How to wean off Air Conditioning? (AC)

Something I need to face is my relationship to air conditioning.

I much prefer cold to hot. My ideal sleeping temperature I like to refer to as 'polar bear temp'.

How do you tolerate hot days inside the house without relying on a conditioner?

Thanks for your advice.

A few things that help our family minimize AC use:

1-I am outside by 6am and don't go back in until 8pm. The kids and my wife are out by 7am and go back in at 7-8. No need for AC if you are outside all day.

2-Small outdoor kitchen area with electric burner, blackstone propane griddle, air fry oven that is covered but open.

3-I have a standing work desk outside that is under cover but open to satisfy my job obligations.

4-Just rinsing off if you feel hot or sticky makes a huge difference. I mean like a 3 minute rinse will completely change how I feel.

5-We camp outside, on the property, in a tent often. If you don't have kids, this may not be too appealing. Part of the fun is the kids enthusiasm. It gets us used to hot and humid.

6-We have gradually gotten used to higher night time temps and if we do turn the AC on, it is set to 80.

7-Try using fans, they make a big difference.



***Edit to say that most of these are if you can change things so you can be outside. Being inside a house is normally a much hotter microclimate, without AC, than being outside in the shade***

I grew up without it, and never knew what I was missing. When I moved out of my parents house and took my first actual job, it was to run a youth camp for the Future Farmers of America. Part of the salary was a home and utilities. It was a little double wide trailer, with an oversized air conditioner, and when I tell you that I could hang meat in there, its not much of an exaggeration. I could keep it on 61 degrees in the middle of the South Carolina beach summer. It was a glorious new thing for me. After I left that job, and started paying my own power bill, I learned to deal with the heat like I had growing up. Recently, we just moved into our forever homestead, and there is no A/C in this old house, so my whole family is getting back used to dealing with not having it. Truthfully, it's not that bad. We are in the middle of NC, so I'm sure there are worse places to be as far as heat goes, but I would suggest just making the decision and quit cold turkey if that is what you actually want to do. Tolerate it for a while and get your head in the space that a/c isn't an option. Maybe even make it more difficult to run it than reaching to the thermostat and turning it on. I always try to think about it how our ancestors handled it 150 years ago. It wasn't an option, so they probably didn't spend time lamenting not having it. I'll bet if you make it through the first month of summer without falling back on it, the rest of the year will be easy to accept.

A fan is a lifesaver. Ceiling fan is great if your air temp isn’t stupid hot at the ceiling, a stand fan next to the bed is great as well.

A friend always used an old school waterbed in the summer, no heater.  Water has so much thermal mass it can cool you down in a hurry.  

Linen sheets help a lot, too.

If I wanted to wean off air conditioning, I would start by spending more time outside.

I would start in the mornings when it is cooler then when I am comfortable spending several hours outside then I would add an hour in the afternoon.

Next I would add another hour in the afternoon.

This can be easily done even if a person has other things to do with their time.

Go shopping, take a walk in the park ...

Walk over and visit with a neighbor while they are outside.

Get a nice cool tall drink of lemonade, a comfy chair and do you bank statement under a nice shade tree, ect.

I agree with some of the suggestions about fans and working your way to letting your body adjust. The problem with modern life in the US, is that there is AC all over. In the car, in the house, at work, in the store... so it is difficult to get away from it entirely.

Sticking your feet in a bucket of cold water can do wonders... that was a way they dealt with heat back in the 1800's.

I haven't looked this up, but diet seems to play a role as well. When I was eating a high carb diet, I would get cold much more easily in the winter, and get over heated much more easily in the summer. I noticed when I was on a low carb diet, I felt warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

i'd say remember that the majority of people who live in hotter places than you don't have AC. And not so long ago, nobody did. That doesn't help on the day you're hot though!

Fans, definitely.
Bandana soaked in water around your neck.
Hydrate and natural fiber clothing.
A fan at night is a godsend (if your partner can manage to sleep without complaining about the noise....)

