Turning off the air

Air conditioning is nearly ubiquitous in the U.S. these days, but it wasn’t that long ago when people everywhere survived without A/C.  For various reasons, including economic and environmental, some people are voluntarily returning to life without artificial cooling.  To read about it, including benefits and strategies for beating the heat, see this article.

As the author points out, after the advent of air conditioning, builders no longer constructed homes and other buildings for natural cooling.  Unfortunately, our four-family brick apartment building demonstrates the new building paradigm all too well.  Fortunately, we enjoyed an unseasonably cool July and, despite the brick oven effect, spent most of the month with no A/C.  However, no one else in our building seemed to get the memo that it actually was not that hot outside, and their A/C units chugged away.