Advice Please! Finding a Studio Apartment with A/C vs Buying a Portable A/C Unit (Seattle: wood floors)

[USHiker212]

Hello Everyone! I recently visited Seattle this past week to look for a sub-$1500 studio apartment to live in. Visited Belltown, Lower Queen Anne, Pioneer Square, Eastlake, and First Hill neighborhoods and had a great time.

I knew the deal about most apartments in the city no having A/C in their units and that you would usually not need them in most case, which I was fine with. However, given the unusual period of extended warm weather, I'm starting to believe that A/C may be something that should be higher on my list of deal-breaker amenties.

My question(s) to all of you:

• Is it reasonable for me to prefer built in AC or should I suck it up and buy a portable one?
• Do you think this weather is a freak occurrence or a sign of a new trend for the area?

Any other feedback or recommendations would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[CrazyDonkey]

Your chances of finding a studio apartment here with air conditioning is close to zero. A few of the fancy new apartments for $2k+, maybe. Better to look for an apartment with north or east exposure.

My landlord allows installation of window units, but considers them to be "fixtures" - if you leave, they get to keep them. I've made do fine with fans, even in this weather.

The current weather is a trend.

[Fedekat]

Hey there USHiker212

You'll really love this neck of the woods. heh

I can share with you a bit about portable AC's if that's the route you end up having to go...
We broke down and bought a portable one about 3 weeks ago for a health -vs- heat type thing after we saw the heat predictions for this year.
Three fans by themselves couldn't cut it, but be mindful if you see a sliding glass door facing due west on a prospective residence, if there are no trees to nestle
you in, full sun exposure on its glass will skyrocket the heat of that room, possibly rendering it useless during the day.

Our little place is roughly 500 to 600 sq ft and our front door is a sliding glass door and has been known to hit 94+ degrees in front room, YIKES

We got ours via Walmart.com and what a difference it has made!! The only slight limitation of it is that it has about a 4-5 ft scrunchie type of hose that has to vent outside...
via cracked window or door... placement choices may be hampered because of it, we only use ours for the bdrm, but it's not that loud and has different settings so you can be energy efficient.

We're very pleased with the quality. There are hoseless ones but that's when you get into the big bucks.

It's the LG 10,000 btu Model LP1014WNR

[BATCAT]

Originally Posted by USHiker212

Hello Everyone! I recently visited Seattle this past week to look for a sub-$1500 studio apartment to live in. Visited Belltown, Lower Queen Anne, Pioneer Square, Eastlake, and First Hill neighborhoods and had a great time.

I knew the deal about most apartments in the city no having A/C in their units and that you would usually not need them in most case, which I was fine with. However, given the unusual period of extended warm weather, I'm starting to believe that A/C may be something that should be higher on my list of deal-breaker amenties.

My question(s) to all of you:

• Is it reasonable for me to prefer built in AC or should I suck it up and buy a portable one?
• Do you think this weather is a freak occurrence or a sign of a new trend for the area?

Any other feedback or recommendations would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

It's going to be hard to find a moderately-priced apartment with AC.

If it were me, and I was especially concerned about heat, I would look for a place with wood floors, without a ton of West-facing sun exposure, on a midde-to-lower floor, with windows positioned that you can get a good cross-draft. Add a couple of fans to that, and you can cool things down a lot.

Or, yeah, just get a portable AC.

I have no idea if this represents a new trend for the PNW. Cliff Mass seems to think "no". I will say, though, that typically sustained hot (I don't really think that this is THAT hot so far, but I'll save that for another argum... err, thread) weather like this is historically pretty rare. Typically, only July and August see significantly warm temperatures, and some years (I'm pretty sure) we don't even even crack 80.

See here for chart:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle#Climate

[Hemlock140]

Be careful what you buy in a window or portable, many of the older apartments can't handle the load, and you will be blowing breakers. You may have to go with a small one at about 5,000 BTUs and just cool the bedroom to sleep at night. Some landlords will not allow them, so check the lease.

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by BATCAT

I have no idea if this represents a new trend for the PNW. Cliff Mass seems to think "no".

Mass ascribes the current NW weather pattern to an "amplification of the upper level wave pattern" (a.k.a., the Jet Stream). A number of climate scientists, however, believe that global warming is driving a higher frequency of extreme El Nino events, resulting in greater variability in temperatures. In other words, our current warm trend is primarily due to natural variation, but that variability might be amplified by global warming.

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/0...t-so-warm.html

Climate Change Could Double Likelihood of Super El Ninos | Climate Central

NWS JetStream - Weather Impacts of ENSO

[505HPC6Z06]

When I lived 1/2 block from Green Lake, the house was robbed. The crooks pushed the window-fixed A/C unit into the room to gain access. Be sure to keep security in mind when mounting it (assuming the A/C vent or unit would be accessible from the outside).