Consider how your house can be manipulated according to sun/shade to hold evening cool, if you have that resource. We open the windows when the sun goes down and close them when the morning starts heating up. This is better when your windows have shade (if that's something you can change with a veranda, climbing plants, some kind of awning, etc).
If your humidity levels permit, swamp cooler is a nice thing (where I live it's so humid that a swamp cooler is useless). Even if that doesn't help, you can use frozen bottles of ice and a fan, as my friend in Israel does.

I learned in Japan to water down my front porch or entryway at opportune times to get a cool breeze coming into my sweltering apartment. I do it today with my front patio sometimes.

Matt McSpadden wrote: The problem with modern life in the US, is that there is AC all over. In the car, in the house, at work, in the store... so it is difficult to get away from it entirely.

I think that's a big part of the problem. The only time Hubby misses AC is when he's in a car in the hot sun, surrounded by a bunch of other hot cars.

The Pacific Wet Coast is pretty temperate most of the time, but I still use Tereza's suggestion of watering down the concrete in front of our house on long sunny days, and occasionally the west wall of the house as well.

I totally support the suggestions of finding ways to shade the house - quick shade from pole beans on a trellis is a thing, and the hotter your region, the faster and taller they'll grow! Food is a bonus feature. And they can be watered with dish washing water if you're careful with the soap you use, if there are water restrictions along with the heat.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Sticking your feet in a bucket of cold water can do wonders... that was a way they dealt with heat back in the 1800's.

I wanted to come back to this today and say that I remember my grandmother telling me about when it was so hot they brought their bedding out of their NY tenement apartment and slept on the roof, and that some people slept in the park. As soon as AC was available, my grandmother had it blasting on super-high any day that the sun even showed its face, but I remember before, when she didn't. She'd sit under a tree with a huge glass of iced tea, with her feet in a kiddie pool with ice, reading a book and occasionally fanning herself.

When I lived in Japan, it was hotter than NJ in summer, and more humid (who knew that was possible). I had to wear stockings for work and also biked to work. I learned about the merits of the "sweat towel" around your neck and always having a hand-held fan. We did a lot of "manual" things to keep our houses cool and breezy, and our diet was really different in the summer (I think my diet was half soba noodles and half pickles). And similarly, we did a lot of things specifically to keep warm in the snowy winter.

Here in Brazil, we've traveled to a few REALLY hot places and what I've seen is that when it's peak heat, people siesta during the hottest part of the day. Folks are up at even the first hint of daylight working in order to be able to stop and nap in the shade at noon. I'm usually that one person who never feels hot, but even I was going through several frozen bottles of water a day.

I think there is a lot of old-school stuff you can do to feel cooler, but it has fallen out of normal behavior. I like to see these things come up here in discussion because they work.

Edited to add: the heat wave my grandmother was talking about was probably 1953. There are some really great pictures of people trying to stay cool here.

In the south, especially pre-a/c, but even now,  the powerful whole-house fan filled the house-cooling role, well. The fan is/was placed in a window, as high as possible - in an attic, if there was one, ideally, facing the equator - blowing out. Then one window in each room was opened just a couple inches. All curtains were drawn during the day, leaving only the open space uncovered, to block the heat of the sun. The fan blowing out created such a strong draw, that even on the hottest of summer days, the airflow felt cool and within a few minutes of turning on the fan, the temperature in the house could drop by 10 or 15 degrees, easily.

My upbringing in the South mirrored many of these responses.  You get accustomed to the humid flame we call the.   time. Keeping your bedsheets in a freezer until the last second? Works like a charm.   Frozen water bottle balanced on your chest at night? Heavenly.  

My first car was a ramshackle affair. This 1969 Volvo had a predilection to overheating in summer months which led to using the heater on 100F plus days driving coast to coast......which drew heat away from the engine..... after 150 to 200 miles I would reward myself with a pitstop.  Fill up with gas and treat myself to a 10 pound  bag of ice, which remained on my lap as I drove across the unrelenting desert. Then another 200 miles.

....we call the daytime......

One thing I noticed going in and out of air conditioned spaces is that it can cause your skin temperature to drop below the dew point, which causes your skin to collect moisture as soon as you step outside. Going back and forth regularly to cool off/dry off usually ends up with more moisture and clothes getting soggy and uncomfortable. It's a bit less of an issue if I immediately hop on my ebike and zip around in the wind for a few minutes to warm my skin temp with the wind keeping me dry.

