My answer would be a big old "depends", based on where I was living. I lived for a year on the Texas Gulf Coast without AC. HORRIBLE. When the second summer was starting, I bought a small window unit to cool my bedroom. When I was a kid, in the DC area, no one had AC. We'd all sit out on the porch until 10pm (or later) then run right to bed and hope to go to sleep before the heat got too bad in the bedroom.

If I were living in a house with lots of windows, a good steady breeze, ceiling fans in the rooms, and it was in a cool climate, I could live without AC. Most of the US, however, I'm going to crank the AC.

If you live in a place where you can create a cross-breeze, this may be doable, but in the dead of summer, it's a no-go. I live in Miami. I tried it for two days, almost died and gave it up. Now during the spring, I use fans only unless we get a really hot day. If you live on an upper floor where the sun is directly hitting your roof, this probably wouldn't work either.

I know I'm pointing out the obvious, but it totally depends on where you live. I am a Seattle native and wouldn't dream of having AC here. Yes, it gets hot sometimes, but not for more than a few days in a row.

HOWEVER, I lived in the Midwest for several years and I consider it a necessity living there. I wouldn't have slept at all in August..

When I lived in Virginia Beach/Norfolk for 4 years - I had no AC, either in the apartment or in the car.

Sure, there were a few tough days/nights - but you get over it.

In Ohio, it's an easy decision. I live without the A/C except of those few extremely hot days in the mid-late summer. It's much better on the electric bill, I feel refreshed by always having fresh air in my home instead of recycled, and it makes sitting out on our patio (where the unit is located) much more pleasant.

While I could live without AC in an ideal setting (big windows for cross ventilation, fans) the reality of living in NYC means that open windows mean dust and car exhaust in my 400 sq. ft space!

Sweating one's ass off at home, so the corporate wankers (industrial, commercial and transportation) 79% can comfortably turn their AC on high; just to say "I have half a window more and I'm greener than you!" is such a stupid idea.

Last year, before I had a chance to install my window unit for the summer, the temp inside my apartment rose to more than 100 degrees one night. I live in the attic of a 100-year-old Midwestern house, there's just no way this Northerner could survive a summer without an air conditioner and lots of fans.

We only have two in our house. The downstairs generally doesn't go over 80 degrees, so we can cope without AC. But the second floor often hits 90 and an AC in the bedrooms in neccessary. Personally I'd love to put in central air, but our 1700's house doesn't ahve the ceiling height for the vents--and my wife would leave me.

I live in Phoenix... they say that in the summer it's around 100-115F but in reality it's much hotter. All that afternoon sun beating in my windows and reflecting off the pavement? It's miserable. FOR 6 MONTHS.

I'm not sure how things are up in New York, what with its fairly short, relatively mild summers, but in the hot and humid South, it's pretty difficult to live without AC during the May to October months. Also, with pollen the way it is this year, opening up a window can often cause more problems than it solves.

I suppose I could live, but it would not be comfortable existence. I am a valley girl in SoCal, and like, I totally wouldn't want to! This is a desert, yo! We did put fancy pants new insulation in our walls this winter and I am a big proponent of ceiling fans in bedrooms, but there are certain nights where that just does not cut it here.

I live in NYC on a second story walk up and, though I have AC installed, I try not to use it.

I keep my lights off during the day, a very quiet oscillating fan is always going and I have my windows open (with screens of course). When the sun starts beating through the windows, I draw the shades until it starts to angle away to keep the room from heating up. I do have to sweep and vacuum more often because NYC is dirty, but it is a way to keep things cool without AC...unless it's in the 90s and above, at which time I give up.

Scoot- even though a weather report may list the day's temp at a 'relatively mild' 85 degrees in NYC, the combo of: lack of tree cover, heat-absorbing properties of brick and brownstone, and the intense sun mirrored from multiple angles by scyscrapers can turn many city streets into a virtual oven. In short, it can get really hot there.

On the days where the temps push into the 90s and 100s, it can be as unbearable as Phoenix- with the added bonus of high humidity.

I tried for two summers in Washington, DC to live without an air conditioner. On the third summer I bought a large air conditioner to cool much of the apartment, because elderly relatives were visiting. That changed my life - I did not realize how much money and time I was spending outside of the apartment because it was so hot and sticky. And I slept much better. Maybe it would have been easier if I had not been working at an air-conditioned office, surrounded by places that are air conditioned, but I believe it is a quality of life thing. Life is so much better with air conditioning - even if the unit makes your living space less elegant.

