Metro areas with the most and fewest households using air conditioning

[Roadgeekteen]

My grandparents who live near Lowell in the woods don't have AC but I have never felt like they needed it as the trees keep it cool.

[Scott5114]

Around here, most places have AC but a lot of our schools don't. This can be a problem near the beginning and end of our school years.

Air conditioning in schools needs to be required by law in states where the temperature frequently gets above 80 degrees.

Why?  People existed in warm climates way before modernized air conditioning was even a thing. 

People existed before roads-themed web forums were a thing too. What's your point? Having air conditioning would probably mean students could concentrate better on what the teacher's saying or their schoolwork instead of the heat. I know I would get jack shit done in a room at 82°, and the only thing anyone would learn would be what me bitching about the heat sounds like.

[Roadgeekteen]

None of the elementary schools had AC in western MA when I was a kid, I don't believe.

That was a while ago and it doesn't get that hot up there.

[Max Rockatansky]

Around here, most places have AC but a lot of our schools don't. This can be a problem near the beginning and end of our school years.

Air conditioning in schools needs to be required by law in states where the temperature frequently gets above 80 degrees.

Why?  People existed in warm climates way before modernized air conditioning was even a thing. 

People existed before roads-themed web forums were a thing too. What's your point? Having air conditioning would probably mean students could concentrate better on what the teacher's saying or their schoolwork instead of the heat. I know I would get jack shit done in a room at 82°, and the only thing anyone would learn would be what me bitching about the heat sounds like.

But we are going to use an outside temperature of 80F as being the point where AC should be legislatively mandated?  There is a huge difference between consistent 90F and 100F temperatures than 80F.  Assuming the outside daily high is consistently near that 80F during the warm parts of the year then it ought to be probably in the low 70s if not lower inside.

I don't know, almost everyone I know who is from the warmer parts of the west coast keeps their home above 80F and works in temperatures at or above it as well.  My wife wanted to keep the house at 85F this year in the summer, I guess the County Office is set to 80F.  I suppose a lot of climate accumulation goes into what I see here and previously in the other desert regions I lived/worked in.

[Scott5114]

80° may be a bit low of a cutoff, but you've got to have one somewhere. Even on an 80° day, indoor temperatures might rise to unbearable levels depending on construction of the building, lack of insulation, rooms on higher floors or along south-facing walls, placement or lack of windows, etc. You also have to account for humidity, which isn't much of a problem along the west coast but definitely is in the South and Mid-Atlantic. With the typical humidity in Oklahoma, I definitely wouldn't want to be in an un-air-conditioned building in the 80s.

The highest I've ever seen anyone keep their thermostat in Oklahoma is 78°, and that's my parents. Most people keep the AC set lower in the 70s (I usually default to 72°, but my wife tends to reset it somewhere in the 70°—75° range depending on the outside temperature and her mood). Public businesses often set their thermostats even lower, somewhere in the 60s, low enough that people that tend to get cold easily tend to bring a jacket with them in the summer when they plan on staying indoors somewhere like a mall or big-box store for a longer period of time. I would imagine all of this is due to the higher humidity requiring lower temperatures to reach a similar level of comfort.

[1995hoo]

I suppose how one sets the thermostat could be a thread unto itself. We have a programmable thermostat set as follows:

AC season–goes up to 78° at 7:30 AM (8:30 on weekends), goes to 76° at 6:00 PM, then goes to 73° at 10:00 PM for sleeping. If we're out of town or out of the house all day, I manually adjust it to hold 78° via the "Vacation" feature (which lets me specify departure and return times) or the "Hold Until" feature that lets you specify when to go back to the regular program.

Heating season–goes up to 69° at 7:30 AM (8:30 on weekends) and holds that until 10:00 PM, when it goes down to 58° for sleeping (to be clear, it never gets down to 58°; the point is to set it low enough that it won't blow warm air during the night because that wakes us up). When neither of us worked at home, it was set at 60° during the workday, and nowadays if we go on vacation or are out of the house all day I adjust it to 60° via "Vacation" or "Hold Until." Before we replaced our HVAC system and thermostat in 2014, we set the heat to 65° during the day when we were at home, but we found that the new system is so much more efficient that we can set it at 69° and the gas bill is still half of what it was before.

