Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005

Some like it hot

Air conditioning not a necessity for all

By JERI FISCHER KRENTZ
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Betty Bost used to work in air conditioning. But she has never lived in it. Nor does she intend to. “We just don’t want it,” she said.

She’d miss bird songs in the morning, the crickets at night.

“The first thing I notice when I go into someone else’s house,” Bost said, “is the silence.”

Betty Bost, 62, and her husband, Jim, 65, live on 20 acres in Kannapolis, N.C. They have lots of shade trees. They use an attic fan to pull in night air from the woods. Their house is airy, with a cool front porch.

Brian Hardy of Gastonia, N.C., also prefers fresh air, as opposed to “living in a closed-in box with recirculated air.” He calls air conditioning “an unnecessary evil” and designed his house to stay cool naturally.

Most people wouldn’t even think of living in a home without air conditioning. But some insist summer is better with the windows open — even if you have to alter your home and lifestyle.

Forty years ago, only 10 percent of U.S. homes were air-conditioned. Now, at least in the South, only 10 percent of homes don’t have air conditioning.

The history of air conditioning goes back to 1902, when Willis Carrier designed his first air-conditioning system for a New York printer who complained that changes in heat and humidity messed up his color images.

Carrier patented his device — “An Apparatus for Treating Air” — in 1906.

Southern textile mills were among the first users of Carrier’s new system, according to a company Web site. A lack of moisture in the air at the Chronicle Cotton Mill in Belmont, N.C., created static electricity that made cotton fibers fuzzy and hard to weave. Carrier’s system fixed humidity levels — and from then on, the list of companies that found they could benefit from “conditioned air” expanded.

“Comfort cooling,” the Carrier company said, debuted in 1924 at a department store in Michigan. Shoppers at the store’s basement bargain sale were fainting from the heat, so three Carrier centrifugal chillers were installed.

Carrier developed the first residential air conditioner in 1928, but the idea didn’t catch on until after World War II.

Brian Hardy thinks it’s a shame it ever did. He believes air conditioning has had a terrible impact on American society. “We’ve become isolated, sealed inside our boxes,” he said. “And it has ruined Southern architecture.”

Hardy, who grew up in southeast Arkansas, and his wife, Fatima, who’s from Brazil, built a home in Gastonia three years ago. They designed it with windows on two sides of every bedroom for flow-through ventilation. Each bedroom has a ceiling fan. The downstairs has cross ventilation from front to back through French doors.

They hung screen doors and have a porch that wraps around three sides of the house.

“We used ideas that were standard in Southern home-building a century ago,” Hardy said.

They installed air conditioning but don’t use it.

A few concepts didn’t work. Hardy wanted a screened-in sleeping porch off a second-floor bedroom — just like the one in his grandfather’s house from 1904. But building it off the second story was too expensive.

It was also too pricy to use tile flooring throughout, which is what his wife was used to in Brazil. They compromised by putting tile in the kitchen and bathrooms, and hardwood everywhere else. In the winter they use area rugs, which they store in the summer.

They’ve also planted a dozen shade trees on the west side to protect from afternoon sun.

By not using air conditioning, Brian Hardy figures he saves about $100 a month. And for some people, that’s the main reason they choose to turn their air conditioners off.

Want to cool your home with no A/C?

• Install awnings or insulated window shades. Dont open the shades until the sun has moved away from the window.

• Cross ventilation is key. Keep the house closed during the heat of day; ventilate in the evening when its cool.

• Use window and ceiling fans to create breezes.

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with cool fluorescent ones.

• Ventilate the attic.

• Keep the house dry. Use exhaust fans in the bathrooms.

• Plant shade trees and vines.

• Avoid opening and closing the refrigerator, since it puts out more heat when it works harder.

• Turn off computers and other electronic equipment when not in use.

• Cook outside, or use the microwave. Dont boil foods.

• Take tepid baths or showers.

• Apply cold cloths or run cool water over your wrists.

• Dress in light, loose clothing.

• Drink lots of water and eat small, light meals.

Source: www.frugalliving.about.com and other Internet sites

— Knight Ridder Newspapers