opinion. Many homes in Michigan, especially older ones, don’t have central air. In Florida there are some homes that have dehumidifiers, or some sort of humidity thermostat along with having central air. I’m not sure how they work, but I sold houses, and some of them had a thermostat that worked along with the air conditioner, when the house went above a certain humidity the unit went on.

@lilikoi South Africa so I could say we have constant electricity supplies, but I guess you heard about our power saving mission last year? Where everyone everywhere was cut off for three hours three times a week. It was horrendous. I heard our electricity is very cheap? I would love to compare. I don’t know how much I will pay this month with my new unit installed, but my bill is normally R250.00 per month (divide by 7.25). I live alone and have power save lamps. I wash twice a week in cold water. Is that high? My home is small too. I will keep you posted on my new bill this month for interest sake? However they are said to be raising it by some 50%.

@Just_Justine you might be interested in this question I asked a while back about how much people pay for electricity/energy around the world. http://www.fluther.com/disc/54496/how-much-do-you-pay-per-kilowatt-hour-kwh-for-your-electricity/ it didn’t get many answers, but still interesting.

@Just_Justine I think we pay 25 to 30 US cents here per kWh, but our cost is one of if not the highest in the U.S.

@JLeslie Thanks for posting link. I’ll answer your question :) In a building that is not well naturally ventilated, air can become stagnant and moist air can thus help to cause mold growth. Mold is such a buzz word in the real estate market nowadays that dehumidifying – or proper ventilation – is key to prevent it. Cold air cannot hold as much moisture as warm air, so water gets removed from the air in a warm humid environment during air conditioning as part of the process. That’s why most people say that if you’re gonna dehumidify you might as well A/C because it’s kinda a 2-for-1. Hard to say which one drives AC use more as they usually go hand in hand.

@lilikoi Mold was BIG in Florida of course, I was a realtor there. I live in Memphis, which is very humid in the summer. I seperate my heating zones, and barely heat the part of the house we don’t use to save on energy, but in the summer I open everything up and air conditiion everything for that very reason, to not risk mold growing.

I live in Milwaukee and we have central air but I can’t remember the last time we used it. Our house is shaded by four large oaks and it keeps the house cool in the day and in the evenings we open the windows in the sleeping rooms to let the night air in. Every now and again it’s even then to hot and sticky to sleep so we turn on the AC>

I would have to say in the US yes. Leaving it on at night is a personal preference though.

@SeventhSense Unless you live in parts of the south in the summer. Florida is many times 80 degrees at night in July, August, September.

Where I live, nearly every private home has air conditioning, and certainly every business has to have it. We sometimes experience 10 – 12 days in a row of over 100 degrees, and many other scattered days over 100 throughout the summer.

@JLeslie Sometimes, I think we’d be happy to even see 80 at night!

@JLeslie
No doubt. In August in Florida, I could walk outside naked and be sopping wet with sweat within minutes.

@suncatnin I loved living in FL. The best part is you get 3 months of “spring weather” in the winter. Longest “spring” in the US outside of southern California. And, I didn’t mind the summer. The evenings are still warm, but the hottest days are not as hot as where I live now in Memphis. FL almost never goes above 100.

Yes, Anyone who can afford an air conditioner has one. People would more likey be cold in the winter then sweltering in the summer lol I live near cincinnati ohio so we are not used to extremely hot weather.

@Mikelbf2000 yes it did make me wonder that. You suffer cold winters, we have very very mild ones. Although I am a chilly whatsit loll. So if you ran both it seems like your accounts would be very high.