Doing it right now, not by choice, until our AC gets fixed. Not fun, and we aren't even in the summer yet. Sorry, but when it gets to be over 80 degrees in the house, with fans on, it's just not worth the discomfort.

I'm all about fans. I love moving air.

Central air and I would not ever want to do without it in a place where summer temps can get above 100 F and the pollen counts are hitting close to 10,000 this spring. I've done it and it was utterly miserable.

Last year in Chicago, it didn't get hot enough to turn on the central air for more than a few days. Of course, that also happened to be the first year I had air conditioning. Figures.

No! A/C is a necessity in LA. However, because our place is so small, it cools off rather quickly so we don't have to use it for too long.

I used to remove it during winter months and keep it in the closet but it really did take up too much space. Now I just leave it year round. We use a plexiglass sheet to keep it in place, its covered by a curtain, and the backside sticks out next to our door on the patio and creates a nice plant/beverage stand. I don't mind it one bit ;0

When I didn't have AC for one summer in Florida, all my shoes grew MOLD. It's not just the temp, it's the humidity too. Now I live in Texas and while I use AC less than a lot of people when it's 105 for 45 straight days with overnight lows of 94, I'm using AC.

I remember July & August in Cincinnati without A/C ... becoming a zombie by day 10 due to lack of sleep. Grossly hot and humid, even with ceiling fans and opened windows, not being able to get to sleep until 4 a.m. then having to wake up at 6:30 to go to work. I live in Charlotte, NC now and do a ton of gardening and yard work, so I get plenty of outdoor exposure. When it's in the 90s with high humidity there is now way I'm giving up the opportunity to dry off my skin and scalp in an A/C. environment and get some sleep. Plus, I despise reading/studying and having my sweat drip on my book and papers. Dream on.

when my AC broke in Austin, the temp on the second floor of my house went over 120 degrees- my dog and I survived by filling the bathtub with water and sleeping in it.

No, I can't live without AC. I can't live without my ceiling fan either. They work in tandem and my house..

I did for many years in NYC until I inherited an A/C. But I still find that I might use it a handfull of times, and just during the night, maybe three days out of the entire year. Unless it's above 95 degrees out, It just feels wasteful.

Could I live without AC, well yeah, but would I want to? Hell no! Unlike Designdittos above, I don't think it's an easy decision to live without AC when it's 95 out with 99% humidity. I tried once, it wasn't fun.

That being said, whenever the temperature drops a little, I turn the AC off and let the fresh air in.

We've used this a/c alternative in the past: On the night stand, place a big bowl of water with plenty of ice cubes and a washcloth for swabbing arms and legs, and with a small electric fan nearby.

i barely survived one summer near NYC without an AC. Never again. It's not the heat that is so bad, it's the humidity.

I tried the A/C-less existence last summer in a rental home that had ceiling fans and plenty of shade trees. (Fortunately, it also had 2 Mr. Slim units.) I gave up pretty quickly because I was so uncomfortable and my dogs would just lie panting on the concrete floors. During the day, the temperature goes above 100 in the summer, and it only "cools down" to the mid-90s. At that point you're just moving hot air around.

It's great if you can do without it, but I'll be using the cooling devices at my disposal: ceiling fans and central air at a reasonable setting. I like to think of it as celebrating the products of human ingenuity by using them. :)

My husband and I went without using our AC last summer, here in Orlando, FL! We only turned it on when we had guests over. During the day, it wasn't fabulous, especially since we mostly work from home, but we saved a lot of money and we have a good amount of windows and fans. We plan to do it again this summer, although we will have a roommate, so we'll see what happens :)

For the cross-ventilation concept to work, ya gotta have a good stiff breeze, ya know? With temperatures in the 100's for months on end, we usually don't. If we do, it's a hot and dusty one, straight up from Mexico.

So when I lived in a garage apartment with no A/C, I did what lorijo did: filled up the tub and hopped in as needed. Which was quite often. If the porch would have been bigger, I would have slept out there. In my underwear-only so the neighbors wouldn't freak out.

We don't have central A/C in our house in the Baltimore area (hot and muggy all summer long) and we only use window units on the worst nights. We do have ceiling fans, box fans and smaller fans all over the place.

