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Properly designed homes can also cool things down a bit. If you look at British colonial architecture in the tropics, especially in places like Malaysia or India, then you'll see high ceilings with air ports/windows which can be opened near the top along with air ports/windows near the floor. This allows the hot air to rise and be vented while the cooler air comes in near the floors. Sometimes they even took advantage of thermal heat sinks where you have pipes buried in the ground with one opening near a water source and another in the floor. That way cool air could go through the pipe, getting cooled more by the lower soil temperature, and then pipe the cool air into the home. This promotes air movement, gets cooler air into the home, and allows warmer air to be vented. If you want to really go the extra mile then a water feature such a fountain works well so you can get some evaporation cooling as well.
No electricity is needed and you can easily lower the temperature 20 degrees especially if you use stone, brick, or concrete construction for the home itself. It worked in the 19th century before electricity and it can work today.
Properly designed homes can also cool things down a bit. If you look at British colonial architecture in the tropics, especially in places like Malaysia or India, then you'll see high ceilings with air ports/windows which can be opened near the top along with air ports/windows near the floor. This allows the hot air to rise and be vented while the cooler air comes in near the floors. Sometimes they even took advantage of thermal heat sinks where you have pipes buried in the ground with one opening near a water source and another in the floor. That way cool air could go through the pipe, getting cooled more by the lower soil temperature, and then pipe the cool air into the home. This promotes air movement, gets cooler air into the home, and allows warmer air to be vented. If you want to really go the extra mile then a water feature such a fountain works well so you can get some evaporation cooling as well.
No electricity is needed and you can easily lower the temperature 20 degrees especially if you use stone, brick, or concrete construction for the home itself. It worked in the 19th century before electricity and it can work today.
They do have to be speciality built with such a design in mind where as now days everyone has electricity so it's cheaper just to buy an AC. That said, it can be done without electric power. It just depends on what your goal is, I guess.
They do have to be speciality built with such a design in mind where as now days everyone has electricity so it's cheaper just to buy an AC. That said, it can be done without electric power. It just depends on what your goal is, I guess.
There could be cookie cutter designs. But cost was and is prohibitive. Only the wealthy could afford homes like that. From midddle class down people lived in smaller houses on smaller lots but they had larger families. Even the wealthy expected to be uncomfortable in hot weather because that ninety degree breeze isn't refreshing.
Today even welfare housing has air conditioning. No one needs to sleep in a hot room unless it's voluntary.
I will say that our 100-year-old house was built over a lovely and cool basement, and has plaster walls and 10-foot ceilings, with huge floor-to-ceiling solid-maple framed thick leaded windows that keep the heat in during the winter, and cool in during the summer. The hottest room in the house in the summer is "the addition" - which has drywall, a low ceiling, and those plastic-framed windows. It would be the coldest room in the house in the winter, especially since it is on the northwest side, from where the wind comes - but that is where the woodstove is! (Yes, it has fireproof walls surrounding it and is set up on a brick hearth, so no worries). Another thing that works for cooling is the verandah that runs down the entire east side of the house, with two maple trees in front of it that tower over the house.
Construction does matter; those cookie-cutter homes are a higher long-term cost. This house back east would have been far out of my price range; here, it was cheap because everyone has either them - or cement-block homes.
As for the dog on extremely hot days, I give her bath (no soaps) early in the morning and let her dry off on her own. Or, I spray her with a soft spray (water bottle) every now and then, sometimes with a little Witch Hazel (a coolant) in the water. Change her drinking water often and I never take her anywhere in the car without a huge bowl of water. Of course I never ever leave her in the car unattended, this can be deadly for a dog in any kind of heat, as the temps inside the car soar above the actual temp. Two dogs left in a truck here last week died.
...
I do what you do with the fans, too.
[and I hit myself with the spray bottle, too - it makes a big difference]
I bet a good number of the 700 people who died in Chicago in 11995 said something similar. It is a fact that the vast majoriy did it to save money. I consider my life to be worth a bit more than they considered theirs or (apparently) you consider yours.
Interesting that on a self-sufficiency forum, there are so many "we just can't go on without AC" or "we don't want to, so therefore we'll never have to go on without AC" types of posts. That in itself is fine by me, because I hear that from 99% of the people around me, along with not being able to survive without cars, electricity, smartphones, TV, x-box, Walmart, etc... One thing that I'd expect to see more of, though, considering part of the OP's title is "without air conditioning," is, well... alternatives to air conditioning, rather than an "it can't be done" or an "I'll learn to swim when the boat sinks" type of mentality.
Since I don't use AC (in the house, but I do in the car), not much would change for me. But as has been pointed out, lots would change--and often with deadly outcomes--for those who are used to a constant 72 degree life. There have been some good suggestions... but there have been many sort of "white flag" posts as well. I'd have to say that, in my experience, learning to deal with it before you are forced to deal with it is probably the better idea. Very few folks can run a marathon unless they've done some running and conditioning beforehand. Very few people could handle Death Valley 120 degree weather when they haven't been out of their refrigerator for 20 years. Yet, there are people who actually live there without AC. It's all in what you are used to. Our species is very adaptable, but also very susceptible to sudden "shock." I guess the trick is to not have it be such a shock. An Inuit probably would not survive if suddenly plunked down in a Sahara summer. But I'll bet he could if he were eased into it and allowed to adapt.
---"adapting"-- is an over rated term when it comes to weather
I struggled all my life trying to "adapt " to MN winters.
I moved south and had little trouble "adapting" to the heat wave we just experienced.
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