Does 78° sometimes get warm in late afternoon on summer days? Of course. We turn on the ceiling fans and we have other fans to circulate more air.

I know some people who argue that the setting should be the same year-round, but I don't agree for two reasons. One is the obvious utility bills. The other is that I find indoor comfort to be a function of how it feels relative to the outside temperature. If it feels like 102° outside as it does today, 78° feels cool when you come inside. Plus in the winter I prefer to set it cooler because you can always put on something warmer. We wear sweaters and sweatshirts indoors during the winter. No reason not to do so.

[Duke87]

Re: AC in schools, our local public schools here generally only have AC in rooms that do not have windows. This was true when I was a student and as far as I can tell is still true now.

The thing is the school year runs from around Labor day through June 20th or so (exact end date will depend on number of snow days). The local climate is such that the lack of AC in those classrooms isn't ever uncomfortable except intermittently for a couple weeks at the beginning of the school year and a few weeks at the end of it. Especially considering school lets out no later than 3 PM, which is a couple hours before the temperature peaks on a typical summer day.

The city thus made a fairly sensible decision when building all these schools that it was not worth the expense of installing air conditioners throughout buildings that were going to be unoccupied for most of the cooling season. And yes, they are sensitive to health risks and will send students home early if it starts to get too hot, but they rarely need to do this.

It is worth noting that other civic buildings around here which are used through the summer (libraries, courthouses, police stations, town/city halls, etc.) are reliably air-conditioned.

[Roadgeekteen]

Re: AC in schools, our local public schools here generally only have AC in rooms that do not have windows. This was true when I was a student and as far as I can tell is still true now.

The thing is the school year runs from around Labor day through June 20th or so (exact end date will depend on number of snow days). The local climate is such that the lack of AC in those classrooms isn't ever uncomfortable except intermittently for a couple weeks at the beginning of the school year and a few weeks at the end of it. Especially considering school lets out no later than 3 PM, which is a couple hours before the temperature peaks on a typical summer day.

The city thus made a fairly sensible decision when building all these schools that it was not worth the expense of installing air conditioners throughout buildings that were going to be unoccupied for most of the cooling season. And yes, they are sensitive to health risks and will send students home early if it starts to get too hot, but they rarely need to do this.

It is worth noting that other civic buildings around here which are used through the summer (libraries, courthouses, police stations, town/city halls, etc.) are reliably air-conditioned.

Some schools in Needham also host summer programs for kids.

[jeffandnicole]

Thinking of all the row homes in Philly alone, much less the surrounding area, I can't imagine just 60,000 homes don't have air conditioning.

[Roadgeekteen]

Thinking of all the row homes in Philly alone, much less the surrounding area, I can't imagine just 60,000 homes don't have air conditioning.

Do row homes not have AC?

[1995hoo]

Re: AC in schools, our local public schools here generally only have AC in rooms that do not have windows. This was true when I was a student and as far as I can tell is still true now.

The thing is the school year runs from around Labor day through June 20th or so (exact end date will depend on number of snow days). The local climate is such that the lack of AC in those classrooms isn't ever uncomfortable except intermittently for a couple weeks at the beginning of the school year and a few weeks at the end of it. Especially considering school lets out no later than 3 PM, which is a couple hours before the temperature peaks on a typical summer day.

The city thus made a fairly sensible decision when building all these schools that it was not worth the expense of installing air conditioners throughout buildings that were going to be unoccupied for most of the cooling season. And yes, they are sensitive to health risks and will send students home early if it starts to get too hot, but they rarely need to do this.

It is worth noting that other civic buildings around here which are used through the summer (libraries, courthouses, police stations, town/city halls, etc.) are reliably air-conditioned.

Some schools in Needham also host summer programs for kids.