Modern houses are built very differently than older ones, so some old tricks don't work the same. We tend to have more sealed envelopes with roofs built like solar ovens. It might be worthwhile to get a cheap thermometer/humidity sensor for your bedroom and keep an eye on it for a while to get a sense of when the room is heating up, and more importantly how long is it taking to cool down when the sun goes down. Some houses get soaked in heat and it radiates off for many hours. It may be worth looking in to a radiant barrier in an attic above a bedroom, reflective roof coatings, or other options depending on circumstances. I saw one house down here with an irrigation line on the ridge of the roof to cool it around sunset so the A/C wasn't running continuously in to the night.

An idea a number of people are looking in to this year seems to be similar to the notion of "heat the person not the space", with temperature going the opposite direction. Just the notion of conditioning the air when houses are larger than ever, with fewer people living under one roof, seems less than ideal. I have my own projects I've gotten started on, largely building off of the work of others, and plenty more great ideas that need to be fleshed out. The most interesting one I have come across is Phase Change Materials or PCM's. NightHawkInLight on YouTube has a bunch of interesting videos, many diving deep in to complex chemistry, but more often than not comes up with simple solutions using more common (cheaper) and less harmful ingredients. He's also had a few other videos in the past couple of years centered around keeping cool. For anyone interested in DIY solutions, this video is a good place to start:

My house maintains at least a 10 degree F difference with the outside.  Normal outside night temperature is less than 60.  
if I use fans to cool the house to 60 The inside temperature will be less than 80 at the end  of the day when it is 90 outside.
I can run the fan for electric furnace to draw cool air from the crawl space. I have no cooling in the system but do have the setting in the thermostat so the fan turns on automatically when it reaches 75.

I appreciate everyones responses as I wrestle turning on the a/c as well. I didn't grow up with it and never gave it much thought until moving to my current home.
I live on a slab (house was built in 1963) and I'm in what is effectively a wetland. If I don't run the a/c to mitigate the humidity, it can become unbearable and we've had challenges with moisture and mildew.
Ceiling fans have made a difference and hopefully new windows soon.

I know in some humid areas folks will fire up the woodstove to dry the place out in July or August to keep moisture at bay.

We don’t have any AC in the UK as standard and this coming weekend temperatures are hitting 90F which is pretty hit for London in the past but getting more frequent now.
Our go to trick for a good night’s sleep is a 2 Litre plastic bottle of water that has been frozen for at least 24 hours (remember to not completely fill the bottle to allow for expansion. Wrap this bottle is a slightly damp tea towel (just a few squirts from your indoor plant mister) and then place in your bed under a summer duvet or even a fall duvet (this  acts as insulation for the cold in the bed).  If you are really hot you can put this against your skin, but after a while I tend to just have it below my feet on just next to me. By morning it’s only melted a little and can be put back in the freezer ready for the next night. After the initial energy for first freezing it takes a lot less to ‘recharge’ it in the freezer every day.
Put in in your bed and hour before you go to bed and its heaven. 🧊👍🛌

What to do?
3 showers per day!
Fans!
Ladies…wear dresses…
Take breaks from outdoor tasks…

We have central air but I try not to use it too much.  This weekend (mid-June) it will be in the 90s three days in a row, so I will turn it on for the first time this year.  The heat itself is not as bad as the humidity here, and the central air dries things out nicely.  I keep it set at 80 degrees F.  (Heat in winter is set at 64 degrees in case the woodstove doesn't keep up, only so my potted tropical fruit trees don't croak.)

We also have a programmable greenhouse-type fan that pulls air up from the cooler basement and blows it into our second floor bedroom.  We used to use a room a/c upstairs in the hot bedroom, but since installing that fan we have not used it at all.  Individual fans on each nightstand allow us each to customize our air-flow for comfort.  A ceiling fan in the living room helps as well.  Windows open at night help when the humidity is not too high, but do more harm than good otherwise.

As someone else mentioned, a quick rinse in a cool shower is a huge relief!  I would try not to use the a/c ever, but my partner has both a stent in his heart and a pacemaker, and has all but lost his ability to self-regulate his body temperature in environments outside a narrow range of temperatures since these interventions, so I compromise for his sake.  

