Delta Force
Banned
The PoD isn't for air conditioning to not be developed, but for it to be less common. For example, France is a wealthy developed country with low electricity prices, but air conditioning isn't common there.
AHC: Air Conditioning Less Popular
- Thread starter Delta Force
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Driftless
Donor
Understood, but by comparisson much of France has a less hot temperatures than large areas of the US.
Paris (In Farenheit)
Dallas, TX
Even Chicago has somewhat higher averages than Paris and can spike to 100* F in the summer, with high humidty
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marathag
Banned
But swamp coolers won't work where you have real swamps, like Florida, high heat and humidity
It's also not as common in some parts of the US. In Washington State you can buy cars that don't have air conditioning. When I lived in Massachusetts, my place didn't have air conditioning (I bought a wall unit).
Things being more expensive could have some interesting butterfly effects on how mass usage computer systems are developed and are used but I'm not well versed enough on the issue to say how.
In Massachusetts, it's unusual to have central AC, but it's considerably more common in new(er) or nicer homes. I live in a place that was built around 1960, and it has a central air system from that era that I still can't believe survived this long.
You can live without air conditioning in New England if you must, but there are at least a few weeks in the summer in which the heat and humidity combined makes that an utterly miserable experience.
That ancient AC unit must make the watt-hour meter spin like crazy given how inefficient those early units were: real electricity hogs. It's also a wonder it's held the refrigerant charge so long.
My own take on the situation is that AC units became more widespread as price-both purchase and operating-dropped. Earlier window units were real brutes, weighing several hundred pounds each and requiring a 220VAC line, for example. Slow the development of lighter, more efficient units (or perhaps siphon them off for military applications in the heat and humidity of Viet Nam) and maybe you'd accomplish the objective.
My own take on the situation is that AC units became more widespread as price-both purchase and operating-dropped. Earlier window units were real brutes, weighing several hundred pounds each and requiring a 220VAC line, for example. Slow the development of lighter, more efficient units (or perhaps siphon them off for military applications in the heat and humidity of Viet Nam) and maybe you'd accomplish the objective.
Penny for The Guy
Banned
Cultural Response
Perhaps rather than a technological POD, have some seriously whacko cultural troglodytes make a successful case for Air Conditioning being unhealthy, for whatever reason (like anti-vaxxers on steroids). Then you would have the tech, merely unused due to cultural norms. People might even brag about sweating in the summertime.
Perhaps rather than a technological POD, have some seriously whacko cultural troglodytes make a successful case for Air Conditioning being unhealthy, for whatever reason (like anti-vaxxers on steroids). Then you would have the tech, merely unused due to cultural norms. People might even brag about sweating in the summertime.
Driftless
Donor
Perhaps rather than a technological POD, have some seriously whacko cultural troglodytes make a successful case for Air Conditioning being unhealthy, for whatever reason (like anti-vaxxers on steroids). Then you would have the tech, merely unused due to cultural norms. People might even brag about sweating in the summertime.
Legionaires Disease. There was a flutter of concern about the connection with ducted A/C in the hotel where there were several respiratory related deaths during an American Legion convention in 1976.
Penny for The Guy
Banned
So, all you need?
All you need is to have a major hotel install AC in the mid-Fifties and have one of these things happen? Might work, if the panic mill gets going on it.
All you need is to have a major hotel install AC in the mid-Fifties and have one of these things happen? Might work, if the panic mill gets going on it.
Likewise in northern Ohio. Of all the rental houses I lived in during my years in Cleveland, only ONE of them had central air. In the rest I relied on the lake breeze (I lived within half a mile of the shoreline), fans, and cold showers. I'm sound-sensitive, so window air conditioners really weren't an option for me -- listening to that much noise will destroy my sanity faster than sweltering heat and humidity will.
marathag
Banned
More from the use of water contamination in large chillers/storage tanks, than it just being forced air cooling in homes.
Almost more likely to get that from hotel hot water taps that don't get hot enough than from condensate from the A/C evaporator