One trick that works really well on even the hottest nights: dampen a thin dishtowel or a piece of worn out sheet and lay it on whatever part of your body is facing up when you're in bed. Have a fan blowing on you. The air moving across the damp cloth will feel very cool, so cool that you no longer notice that the rest of you is overly warm. This works for 20-30 minutes or so, which is usually enough time to fall asleep. If not, just get up and get the cloth wet and wring it out and start over.

The cloth has to be thin, otherwise the air won't get through it to your skin. You don't really need more than two square feet of fabric, either. Anything bigger gets hard to wring out sufficiently, and it's kind of a drag to wake up later all tangled in a damp sheet.

I live in Nice, France, where summer temps regularly get above 100F, and despite being on the sea, we don't get much wind since we're surrounded by mountains (y'know, the Alps). But, since we are by the sea... it is humid; usually between 70-90%.

I haven't had an air conditioner in 10 years. As a previous poster said, there are maybe 4 or 5 days in summer where you feel like you can't take it, but you know those times will pass.

I buy fruit juice popsicles, use a fan on the particularly hot-n-humid nights, take cool showers... and actually don't go to the sea all that often. (Like I said, I live in Nice. Ya think there's much room on the beaches here in summer? Nope! It is better in the mornings and evenings though.)

I live in Seattle and think that I shouldn't need AC, but my attic room has no ventilation and gets upwards of 100 degrees all summer, and as much as I hate my AC unit, there's no way I could sleep up there without it. On the hottest nights in Seattle- which aren't that hot compared to other places- it's too hot in there even with my AC blasting, so I sleep in the backyard.

I'm in Boston, and the house I used to live in got really hot. However, one summer I did not have an AC, and I discovered that sleeping with cold packs helped alot. The place I live in now keeps relatively cool in the summer, and I don't even have a fan. I would not object to having an AC though if I needed one.

No way would I ever live without AC again! Even though I live in Minneapolis, the summers can get quite warm and humid. Plus, I live in an older brick building (on the afternoon sun side) that keeps the heat in.
I get extremely cranky and tired when I'm hot, made worse but not being able to sleep, which then makes me crankier. It's a vicious cycle...
I consider the hundred bucks I spent on a window unit to be the best money I've ever spent!

I'm with @abcornwall - I can't sleep when it's that hot out. I have a unit in my bedroom, there's a shared one in the living room, and one in the office in my apartment right now, and we're getting another.
Part of that is also due to the fact that we'd love to have the windows open, but our apartment is right where the smokers go. And there's a chain smoker in the building.

In Minnesota, it's almost necessary to have AC when you've got western exposure and little to no cross-breeze too. But man, I wish I could survive without it.

That literally cannot make them ugly enough for me to do without one. And that's saying something, because I really, really like things to be pretty. But I can't take a summer without air conditioning. No way, no how.

Quick answer--no. I am completely heat intolerant and having lived in hot climates without AC, I know that it makes me a very very unpleasant person. I will deal with cold over heat any day of the week (we keep the house at 60F during the day and 50F at night during winter). Luckily, I now live in Wisconsin, where we have relatively few cooling days (and even then, can often run the AC in the late afternoon and evening to keep things cool enough). But we do have central air and we do use it.

I live in LA in a little old house that catches cross-breezes beautifully and is shaded by a huge tree in the morning. But even then we need an AC for the really hot days. We tried it without for two years and it's a no-go, especially when that non-stop midsummer heatwave kicks in.

In NY for 10 years, I had another breezy place shaded by trees (lucky!), and got by with a busy ceiling fan, and weekend trips OOT when I could snag them, although there were some pretty hot miserable days.

But if I owned a house, I might try something like I encountered in a coastal hotel in Italy once. They had deep awnings, tile floors, ceiling fans and steel shutters. The tile stayed fairly cool and the room was shaded until about 2 pm, when the town shut down for a siesta anyway. Then you'd close the shutters on the outside and nap til 4-ish. The room was very comfortably cool. Don't know that my schedule would permit the napping, but I was surprised at how effectively the system worked.

Obviously it depends on where you live.

If it's humid and hot... you need A/C - and as my dad says, you may only need it 5 days a year, but when you need it YOU NEED IT!

I personally don't like air conditioning because it's A) noisy and B) blows on me and I hate that.
And offices keep the AC way too cold. I shouldn't have to wear a sweater, nay PARKA to sit at my desk in June!!!

In Omaha I went without a window unit until the summer day I couldn't apply makeup for work because my face was too sweaty.