We don't have AC in a place most people do--but this is partly because we're on a ridge, which gets more breezes than the hollers. but we also planned the house intelligently--I'm amazed that some people recommend being outside when it's hot. It's always cooler in the house on a hot day here, except in the evening...sometimes it takes hours for the house to cool even with all the windows and both doors open. But then it takes most of the day to heat up again too. So, good insulation and situating the house where it's in the shade nearly all day in summer; an open plan, two story with a cupola which pulls air in the windows on the west side, the breeze side, which faces a wooded hillside so that air has risen through acres of woods that cool it by transpiration, then it rises up and out. creating a little air movement. We used to have box fans which had the problem of soon being too much, even on low speed. then my husband made a bunch of fans out of pairs of old desktop computer fans (he used to do electronic repair). They use like 6 watts and are adequate almost always. i don't remember the name or authors, but there are two books, perhaps out of print, full of tips on how to use landscaping to keep your home warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

Wow! I’m going to try these tools second version of the PCM video for my area. This is going to be GREAT!
I have always used a floor fan that has a base to cool my home. The closer the floor, the better it works. You need to face the fan so that it blows towards the ceiling and the cool air from the floor does the rest.

Tip:

I run very hot. Especially in the area of my head.
I take a bandana and run it under cool water, ring it out, the wear it on my head like a scarf.
I take a second bandana run it under cold water, ring it out and then tie it around my neck.
The results for me represent a night and day difference.
immediately it improves mood and concentration and mental clarity,
oftentime I must do this process every 15 minutes because my head generates soooo much heat.
Its very worth the effort.

R. Ford wrote:...but I would suggest just making the decision and quit cold turkey if that is what you actually want to do. Tolerate it for a while and get your head in the space that a/c isn't an option.

I agree.  I've been living comfortably without A/C for 15 years.  In South Carolina.  To be fair, I should say I live "comfortably" for all but the hottest two or three weeks of the year, when instead I live "tolerably."  There are some specific tips and tricks that help, as many here have already enumerated - ceiling fans, loose clothing, frozen water bottles, frequent short cold showers, alterations to one's daily schedule of indoor/outdoor activities, etc. - but the biggest step is simply a mental adjustment.  Then, with time, physiological adaptation and conditioning will follow.

Matt McSpadden wrote:The problem with modern life in the US, is that there is AC all over. In the car, in the house, at work, in the store... so it is difficult to get away from it entirely.

Very true!  I almost never allow myself to "splurge" on A/C in the car.  For one thing, it seldom occurs to me that I need it.  And occasionally when it does, I usually content myself with an open window.  I am too fearful of ruining years of physical acclimatization.

I would never willingly return to dependency on A/C.  It is too limiting.  I live in a hot climate, and being a homesteader I have much outdoors work to do.  I would be twice as miserable if I had to do all that work while also being addicted once again to A/C.  I may be a crippled old man, but on a hot summer day I can usually work one of the local college kids I hire as assistants into the ground!  That's what I have gained by shedding my A/C addiction.

Tereza Okava wrote:Bandana soaked in water around your neck.

That's a good trick, but it really works best in a dry climate.  Back at the beginning, when I was less acclimitized, I used to do that during a hot summer work day.  But I found that it just added to the "swamp" I seemed to be wearing on me, so I stopped.

I generally find it better to just sweat and rinse off at day's end.

Tereza Okava wrote:Consider how your house can be manipulated according to sun/shade to hold evening cool, if you have that resource. We open the windows when the sun goes down and close them when the morning starts heating up. This is better when your windows have shade (if that's something you can change with a veranda, climbing plants, some kind of awning, etc).

This is good advice.  Many posters here clearly approach this problem from the viewpoint of escaping the stifling interiors of their homes during the day.  During the day, inside my house is the coolest place I can be!  But I designed my home around passive solar architectural principles.  Chances are, most readers did not.  Nonetheless, there are still a few things one can do to improve on whatever architecture you do have.  It's all about exterior shade during the hot months - mine comes from my roof overhangs, but strategically placed awnings and plantings can be added - and ventilation.  And thermal mass, but unfortunately that is not easily retrofit.

