apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

For us it depends who's home and how hot or humid it is. Most of the time, I'd prefer to open the windows and turn on a fan. My husband requires AC. Usually he wins. In any case, the ceiling fan stays on to help circulate the air.

I lived in an apt in LA where my front louvre windows were next to parked cars so to leave them open i would suck in exhaust and the back windows were painted shut and no window to put an air conditioning unit in...i used fans but they didn't help much - now i'm reveling in a large a/c unit for a small apt...ahhhhhh.

AC plus ceiling fans.

AC users: where do you set your thermostat to feel comfortable during the day? For us, it's 77 F.

Open all the window, use window fans to create a crossbreeze. When its really hot I get out the popsicles and change into my bathing suit.

I really dislike A/C and try to do without it even in the worst heat and humidity. Luckily I get a good breeze through my apartment, because I don't even have a box fan at this point. I can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be to sleep on wet sheets, not to mention the mildew.

im rocking out with a portable ac/dehumidifier. it was a pricey investment ( at 600$) but worth it...

I subscribe to ConEd Solutions (mostly wind power, I think), and run the air at 78 on power saver mode.

We try to use the AC as little as possible, despite the DC humidity. Our old house didn't have it at all and we used a combo of fans and strategic window opening, but our condo doesn't have many windows and we have no cross ventilation. Now I find I love the AC to dehumidify and towels and other things aren't lost to mildew. When we do use it, we generally set it to 78, lower if guests are over.

We open the windows and turn the fans on at night, then shut everything up during the day, using room fans to circulate the air. Our apartment stays around 10 degrees cooler than the outside air. Only on the hottest days does it get above 80 and a fan makes that manageable.

a/c. as much as I'd like to use something more ecologically sound, I do need both the cooling and air filtering benefits...

OK, so the dork that I am, I found an article a while back that identified 77 degrees as the point at which you start sweating (I guess that means when you're relaxing, sitting down not doing anything, etc). So I set my thermostat at 77 and try to use A/C only when it's about 85 degrees or hotter outside or if it's super humid. Otherwise I use a ceiling fan and get the windows open.

I am a big heat sissy. I prefer the fresh outdoor air and open windows any night it is predicted to go below about 70. Opening the windows cools off the house which seems to last well into the day. I do run my AC if it gets up to 75 in the house - this is the sissy part. To compensate you should know I keep the heat down in the winter at 63-64 deg and turn it down more at night and when I'm at work. I just installed a 90 furnace which will further reduce my energy use. My rationalization is that conserving so much energy in the winter allows me some sissy grace in the summers.

I run my ceiling fan 12 mos of the year, have room fans going when it is warm out cuz I AM a big heat sissy. :)

Our street-level windows are bolted shut and the rest are held together with paint. (yes, we rent and are house-hunting!) So we use the central air set at 75, and 2 fans in the third-floor bedroom. The basement-level kitchen is always freezing, and barely any cool air makes it to the top floor. Any hints- other than closing the basement vent, which we've tried- to force more air upstairs?

It was still in the 80s here at 2am, so opening the windows is not much help at times. Not to mention that I need to bug the landlord again about the broken screens on a number of windows that the mosquito air force, ant army, and spider marines have under constant surveillance. Still, I make due with fans and drinking lots of ice water, and we are lucky that half our place is under a huge, glorious shade tree. The boy is definitely more prone to pop on the AC (can't blame him since he walks home from work in this hot mess) but we keep it on 77 and, all things considered, run it pretty infrequently for enriron reasons.

I like to retreat to the basement.

Oh, and we keep our freezer full of ice cubes and those individual frozen apple sauces.

I found these really nerdy but so refreshing tubes of gel that cool down when you put them in water, the idea is to tie them around your neck. You can find them in gift shops, they're really ugly but you don't have to wear them in public. Or you could just not care....

My bf and I grew up in Nova Scotia and Maine, so we never really had air conditioning in our houses. As a result, we have yet to come around on the idea of air conditioning our apartment.

Our friends think we're crazy, but it seems like such an environmental and financial drain, and I find air conditioned spaces to be kind of uncomfortable. I freeze all day in my office (I'm bundled in a blanket as I type), which is kept between 69 and 72 degrees and is enough to turn anyone off of a/c.

When the New York summers get really bad, I'll usually take a cold shower, rinse off my feet in freezing water (it works!), or escape to the movies.

I live on the first floor of a three-story house. The apartment on the 2nd and 3rd floors has central AC, which trickles down to my place. That plus open windows plus a naturally shady lot means I've never had to use my window AC unit in the three years I've lived there.

I try to just rely on the open windows to cool my south facing apartment, but I'm afraid the a/c is called into action all to frequently. Fortunately, my window a/c has a fan only option that is usually enough to keep things bearable at night. Right now, the windows are open, a thunderstorm has just passed, and that wondereful wet concrete fragrance is wafting in. Ahhh...summer.

I'm jealous of all of you who keep the a/c set in the upper 70s. My fiance is always turning it down to 65 (!!!!!) because of our chinchillas. The books say they're fine as long as the indoor temperature is below 80 degrees, but for whatever reason he freaks out about them when our apt even gets into the 70s. You can imagine what our Con Ed bill looks like! And I hate that i have to wear a sweatshirt inside in the summer.