Here in Denver - no A/C. My building has a swamp cooler in the common hallways and most of us prop a screen door or pet gate in our open doorways... and open a window on the far end of the apartment to create an airflow. I usually close my door in the evening because I'm plenty cool.

Humidity also can play a huge factor in this decision. I live in Michigan so the summers are fairly cool in comparison to other states, however our humidity is just disgusting. Some days I've felt as though I needed a shower about 15 minutes after just taking one. Please bring on the AC.

When I lived in Seattle, no way would I have AC but here in L.A. I have to.
I even run it during the winter. However, I have a medical condition that doesn't allow for me to get too warm. If I didn't have this stupid illness I'd probably get by with ice water and a fan :) Luckily I qualify to get a discount on my electricity bills because of my disease so I let it run with minimal guilt. It the difference between a good quality of life and a horrible one. Still I wonder if my neighbors hate me for the energy drain they hear whirring away all of the time.

I don't think I could cuz I'm so used to it. I was born and raised in south Texas, so it's hot most of the year. We've actually had a wonderful and long Spring this year; we've just been opening windows and using fans for a month or so. It's never this nice this long.

My aunt has about 300 acres in East Texas and had a house from 1902 that only had 1 window unit in a bedroom and the door was kept closed. I think because it was in the country, there was more breeze coming through so it was actually bearable even in the summer. Also, because it was an old house, it was built to utilize the air flow with windows on all sides and a dogrun in the middle.

I have allergies and asthma and an AC is medically necessary. A lot of people need to have an AC for health reasons, especially the elderly and children under 5. Neither can regulate their body temperate as well as the rest of us. I'd love to be able to go with out the AC and save money and every year I wait as long as possible to turn it on but in the end the allergies and asthma win.

housebunny, I doubt your neighbors have noticed. They might have their A/Cs going, too, without having a medical condition requiring it. People like their cold air.

I would say that most locales need A/C of some sort for at least a week or so out of the year. To live comfortably in the hottest days of summer, it can be worth it.

I am currently living with the A/C off. I plan to go as long as I can without using it as the electricity bills can really really climb around August ($200 ). I've survived hot Houston summers sleeping outside in tents and cabins with no breeze to speak of, but something about being in a hot stuffy house makes that same situation too much to bear at night.

I've got a lot of windows in my house, so that does help. And it's a good ten degrees cooler on the first floor than the second floor, so I spend more time downstairs when the temp starts to climb during the day.

"For the cross-ventilation concept to work, ya gotta have a good stiff breeze, ya know?"

Not really - You'd be amazed what a slight breeze can do.

And you don't even need windows/doors on opposite sides of the building to work: An open window facing, say for example, North and another facing East would work nearly as well as long as the doors between the rooms are also open...
...even if the wind were coming from the Southwest, the vacuum created by the wind passing by would create drafts within your space.

I live in the Canadian desert - yes, there is one, right here in British Columbia! :) 105 F is a regular summer temperature. It gets up to 110 F in July. Fans don't do anything at all by that point. The first year I lived here, I lived in a place with no A/C. It was one of the most horrible apartment living experiences I've ever had. Never again.

If we could just take a page out of the way-houses-were-built-for-thousands-of-years-before-air-conditioning book, I think we could do very often without.

I have stayed in old houses in muggy, sticky, hot climates, where the houses have, for example, no windows on the south side of the building, but latice-work bricks; working shutters; walls made of bricks, stone and adobe (which is cool during the day and warm at night); houses placed with respect to light, breeze, shadow, shade trees and so forth; reflective paint colors... There's a lot one can do when building the house. But that's asking a lot, I suppose.

Never...never in a million years could I live without one! Life is just too short to sweat inside your home in the summer!

I live in Miami and get heat sick, so no. Fortunately, most places here have central air. I lived without it one year when I had a trendy deco dive on South Beach, and spent August sitting in my car with the air running...

losing my low to high heat settings ...

I don't know where in New York you live, perhaps at a high elevation in the Adirondacks, Catskills, or Taconics, the shores of Lake Ontario or a Finger Lake, some locale of perpetual coolness. However, there is no way you can comfortably live, let alone sleep or function in metropolitan NYC without air conditioning in the middle of summer. It is simply too hot, humid, and frequently there is no breeze with or without cross ventilation.

In April it's easy to think about casting aside an air conditioner as the record highs we've experienced have not been accompanied by the typical 80% humidity. Don't act too fast though, come July and August you'll be dying for that cool relief. Aside from the discomfort, you're inherently risking heat related illnesses.