Use fans to circulate interior air whenever it's hotter outside (i.e. during the day), and open windows to ventilate with outside air whenever it's cooler outside (i.e. overnight).

Remember that most heat enters/exits a structure through the roof, so adding attic insulation and an attic exhaust fan are particularly effective retrofits for the price.

Carla Burke wrote:In the south, especially pre-a/c, but even now, the powerful whole-house fan filled the house-cooling role, well...

I installed a whole house fan in the top floor ceiling, and we used it in the summer when conditions were favorable. That last clause is key, because unfavorable conditions, meaning not cool at night or sort-of cool but very humid, didn't help at all and could even make the indoor daytime environment less comfortable. This is in eastern Ontario, which has only occasional beastly days and nights in summer.

I grew up without a/c in Louisville, Kentucky, which has a lot more of those days and nights. I remember, even with fans, sweating through some restless nights and occasionally sleeping on a cot in the basement. Yes, we survived, but I certainly wouldn't choose to forgo air conditioning if it's available. I get the impression that people on this thread think a/c is some dastardly thing best avoided. I know from experience that I can think better and get more done on hot days when I'm able to cool down and can sleep comfortably.

The statistics on heat-related deaths make it clear that a/c has been a godsend in hot places. Notice that heat-related deaths in Texas dropped dramatically after the introduction of a/c in the 1950s. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1650898/ and https://smartacsolutions.com/when-did-air-conditioning-come-out/)

Using energy efficiently is always smart, but we can't say the same about avoiding using it. I certainly prefer being productive, and being able to truly cool down lets me spend more time on outdoor tasks without risking heat stroke or feeling miserable. At night, a cool shower before bed is a help but can't substitute for the a/c that keeps the bedroom cool.

Do everything either early am or when the sun is down. Keep curtains closed Use as little electricity as possible as, appliances, such a tv etc...cause heat.Cook outside. Eat light, such as salads, fruits, water to keep hydrated. Wear light material clothing. Hang in air conditioned buildings, if necessary to stay cool, such as library, Wal-Mart etc..Use umbrella as shade.Cooling towels are great to use to stay cool.Outdoor misters. Depending on the humidity. Moisture from water can make it seem hotter. Especially in the Arizona hot heat.No such thing as a cool shower. As the water pipes get hot in the summer months.

Edit: drink plenty of plain water!

Now that I no longer consume any alcohol, so no more light beer on a hot day, my internal thermostat works much better.
I think Matt is onto something about the high carb versus low carb diet (alcohol being high carb)

I also found that since I spent the winter walking around in the Arctic I no longer feel the cold like I did, but also seem to be more heat tolerant, although I am also supplementing daily with magnesium citrate so who knows? When up north I get leg cramping on occasion even when supplementing (and D-K2 of course)

When I bought my house 20 years ago, I made sure it was on a site slightly uphill, and the house was nestled into forest on the east side (so it doesn't get hot in the house until the afternoons when sun has been beating on the exterior walls ) and trees (also a good west windbreak )

One could also go wofati

David Wieland wrote:I get the impression that people on this thread think a/c is some dastardly thing best avoided. I know from experience that I can think better and get more done on hot days when I'm able to cool down and can sleep comfortably.

You make a very valid point: efficiency for its own sake without considering overall quality of life is a poor design criterion.  But regarding my personal situation, I disagree with your conclusion.  I sleep comfortably enough with just my ceiling fan and nighttime exhaust fan.  For sure, just because I can doesn't mean everyone everywhere can.

I don't think A/C is "dastardly" - good word! - but I do think it is a dependency.  I am well rid of it, and I think many others would do well without.  In fact, I'd go so far as to call it an addiction.  That's not just hyperbolic language; like with any other addiction, your body physiologically adapts in response, making you more dependent on the addictive stimulus.  You say you can get more done on hot days with A/C, but I believe that I accomplish far more on hot days now that I'm no longer made weak by A/C.  I am referring to physical stamina, but there is a complimentary mental stamina that's necessary to keep working even as the mercury climbs.  Put simply: I'm not afraid to sweat a little, as I used to be when I lived in A/C.  Whereas I infer that you were referring instead to sedentary tasks (?)