When I was a little kid, my first elementary school (which closed after I finished the third grade) had a rec center program in the cafeteria all summer despite the lack of AC. A lot of us attended it a couple of days a week because our moms regarded that as a chance to get things done without having the kids underfoot.

[dkblake]

Around here, most places have AC but a lot of our schools don't. This can be a problem near the beginning and end of our school years.

Air conditioning in schools needs to be required by law in states where the temperature frequently gets above 80 degrees.

Why?  People existed in warm climates way before modernized air conditioning was even a thing.  We managed to survive the two weeks when it was approaching 110F in Fresno when our AC was down this month.  Even now we keep the house at 82F, we used to keep it at 85F. 

At least in the US, people obviously did exist in warm climates but not as much as now; the map of the most populous cities in the US before AC is far more northern than it is now.

Thinking of all the row homes in Philly alone, much less the surrounding area, I can't imagine just 60,000 homes don't have air conditioning.

Do row homes not have AC?

I would assume that many buildings in poorer areas of northern cities would not have AC or would have crappy old window units at best.

[hotdogPi]

Before I moved, my house had air conditioning, but it stopped working, so we installed a room air conditioner. Would that house count as part of the 91.1% or the 8.9%?

[1995hoo]

....

Thinking of all the row homes in Philly alone, much less the surrounding area, I can't imagine just 60,000 homes don't have air conditioning.

Do row homes not have AC?

I would assume that many buildings in poorer areas of northern cities would not have AC or would have crappy old window units at best.

Not just in poorer areas. There are plenty of older row houses that were built before central AC became common, even in decent areas (quite common even in good areas of Brooklyn, for example). My grandparents lived in a row house in Brooklyn and they put a window unit in their bedroom, but in the rest of the house you made do with open windows and fans. Downside of this in Brooklyn was that it also meant having very thin curtains on the windows in the guestroom (in order to allow the box fan in the window to do its job), so there was nothing to keep the streetlights outside from disrupting your sleep. If you lived there you'd get used to it quickly enough, of course.

[Dirt Roads]

I would assume that many buildings in poorer areas of northern cities would not have AC or would have crappy old window units at best.

Not just in poorer areas. There are plenty of older row houses that were built before central AC became common, even in decent areas (quite common even in good areas of Brooklyn, for example). My grandparents lived in a row house in Brooklyn and they put a window unit in their bedroom, but in the rest of the house you made do with open windows and fans. Downside of this in Brooklyn was that it also meant having very thin curtains on the windows in the guestroom (in order to allow the box fan in the window to do its job), so there was nothing to keep the streetlights outside from disrupting your sleep. If you lived there you'd get used to it quickly enough, of course.

When I lived in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, I was in a nice large subdivision built in the 1960s and 1970s.  Hardly any of the homes had central air conditioning, and mine certainly didn't.  But it's not like it didn't get hot during the summers.  I remember one day in late February that it hit 80 degrees.  The leaves all dried out and I spent the evening raking.  They usually were covered with snow and ice all of January and February.  That was the only day I wished I had some form of air conditioning.

[Duke87]

Thinking of all the row homes in Philly alone, much less the surrounding area, I can't imagine just 60,000 homes don't have air conditioning.

Before I moved, my house had air conditioning, but it stopped working, so we installed a room air conditioner. Would that house count as part of the 91.1% or the 8.9%?

This is an important point to be clear on here: the census graph on the first page appears to consider all forms of air conditioning at all scales. So if you have a single window AC for the master bedroom and the rest of your home has no AC, that is counted as a "home with air conditioning" in those numbers

So, 1, that house would count in the 91.1%. And yes, a lot more than 60,000 homes in Philadelphia lack central AC, but that's not what's being measured.

This, in turn, means that 55.7% of homes in Seattle have zero air conditioning - not even a single room that can be retreated to for some relief. 44.3% have some air conditioning, but may not have it available in all rooms. According to this page, if you look specifically for central AC, only about 13% of homes in the Seattle metro had it as of 2011.