Your points regarding ceiling fans and cross ventilation are effective advice in the weeks prior to and after the annual heat waves. I even place outward facing box fans in my windows to create negative pressure airflow through my home. But after the heat begins, it's time to give up the green pride and turn on the air.

I've lived without air conditioning twice. Once, my roommate and I voluntarily turned it off for an entire summer in Houston TX. We were pretty hot! However, we found a crazy joy in the whole experience. We learned to shut the apartment up completely during the day, and then open it back up again at night. We used numerous window unit fans and ceiling fans. We took cold showers. We kept as many cold beverages on hand as possible. However, we still drank hot coffee in the morning and insisted that it had some weird counter-intuitive cooling effect. Who knows? We saved a few hundred bucks, and enjoyed numerous laughs. More recently, I removed the window-unit AC from my NYC bedroom and put it on the curb. I wanted a better view out the window, and didn't want to store the old AC during the winter. I haven't regretted my decision yet. My bedroom looks much sleeker without the ugly AC and I haven't experienced any discomfort. Last summer was fairly mild, and I got by easily with fans. I'm considering investing in a ceiling fan this summer.

We don't use our air conditioning by choice, I always have to warn new guests in the summer!!

In Philadelphia, the humidy is so bad, that just walking across the room makes you break out into a sweat. I also have older pets, so I worry about their health and well being too. An air conditioner is a necessity for me...even if I only use it a week or two out of the year.

I live on Miami Beach, on the water, and have a great cross-breeze. I refuse to live without my air conditioner.

During the winter I can go a month without turning it on. But between now-ish to late November, I will happily run the a/c, 24/7, and I will happily pay triple my winter electric bill to Florida Power & Light.

I'd rather be dry, cool, and happy, than sweaty, suicidal, and "green." Summer in Miami (including the Beach) is effing miserable. I'm on the top floor with a Northwestern exposure, and Biscayne bay reflecting the sun into my place, and it can can get up to 90 degrees, with the shades drawn in three hours. The doors warp, everything stinks and sticks, and like someone else said, mold starts to grow.

No. Thanks.

I would love to live air conditioner-free (and may have to!). But, I just signed up to rent an attic apartment, guaranteed to not only be the cosy cove I've been looking for, but also an absolute scorched in the summer! I'm not sure what I can do to help combat the heat-- I have a small AC, but would really rather not use it, as it will take up the only window I have in the space. Any suggestions would be SO appreciated.

I've never thought air conditioners were optional, until we moved into our new apartment.

the landlord pays all utilities, so if we opt for an a/c unit, it's an extra $50 a month just for the 'luxury'.

not only is the extra rent a tipping point...but we have north and west facing apartment...that is shrouded by trees and taller buildings. so far this year, it's gotten into the 80s and we've still been bundled up in sweats and under down comforters.

i think we could make it work this year, and years to come. plus, it's definitely a state of mind.

the only concern i would have is when friends come over that aren't used to the no a/c lifestyle. in that case, maybe we can just entertain outside =)

Live without a/c in the South? ::blink:: ::blinkblink:: HAHAhahahahaha...the true reason we lost the Civil War? Lack of freon.

Seriously though, older Southern homes were designed for life pre-a/c and you could debate going with only fans, high ceilings, and a large wrap-around porch, but most everything built in the last 40 years wouldn't support anything remotely close to livable without a/c in the summer. Sorry.

Living in the Midwest sans a/c was doable, we just spent about a month or so in the summertime living in the basement.

I am contemplating finding the funds for a portable unit but don't want one that fits in the window if I can help it and here is why.

Here in Seattle while most of the time it's not that necessary, but if you have a south or western exposure, the room(s) can get plenty hot on bright sunny days - this is especially true if you live in an older building with poor insulation and have no cross breezes, the air stagnates and while fans help, on the hottest days in some buildings it's not always enough and after last summer's freakish 103 Degree heatwave, I sooo wanted one but the heatwave passed but I'd use it more to cool down my bedroom enough so I can get to sleep as some nights it doesn't totally cool down until after 1AM, um, no thanks.

Something many people used to use were attic fans in that it sat in the ceiling and was used to create a strong breeze by having a window or two cracked to let in fresh air and the fan pulled that air up and through a vent outside and I hear if sized right for the house, it keeps things plenty comfortable relatively speaking but I"m sure the humidity in some areas of the country didn't help but the idea was it helped create a strong breeze throughout the house, which helps people to cool off due to the cool moving air.

