Given these rough economic times, is the A/C still cranking?

[amatrine]

I hear you about the stores. I will not goto Arizona Mills mall in the summer because it is to hot and stuffy in there, and I feel dizzy walking around.

I keep my air set at 78 all year round. It has not been kicking on as much now, and I turn it off at night and open the window. In the morning it gets chillie but I have an extra blanket on the bed, and hell, I enjoy actually feeling COLD in the morning,lol

Ama

[thegirlinaz]

It is true that in summer the heat is over 100 so you wear shorts and tank tops... but once you go into a store it is freezing. I hate that... why does it need to be so cold? I hate the extreme change in temperature from the outside heat to inside a store.

[fotoverdi]

We have two air conditioners and our upstairs where the bedrooms were was working and the downstairs needed to have the circuit breaker it worked on replaced which they did yesterday thank God. It is fine up until 2 p.m. and then it gets real hot inside the house. So at night it is off and the morning as well, then in the afternoon until about 8 or so, it goes on 74 degrees!

[aiwei]

Originally Posted by NytoPhx

I seriously don't see how that's possible without being in extreme discomfort... I would like to see your sweat bill for the month.

LOL! Perhaps it's because we are very used to high temp and high humidity of Midwest summer. We had spent 3 summers in IL without ac at all (2005-2007.) It was uncomfortable to say the least, but since we had no money to repair our 30 yo ac, we just lived without it. Now we have spent our 1st summer in AZ and survived, I must say it was more tolerable than any IL summer! Granted we had ac in the rental house and our new home, I kept the temp at 83 - 85F, a bit higher than most homes. And of course we stayed mostly downstairs and wearing just tank tops and shorts. With such low humidity, high 90s here is like 8os to us. And even if we sweat a little, why is that so odd? We do live in the desert, don't we?

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by thegirlinaz

It is true that in summer the heat is over 100 so you wear shorts and tank tops... but once you go into a store it is freezing. I hate that... why does it need to be so cold? I hate the extreme change in temperature from the outside heat to inside a store.

Originally Posted by aiwei

And even if we sweat a little, why is that so odd? We do live in the desert, don't we?

Both of you should realize that one reason Phoenix grew sp rapidly was BECAUSE of air conditioning. Before A/C became standard & more affordable, this area was very sparsely populated. If it wasn't for A/C, cities like Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and possibly even L.A. would be much smaller than what they are now.

There is no way an average person could survive a Phoenix summer without A/C. People with health issues, and the elderly are especially vulnerable to the consequences of living without it. If you don't mind sweating, that's fine ... but some of us with health issues sweat more than usual, and we mind it very much when stores set the thermostat too high. I, for one, need to be in a cool environment for health reasons.

The wearing of tank tops & shorts provides very limited relief compared to A/C. Besides, some of us may not wish to show off our hairy backs, flabby arms, and veiny legs in public.
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[aiwei]

I did not advocate NOT to turn a/c on. I merely commented to whose posts that said they could not bear the heat of summer and considering not using it these few weeks "crazy." I did not say I never used a/c, however I did say I turned mine off during the 1st week of Oct. When I said sweating, I did qualified that with "a little." Perhaps I should have said "perspiring," so not to conjure up this soggy and drippy image that you probably had in mind! I think you all read too much from my original post. It might seem crazy to you to want to reasonably push one's tolerance of heat. I thought it builds character ;-)

[acstr]

The summer and even now is insane without A/C. I keep my home and offices at 68. Some of my native employees just throw on a sweater.. It drives me nuts when I get home and my housekeepers turned it up.

There is no better feeling of walking into a very cool home after being outside.