Man, when you’re in the high 90s, with humidity in the same numbers, it doesn’t matter how high your ceilings are, how much airflow you have under the house and through the attic, it sucks. And by sucks, I mean it can kill people sometimes.
Growing up here in the south, we didn’t have AC until somewhere in the late eighties, and that was a big window unit. Most days during the summer, you had no ability to do much of anything without suffering. After the window unit, we could at least eat dinner without being nauseous from heat.
This house didn’t have central air until 2003, when I put it in after I made a small bundle selling a book. I will never fucking go back to not having it. We keep it set fairly warm unless my wife is having trouble (MS fucks your ability to thermoregulate, and getting overheated can cause problems that can last weeks), but it simply isn’t realistic to do without it.
I have no clue what Europe is like in terms of summer weather patterns. But the south has these old houses like ours that are built to make the weather as livable as possible, and they don’t really succeed any more.
If I had the money, I’d likely switch to a heat pump, but I don’t, so oh well.
And that’s not even going into the extra expenses that come without AC of some kind. You get the heat and humidity going, and mold becomes a guarantee rather than a possibility. Wood warps, and stuff like plaster or drywall don’t exactly enjoy the humidity either.
Splits with heat pumps are more efficient anyway. The fancy ones with ceiling cassettes seem easier to install and maintain too, with zonal temp controls for even better efficiency.
Everyone has AC(often more than one), but noone has any money to pay for the electricity to use the AC. So many people dont use them or only use them for a couple of hours.