I also point out that, as dependencies go, A/C is an expensive one.  I mean that in terms of $$$.  I recently installed a PV system and am nearly self-sufficient for electricity.  (Note that I'm not off grid, but am contemplating going off grid in the future with my current system.)  I installed 3.5kW of PV, which is maybe 1/4 of the capacity conventionally assumed necessary for a home my size.  And yet such a relatively small investment almost entirely fulfills my energy needs - I burn no natural gas or fuel oil; everything is electric, even my car!  Incidentally, the savings my solar panels provide in "free gasoline" for my EV currently outstrip the value of electricity generated to actually run my home.

It's a good thing my solar array is so small, as I couldn't have afforded 4x the system cost.  At that price, the installation simply would not have happened.  (Note that I paid a little under the market rate as is, since a friend and I installed it ourselves.)

How do I achieve such energy frugality, allowing my investment in home generation to be so affordable?  Well, according to the books, up to 80% of a home's consumption goes to climate control.  That's how.  As a result, I'm now insulated from gasoline market volatility.  If I take my property off grid someday, I will be further insulated from price hikes.  Residential electricity rates are historically far more stable, yet current predictions are for steeper future rate increases to match steeper increases in demand (read: power hungry data centers).

Revisiting the original point, yes, comfort and quality of life are important design criteria.  But so are economy and independence.  In my case, to the minimal extent that I am occasionally uncomfortable without A/C, it's a damn good tradeoff.

Having read over posts since mine, i have a couple of additional remarks.
Someone mentioned that an east-facing orientation helps--yes, that's another thing we did right here, chose a leasehold facing east, because i'm a morning person and wanted to watch the sunrises, and because putting the house where tall trees on the west side ensure shade from noon on on all parts of the house in summer helps a great deal.
Second, I believe one of the books i mentioned said EXterior shade was more helpful that curtains inside, because you want to keep the heat from entering your house.
And third, I'm going to make the case that AC IS dastardly, at the the risk of being banished to the cider house. It uses a lot of electricity, much more than fans; generating electricity creates environmental harm, not limited to  climate heating, to some extent even if you have solar since creating, shipping and disposing of the panels and batteries has environmental costs--so the more panels you need the higher that cost. And, there is the security issue, that  various reasons including depletion of fossil fuels and the minerals needed to make parts for renewable systems suggest that AC may simply not be an option much longer. Planning for that includes finding ways to not need it, whether the toughing it out and adjusting approach some recommend or the various tricks to lower the temps in your house. And in the outdoor environment you work in, for that matter.
i now live on a ridge, but once i lived in a half-finished old barn while building a cabin nearby, and there was a small pond near the barn, on hot days, I'd come back for lunch and jump in that pond and in two minutes I'd be sweat-free and comfortably cool, ready to go back to work. At the end of the afternoon, I'd jump in the pond again. What a lovely resource that was.
Finally, local context matters. i once read about a house in Atascadero, California that had a hinged roof. the entire roof would be tilted away from the house on summer nights to let the heat quickly dissipate, then it would be lowered back into place at dawn. this is a place where summer days get very hot but it does not rain in summer guaranteed--obviously most places it would be crazy to invest in a liftable roof, you'd be inviting in various vermin as well as moisture and mold. I was gobsmacked when i read about that house in a book on smart house design, because in my mid teens i had lived in Atascadero, and never knew about that house.

Matthew Nistico wrote: Put simply: I'm not afraid to sweat a little, as I used to be when I lived in A/C.  Whereas I infer that you were referring instead to sedentary tasks (?)

I referred to outdoor tasks. I'm not afraid to sweat either, and that's made much more tolerable by having a cooler and less humid house to nip into from time to time. (The humidity is a big factor that hasn't gotten much attention in this thread.)
I don't mind summer heat nearly as much as my wife does, and she would be miserable without a/c. Neck coolers can help outdoors in the daytime but take preparation and frankly aren't very comfortable. We homesteaded in the 70s, but we're in our late 70s now and don't want to keep testing our limits. Coming in from gardening and seeing a flushed face tells us that we got close enough to the limits.