Mom's landlord had attic fans installed in the duplexes to help exhaust the hot air that just collects up in the attic space in her late 60's era duplex and that help a huge deal too.

And while we don't here in Seattle normally have excessive humidity, when temps get above a certain point, we get a bit muggy too but it's usually not too bad.

When that heatwave hit last summer, my apartment was a touch cooler than the outside air and it's the top floor of a 1960 era reinforced concrete slab building with insulated windows and a good cross breeze with a western and northern exposures and with the slider that faced west kept closed as were the blinds, the place never got as bad as it could've despite the temps hovering in the mid 90's and above for almost a week before spiking at 103 and I found I kept the tub with cool water in it and would go lay in it every so often to help things along and had both fans going, which they normally are all summer anyway.

Now I know what it feels like to live in the concrete jungle when a heatwave like that hits. :-)

I live in LA, and I've never had an air conditioner. Yes, my apartment got hot the past two summers that I've lived here. But I had a ceiling fan and cold drinks to keep me going; I slept with windows open and with just a sheet (or no sheet). It's really not impossible (or even hard) to live without air conditioning even in a hot climate. Now, Arizona might be a different story, and I understand that a lot of older people or those with medical conditions can be endangered by high temperatures. But LA is doable without AC for most people. I think my mentality about this comes from being from Northern CA, though, where no one really has AC and it's rarely hot. Air conditioning just isn't something I'm used to thinking of as a necessity. People are supposed to be hot in summer; your body adjusts; you don't need a down comforter or long sleeves. There are ways to adapt to hot weather and at LEAST cut down on air conditioning even if you refuse to go without it completely. Putting AC on full blast is just not necessary or responsible for most people...

It really depends on how tolerant you are of the heat. I'm very warm blooded and just can't live in New York in July/August without the AC. I can go running in shorts in 30 degree weather, but I cannot sleep in an 80 degree room.

I used to live in NYC without air conditioning. I had a ceiling fan, and on really hot days, I'd melt a bag of ice in the middle of the room. (It was a small studio, so that and the fan were enough to cool it off.

In Southern Cali, it gets warm but usually not unbearable. I actually just did away with my AC but not by choice; it doesn't fit in my new apt. Even though I rarely use it, I like to have the option.

If it gets too hot, there's always the movie theatre.

It's just not an option to go without one in southern Mississippi. In April it's in the 80's and May I can expect the 90's with humidity that just drains the energy right out of you.

"I live in Nice, France, where summer temps regularly get above 100F"

Ah, no. Nice, France has never seen a temp in the 100s and usually average in the low 80s. Double check your conversion.

Baltimore in August with 98% humidity? No. Just no. I don't actually like air conditioning, and last summer I used it for a grand total of four days, but I need it. I've lived without it before. Most of the time it's fine, but there are a few days every year when I just can't deal. Plus, I'm an insomniac and it's even harder to go to sleep when it's hot.

Living without air-con is pretty easy in my opinion. Maybe because i live in Australia. The temperature range in my house for the whole year would be 8-42 (degrees celcius). I grew up without air conditioning so accepting the weather and just dealing with it isnt so much of an issue. My husband however grew up always having air-con so just accepting that its really hot or really cold is harder for him. If its cold go put on a jumper, if its hot go have a nice cool drink & splash your face with cold water, simple. Air-con complicates things in my opinion. I thought if you used air-con you also needed to use a humidifier? we had air-con in our previous house & our electricity bills were out right disgusting. in our current home air-con would be nice but when its hot we just take the kids to the local pool 2 mins from our house. If its really cold, theres no better excuse for cuddling under a nice warm blanket!

I have one thing to add to the comments already made: programmable thermostats! We have central air conditioning and forced air heat. (My dad was in the business and it's the kind of heating/cooling I grew up with and always go for if I have a choice: and in our house, I did!) We program the thermostats for comfortable but eco-friendly settings and have programs set for when we are home, when we are at work, and when we are sleeping... It's having our cake and eating it too, since we conserve a lot of the energy we'd waste without multiple settings, and yet we are never miserable: either too hot or cold.

i'm on the 6th floor in toronto, where (despite the igloo jokes) it gets very very hot and very very humid in the summer. if it's below 30C (i suppose that's 95F) then a fan and blackout curtains to block daylight sun is ok but to get to sleep without wheezing or drowning in my own sweat an A/C is needed just to cool the place down enough.

