How did you survive before AC?

Ralphy1

Ralphy1

Well-known Member
I remember summers without any mechanical means to cool off, sitting quietly in the shade or soaking in a cool tub was the best one could do. Window fans were a big advance before window AC came along...
 

My grandfolks had one of the old squirrel cage fans in the excelsior cooler. As cool water dripped through the excelsior, the fan would pull air through it... cool air. I would go lay on the linoleum floor in front of that to cool off. My folks didn't have AC at that time.

I've worked most of my life in the outdoors. I seldom use the AC in my truck during the hot weather. Feel that I can stay more acclimated to the heat, not using the AC. This past few weeks when the temps have exceeded 100 degrees F with heat index significantly above that... my truck AC has gotten work out!!!!!
 

Grumpy Ol' Man said:
My grandfolks had one of the old squirrel cage fans in the excelsior cooler. As cool water dripped through the excelsior, the fan would pull air through it... cool air. I would go lay on the linoleum floor in front of that to cool off. My folks didn't have AC at that time.

I've worked most of my life in the outdoors. I seldom use the AC in my truck during the hot weather. Feel that I can stay more acclimated to the heat, not using the AC. This past few weeks when the temps have exceeded 100 degrees F with heat index significantly above that... my truck AC has gotten work out!!!!!
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Our first apartment in California had the water cooled by a fan. I had never seen one before and it did a pretty darn good job. Up until then, it was just fans in the windows.
 
I haven't had it in the last 24-years, plus I never had one my first 13-years or so. It sucks, but I don't really think about it. A single fan-on-a-stand with a friendly open-window crossflow. I shower about 3-or-4 times a day when I'm there. Sip an ice-cream soda. That's about it.

The front-porch used to be the internet back in the day. I felt 'subconsciously' cooler just hangin' out on it after bike-ridin' or whatever... because everybody else was hanging-out on theirs to feel cooler. Plus you could leave it and 'welcome the storm' with open arms, smelling the rain in the air... till a parent or grandparent yelled at ya to watch-out for lightning.
 
My grandmother would keep the windows closed and the shades drawn to "keep the house cool"......I don't remember that working.

We kids slept all summer on the "sleeping porch" on cots. It was the coolest place in the house once the sun went down and the screens kept the mosquitos at bay.

If we could get by with it, we'd open the refrigerator and stand in front of it. You'd better not get caught by mom, though.
 
We never had AC until we moved to Florida in 1972. Up north we didn't know anyone who had AC either in their house or car.
 
Having been born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area,the fog was our natural air conditioner. Never needed anything else. But for the last 25 years,we have lived 125 miles north and today,for example,it is over 100. 114 yesterday. Ugh,ugh,ugh. We don`t have air conditioning in this house,we have an evaporative cooler. Works pretty well most of the time but once it hits 100,it`s not that efficient. Add a fan here and there though and it`s not bad. As for me,I`m heading down to my daughter`s house right now to float in her pool. They went school shopping so I`ll have the pool to myself :)
 
I don't remember it being this hot until the last few years. We lived in a bungalow for over 30 years
and never had a/c and then moved into a split level where we lived for 15 years before putting a a/c.
Perhaps it is because we are older and cannot take the heat as when we were younger; I now have two
a/c in my 4 room apt. and they are both going 24/7 for the last 10 days.
 
My parents got central AC after I moved from home. When I was a kid it was huge floor fans and bedroom window fans. They had a small air conditioner in their bedroom. Something nice I remember was on breezy days usually when rain was expected, they would open the garage door and set up lawn chairs. We'd eat dinner and enjoy the air.
 
We got two window AC units in the bedrooms of our house, but only after I was a teenager. During the day didn't seem so bad, but sleeping at night was the problem. That was N. Ohio, and it was often overcast there---lake effect. I do remember canning season, in the kitchen, in the late summers. It was like a steam bath.:p
 
Growing up we had a bungalow and we only had a huge fan at the top of the steps that was mostly run at night as an exhaust fan and we opened the windows then and let the cooler air in. None of us 6 kids had our own fans. I remember being miserably hot a lot of the time.

Now if it's somewhat over 80 F I put the air on and especially if it is humid. I had a pretty high electric bill this month for running the AC constantly since we have had temperatures in the high 90s many days. I don't care if my next bill is high too. Last summer wasn't this hot.
 
I've been running two air conditioners and a dehumidifier in the basement, electric bill came today, well I knew it would be high. Yes, this summer has been hotter here where I live, last year I used a fan in my bedroom. This year had a ventless one installed and I love it. Growing up, we had an air conditioner downstairs but our bedrooms were very hot. No fans. I don't remember being bothered by it--we spent the day at the local pool so we would fall right asleep.
 
Here, most of us still have the evaporative cooler (swamp cooler) -- the squirrel cage thing -- on our roofs, because refrigerated air is so expensive both to install and to run here. I also have ceiling fans, which I'm running almost all the time here.

The swamp cooler does a pretty good job, unless it gets up around 98 or so and then, not so much -- I mean it isn't intolerable, but it isn't as cool as a place with refrigerated air, either.

Would be nice to have refrigerated air, but I just can't afford it.
 

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