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I grew up in rural Virginia in a home built in the 20's. We had no air conditioning, and my father refused to purchase a single window unit because of the cost
by JPKab 13y ago
I grew up in rural Virginia in a home built in the 20's. We had no air conditioning, and my father refused to purchase a single window unit because of the cost of electricity. Our rooms were hot enough that our fish/turtles my brother and I tried to keep as pets died until we figured out they would have to be kept in the basement.
Understand that viewing people as miserable in public at a certain temperature implies that they are outside. Living within a home, especially upstairs, is TRULY miserable in high humidity at 90 degree plus temperatures. The humidity seeps into everything. Your bed feels damp, and so does any couch or chair that isn't made of wood. My friends refused to stay at my house in the summer. They had AC at home, and they weren't used to sleeping in the heat. My cousin came from New York with my aunt one time. They left for a hotel rather than try to stay in our guest rooms.
Fans help immensely, and I doubt fans were widely available for large swaths of the public in NY in the 20's. In this way, they had it much, much harder than I did.
One nice thing we had going for us was that our house was designed in a time where AC didn't exist. Windows were large and placed on opposite sides of rooms to support cross ventilation. Ceilings were high also, and the walls were made of plaster, which prevented them from fluctuating with heat load as rapidly as dry wall.
- taternuts 13y agoVirginia is so incredibly humid in these summer months - 95% constant humidity, I can only imagine trying to rough it without AC in a full seer-sucker suit. I can almost feel the flop sweat forming just thinking about it.
- malingo 13y agoRecent comment about older homes built to maximize breeze (with the side effect of repelling mosquitoes): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6052984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6052984
- JunkDNA 13y agoI will second this. I grew up in an old row-home in a town not far from Philadelphia. I have very vivid memories of laying on my bed at night sweating, box fan in the window set to "High" and just roasting. My father was in sales and would go on trips from time to time. I'd always hope for him to go during one of the heat spells because my mom would then let us sleep in their room which had an old window air conditioner. In a detached house, you can at least get cross-currents going from whichever way the wind blows. But in a row-home, you are boxed in. Not to mention the fact that all the things in a city seem radiate heat: pavement, cars, trucks, the laundromat across the street, etc... When my parents finally had enough money to move to the suburbs we got a brand new house with central A/C. I think it was 90+ degrees the day we moved in. I slept like a baby in the middle of the summer for the first time in my life. It was way more magical than any tech toy I've ever gotten since.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoEven outside . . . when I was a boy, my brothers and I were sent off to scout camp for a week and a half during the summer. Camp Lanochee in rural mid-Florida, known to its occupants as Camp Mosquito. I will never forget the feeling of sweat rolling off me whenever I turned in bed. It was this hot even though we slept naked or in underclothes only on a cot in an open-sided adirondack -- under a bug net, of course. It has to have been one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
- dpeck 13y agoI worked on staff at a very similar camp in the southeast for a few summers as a teenager, taking 2-3 cool showers a day was the norm to get some relief. Even though staff tents had a 110v outlet that we all had box fans hooked up to sleep was never very restful, afternoon naps were cherished when possible.