Whenever the temps are below 75 and the humidity below 50% I open the windows and use box fans. Above that I run ceiling fans constantly in tandem with the wall a/c units on high voltage timers. I save some money on the electric bill as they're automatically off when I'm not home and come on an hour before I arrive from work.

Do you have a link for that COOL fan? It's not on Real Simple as far as I could see.

Mostly, I just open the windows overnight and close them during the day, keeping the shades drawn. For a few of our recent hot days, though, I turned on a little window AC unit so my dog wouldn't melt.

One thing that has helped us immensely is the purchase of window shades that are designed to reflect the UV rays. They are not that expensive and they really do the job. Cool thing is in the winter they act as insulators as well. we use space fans in our bedroom at night and in the office to save our little computer friends when in use.

Base your A/C usage on the dew point, not the temp or humidity. But, for me, I turn it on in mid-April and it won't go off until mid-Sept. I keep it at 75 which translates to 78 degrees and 60 percent humidity. It runs about $115 per month. On and off is generally a waste of money. Remember, you not only need to cool the air, but the furniture, carpets, walls etc.

I also keep the windows covered during the day, and yee hah, I just got brand new windows AND tuckpointing! Yep, I rock.

I try to keep the A/C off as much as possible, turn it on when temp gets in the 90's. Use fans and cross breeze. When I was a kid and we didn't have A/C (in the dark ages) we used to put a bowl of ice cubes in front of a fan to get a cool breeze. Works!

When I get home from work I put the A/C on for a couple of hours to cool down the apartment if it's unbearably hot, but then I shut it off and leave the windows closed, leaving the ceiling fans running to keep the cooled air circulating. It then stays comfortable throughout the night. In the morning when it's cooler, I open the windows to let the fresh air in.

Of course, if it's a decent night, and not too hot and humid then I open the windows and forego the A/C.

52" ceiling fan over my bed, on low at night, with just enough AC to kill the humidity - but AC if I have to.

Otherwise, a scattering of Vornado fans, the ceiling fan - and the AC only when I must.

White 97% UV filtration solar shades down all the time on my south-facing windows.

We use a combination of open windows at night, ceiling fans pretty much all the time during the season, and an air conditioner when necessary. I wish the surveys allowed for multiple choices.

At 10:00 p.m. in Houston, it is 80 degrees and 87% humidity. During the day the humidity is even higher. With the heat index, the temp is over 100 regularly in the summer. The air is tactile, it is so thick and moist. You can't imagine summer here without air conditioning.

To all y'all doing without the a/c, just how south are you?

I miss living with no air conditioning. In Florida you have to run it nearly year round. Except at the office it's so cold my skin hurts and when I leave I don't turn the air on in my car and the 100 degrees actually feels good.

I've got a big oscillating fan in the living room that I use to blow outside air in. I only have an AC unit in my bedroom, which goes on just overnight once or twice a week. I conserve a lot of energy by sleeping at my girlfriend's!

I'm lucky in that my apartment is situated to get maximum use of the wind so like a lot of the folks above, I have windows open at night with fans in front of them, then close everything up during the day but keep the fans going.

A few weeks ago my son scored a small window a/c from a friend who was moving - just in time for the heat wave we had. According to apartment rules it has to be mounted in the living room window that looks into the back yard, and it is a very small one so it only really cooled the living room, but for the 1st time in almost 10 years we did have one room that was cool. The trouble we went to to get it mounted almost seems like a waste since we really only needed it for a couple of weeks, but we occasionally run it for a couple of hours in the evening just before bedtime, with the fans situated to blow the air into the bedrooms.

Not looking forward to the electric bill :-/

We have one of those squishy things that you freeze then put on injuries or sore joints - the other night my genius hubby took it out of the freezer and into my pillow. It was awesome! Then I took it out a while later and leaned it against my back. Mmmm - finally some relief.

Come to Sydney!!!

It was 53F (12C) today with a wind straight of the Antarctic that dropped it to 39 (4C) near the coast and down to the 20s out west.

Soooo COLD. Aching with it. Counting the nanoseconds to bedtime.

Or come to England! This post makes me jealous! It's cold and windy and rainy here :( When I finish my masters degree I am so emigrating!

Much as I hate AC... it's on constantly from mid-May to mid-September. I try to keep it at 80 but usually get miserable enough to go for 78. We run ceiling fans, too, to help it circulate.

When it's 104 at bed time, opening the windows is not a realistic option. (It did get down to 85 at dawn! I think there was a storm.) Now that it's monsoon season, it's not a dry heat -- it's a wet, sodden heat, like walking through a forest of boiling sponges.

As soon as we're down to 90 for the daily high, it'll be possible to open the windows during the cool part of the day, close them later, and let the apartment retain its coolth on its own with minimal AC.

Close the window shutters.

I really like this site but I am really dismayed to hear everyone chime in, "well, I like to be all eco nice and stuff, but when it hits x temperature I just *have* to turn on the a/c". Nobody ever *has* to use air conditioning. Even when it's 110. Millions of peope survived before it, and you are all sissies.

Hmmm....sounds like snot has now become snotface or has a twin...........