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Very true, BUT the SoCal coast is MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE. Also, while summer daytime highs may average 70-75 degrees at the beach, it gets progressively hotter as you drive inland. San Fernando Valley and the Inland Empire are MUCH hotter than the beach areas. How much hotter? At least 20 degrees hotter.
For more affordable real estate in SoCal, you'll most likely be searching inland locations with brutal summers. Even at my place in Rancho Bernardo, a mere 15 miles from the coast, the temps have exceeded 90 degrees too many times to count already this summer (for the record, we have had more brutal summers before.) And it's not a dry heat. We've seen 90+ degree temps combined with 70+ degree dewpoints. I don't know about you, but I use air conditioning everyday at my house and in my car in Rancho Bernardo. And real estate is still $500/square foot here!
San Bernardino average temps (well in the 90s all summer long):
I live in Northern France, I don't need to have air conditioning.
But It's very true that the more you go further inland, the more temperature increase in CA, the climate is even totally different between San Bernardino and San Diego. It's also true that dewpoint can be high too (Ocean moisture, Southwest monsoon season influence or something else ?).
I'm at 3,000 feet with a freshwater lake right below me. Days are above 80F but right NOW at 7 a.m. I'm below 50F. If I want cooler the next town and the ranch are at 4,000 feet.
What would the world be like if we all wanted to live in the same spot? Oh, the coastal area of California. Just bring money.
I don't believe there is such thing in continental U.S., not even in most of the inhabitated Alaska, apart from the northern shore.....
Very few, if any?, Alaskans have AC, or feel a need for it.
Northern shores are quite cool year 'round with practically no one living there.
Southern shores are much warmer in the winter, but cooler in the summer, than interior Alaska. We're "lucky" to see two days a year reach 80 degrees.
Of course it's realized that many folks in SE Asia don't have AC, right? Many Americans would consider just about every one of their days "intolerable" without AC.
p.s. They also keep their hotels super hot in the winter in Europe so I only stay in hotels that allow open windows in the winter when I'm in Europe.
I've noticed being able to keep it toasty in Europe in winter is a point of pride.
When I worked in Austria... my co-workers proudly showed off all the different ways they have to keep warm...
Often it was a combination boiler system for radiant heat... fired by wood, heating oil, natural gas and some had elaborate pellet systems and all had traditional Kachel Offens...
One explained it is nice to have options... if the price of heating oil drops... he buys, if he has access to wood it will be wood.
Austrians are so concerned about keeping warm... tripple glass windows and a state mandate that all new homes have a chimney suitable for wood burning in place... even if concealed in the wall... just for future use.
San Francisco - comfortable all year without any notion of a/c. If you wear several warm layers on colder days, you may not need any heating either (I have a large flat electrical heating board with fan in my SF condo, but have never turned it on in 10 years!).
Oh yes, unaffordable SoCal where I grew up. One sister still lives in Encinitas, near San Diego and doesn't have A/C. No one there does. They suffer a week or so in the summer during a rare heat wave. No heat either. But yes, just a few miles inland and it's a whole other story.
No locals here have A/C but all us wimpy expats do. Right now it's 75 day and night and we always have an ocean breeze. But I like it cooler to sleep so put the A/C at 69 at night (19C). Soon it will heat up to 85 day and night and I wonder how the locals do it, but they are adapted. We are coastal Ecuador.
Agree about Italy. We were there in May and needed A/C and the hotels were very stingy about it. You had to ask each time. Couldn't imagine summer there!
As we lose cities that don't need AC, we'll be gaining cities that don't need heat, it's all good. I prefer global warming to global cooling, the next ice age really has me freaked
Everyone forgets that it's much easier(relatively) to deal with heat than is is to deal with a kilometer thick sheet of ice covering your city.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultrarunner
I've noticed being able to keep it toasty in Europe in winter is a point of pride.
When I worked in Austria... my co-workers proudly showed off all the different ways they have to keep warm...
Often it was a combination boiler system for radiant heat... fired by wood, heating oil, natural gas and some had elaborate pellet systems and all had traditional Kachel Offens...
One explained it is nice to have options... if the price of heating oil drops... he buys, if he has access to wood it will be wood.
Austrians are so concerned about keeping warm... tripple glass windows and a state mandate that all new homes have a chimney suitable for wood burning in place... even if concealed in the wall... just for future use.
Wood burning will go away at some point, as it's very CO2 intensive.
Wood burning will go away at some point, as it's very CO2 intensive.
If wood rots in the forest isn't the same amount of CO2 released?
Europeans are in most countries are proud of their going green.
The wood fired boilers all meet the ultra low emission and the traditional Kachel Offen or Russian Oven or Masonry Air Tight Stove are also supper efficient... both in combustion and thermal mass.
The quality of the wood is even more important... you will be fined if caught burning trash or wood not properly seasoned... and it seemed all the locals had their wood supply lined up years in advance... probably not something most would do back here in California.
I would have to laugh when I had friends visit from California... we would be out all day seeing the sights and then come home to a cold house... first thing is where is the thermostat?
Told them the seasoned wood had to be loaded and the oven fired... in about 3 hours the heat will be flowing... they simply couldn't understand the concept.
Now... if some one is home, one firing would provide heat for 24 hours... if temps were in the teens and lower than two firings...
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