[vdeane]

Window-style AC seems to be the norm for apartments around upstate NY, as well.  Usually there's a hole in the wall where the AC unit is.  Central AC is only really found on higher-end units.

[OCGuy81]

I can't imagine Anchorage has too many people running AC.

[JayhawkCO]

I can't imagine Anchorage has too many people running AC.

Fairbanks probably has more honestly.  It does get far warmer inland.

Chris

[Scott5114]

I can't imagine Anchorage has too many people running AC.

Probably more than you'd think. Once you have the ductwork in place for central heating (which I'd imagine most homes in Anchorage have, given that it isn't a very old city) it's not too big a step to add an AC unit as well.

[Pink Jazz]

Here in Phoenix, from the 1990s to the 2000s, most homes have had electric heat pumps installed.  However, since the 2010s, there has been somewhat of a shift back towards AC/gas furnace systems at least in new construction (not for replacement systems).  Our two homes here in the Phoenix area built in 2011 and 2014 both had AC/gas furnace systems installed by the two builders (14 SEER/80% AFUE for the 2011 home, 16 SEER/80% AFUE with ECM for the 2014).

[bwana39]

I can assure you it is either LA or North Texas (not as hot in LA as it is in DFW!) I feel pretty confident North Texas wins.

[Dirt Roads]

Here in Phoenix, from the 1990s to the 2000s, most homes have had electric heat pumps installed.  However, since the 2010s, there has been somewhat of a shift back towards AC/gas furnace systems at least in new construction (not for replacement systems).  Our two homes here in the Phoenix area built in 2011 and 2014 both had AC/gas furnace systems installed by the two builders (14 SEER/80% AFUE for the 2011 home, 16 SEER/80% AFUE with ECM for the 2014).

More of a heating topic than air conditioning, but many houses in Northwestern Virginia had the so-called "dual fuel" systems: heat-pumps with an automatic switchover to gas -or- heating oil furnace.  When it came time to upgrade here in Central North Carolina, I found out that the "duel fuel" systems were also common along the southern tier counties in Virginia.  (It still gets too cold here to use only a heat pump, even when you factor in that we generally keep it set for 60^oF in the winter).  For an extra $800, it seemed like a no-brainer after I did all the math (which assumes that the heat pump will save money at lower temperatures perhaps half of the time).  We were lucky, as we just barely use enough propane to avoid paying a rental fee for the tank.  No wonder hardly anybody else has this here.

[Pink Jazz]

Here in Phoenix, from the 1990s to the 2000s, most homes have had electric heat pumps installed.  However, since the 2010s, there has been somewhat of a shift back towards AC/gas furnace systems at least in new construction (not for replacement systems).  Our two homes here in the Phoenix area built in 2011 and 2014 both had AC/gas furnace systems installed by the two builders (14 SEER/80% AFUE for the 2011 home, 16 SEER/80% AFUE with ECM for the 2014).

More of a heating topic than air conditioning, but many houses in Northwestern Virginia had the so-called "dual fuel" systems: heat-pumps with an automatic switchover to gas -or- heating oil furnace.  When it came time to upgrade here in Central North Carolina, I found out that the "duel fuel" systems were also common along the southern tier counties in Virginia.  (It still gets too cold here to use only a heat pump, even when you factor in that we generally keep it set for 60^oF in the winter).  For an extra $800, it seemed like a no-brainer after I did all the math (which assumes that the heat pump will save money at lower temperatures perhaps half of the time).  We were lucky, as we just barely use enough propane to avoid paying a rental fee for the tank.  No wonder hardly anybody else has this here.

Here in the Phoenix area most heat pump systems do not use an auxiliary heating system.

BTW, for air conditioners there are regional efficiency standards for SEER.  Minimum for colder states is 13 SEER, while minimum for warmer states is 14 SEER (with MD and DE being the two northernmost states with the 14 SEER requirement).  Heat pumps on the other hand have a national 14 SEER requirement.

[kernals12]

Around here, most places have AC but a lot of our schools don't. This can be a problem near the beginning and end of our school years.

You don't have to tell me, I've worked as a school summer janitor.