We live in Northern CT and, while there are usually a few unbearable days each summer, it has yet to seem worth the schlepping of the units down from the attic, the bugs that always seem to find their ways in through the cracks, the irritating metallic hum, the huge increase in the electric bill, or the disappointment that always seems to follow those crappy window units around. If we had (or could have) central air in our 107-year-old, ductless house, I'd never turn it off. The units aren't good enough to make it worth our while. I'd rather put some ugly old box fans in the windows and wrap a cold pack around my neck.

I did without for several years while at college in Tucson, Arizona. But I also chose to live in an almost 100 year old, first floor adobe brick building with polished concrete floors, ventilation on 4 sides of the building and the landlords okay to coat the roof with a white, sun reflective product. A few black out shades on the windows and a ceiling fan made it comfy most of the time and for those nights nothing helped I vacated to the fenced in back patio where my hammock and mosquito net awaited. A quick floor mop with refridgerated water once the sun set always brought the temps down 10-15 degrees inside, too.

My opinion? It all depends on the building you live in. My first year there I had $150 electric bills half the year trying to keep my third floor apartment below 85 degrees!

Without AC, the Gulf Coast is uninhabitable. This is indisputable. If you live in the Northeast, don't tell me how awful it is. It is not the same at all. We turned the AC on in April and left it on through October.

I no longer live there, and am grateful every single day. I have AC, but only need it a few hours a day for about 2 months. It's dry heat, but 100 degrees is still hot.

I come with air conditioning, I told my BF for years before I moved in.

There will be no discussion. I will pay the ENTIRE electric bill.

I will not sloth around in a fat sweaty heap to save $3.

You wonder why people are losing there southern accents in the South? It is because of the invention of air conditioning. If you are ever around any seniors you will notice that they have much more of a southern drawl. The heat was so bad it slowed everything down. I can do without a lot of things, but ac is not included in this lot. It would be like asking a Canadian to do without heat.

There should their. The heat has started.

My primary home is in extreme SW Florida. Much easier to go without AC than when I lived in New Orleans. Less humidity, and living on a spine of limestone between two oceans = pretty good breeze.

It's not a yes or no question, however. I do have central, with a kicker window unit in the bedroom. I go with natural ventilation as long as possible, then use the window unit at night, and finally go central for the big broil.

My friends with new houses have no choice - the fenestration is all about AC. My older jalousies and screened lanai (plus nine ceiling fans) make living in the environment a breeze!

I grew up in Illinois without air conditioning. I took my showers at night, and went to bed with still damp hair. I had two table fans pointed at the bed from different directions and the windows open. If it was really hot I'd keep a bowl of wet washcloths on my night stand to rotate and fold on my forehead. If it was super hot I'd sleep on the couch downstairs. It was manageable but I sure love my a/c now. :)

Box fan rules.

When our AC unit died in the middle of a heat wave (NYC August), the box fan stuck in the window was enough to let us sleep just fine.

Not to say that if I had central AC I wouldn't have used it. But window units are ugly, inefficient, and noisy, so I felt somewhat relieved when our AC window unit died.

i'm a huge fan of air conditioning but my hubby won't let me have one anymore. we live in hell's kitchen, nyc and our window overlooks what is essentially a big highway. even with the filters, our apt. quickly fills with exhaust fumes and our windowsills turn black. we're currently looking for an alternative because i swear to god i don't think i can live without one

No way. I love the sound of the A/C drifting me off to sleep, I love the smack of cold air enveloping me while humidity threatens to stick to my skin. I love the A/C. That said, I keep the fan ceiling whirling & the curtains drawn to repel heat & don't turn on the unit until I need it.

I DO hate the lack of window space & I wish I had NEVER given up my upright air conditioner. It was the best. I may reinvest.

giftable- they DO make windowless air conditioners! NYC heat & humidity- you need to buy one!

This post is annoying. I live in NYC. I actually spent many years here without a/c, and every summer, despite the fact that I felt good about leading a more "natural" lifestyle, I was extremely uncomfortable. I hardly slept, any friends I invited over complained, I'd get bugs in my apt whenever I opened the windows for cross ventilation. There was no acclimating going on. My quality of life has changed considerably since the introduction of a/c.

I feel this way about my heater! After growing up wearing sweaters indoors, I've decided to never go without my home being warm again. Life's too short to be that uncomfortable!