We always had A/C in our houses but not in our cars until the late 60s or so.

Linda, lucky you

We lived on Grampa and Gramma's farm. Two houses, one for them and one for us. Neither had AC in the 60's when I was growing up. I think the first AC I had was when I was about 16 or 17.
I hate air conditioning!
Its 68 degrees here now at 10:30pm.

I had to move out when I was 20 (1979) to get AC! My parents still didn't get it until about 15 years after that.

They also kept all the bedroom doors shut in the winter to keep the heat from their woodburning stove in the living room. So as a kid I literally froze in the winter and melted in the summer.

I could kiss whoever invented air conditioning!!

Here's your man,Lydia..Willis Haviland Carrier
{{!gwi}}

I'd kiss him too...'cept he died in 1950!lol

It's 9:04 and 89 degrees here. we've NEVER had an
airconditioner. It sucks when the inside of your home
is over 100 degrees.

Just to remind everyone, it is now KAT'S weather whining time.

Lydia, maybe you can find one his grandsons to kiss. If they're as good looking as their granddad it may be rather pleasant too. ;^)
Makes you wonder why it took most of us so long to get central air in our homes if he died in 1950! Heck that was six years before I was born and my folks didn't get a window air conditioner until I was in my mid teens! No central air for them until awhile after I left home. As a young married couple we didn't have it in our first home. Just the one window unit in the dining room with the fan in front of of it. We did have a ceiling fan in the living room which was open to the dining room.
I remember as a child of less than ten, we still lived in eastern Iowa, my folks and neighbors would gather on our long covered front porch to chat and stay cool until it was time for bed. We all should have slept out there!

Air conditioning was originally developed to keep computer rooms cool so they would not overheat. I don't know how long it took for the AC to be adapted to homes and cars.

I remember growing up in a humid river valley pre AC. We would strip to bare skin on hot nights, and lay in bed with our legs and arms wide apart so they would not touch our body, or they would be slick with sweat. Dad would take us for a drive in the country before bedtime, windows down, and buy us a Dairy Queen on really hot nights.

A/C wasn't really that wide spread until the 60's In Miami we had water coolers in the apartments. Growing up in Chicago my Sisters used to go down to the 79th street beach and put a blanket down and sleep there in severe weather .
we had the old wire fan and sometimes put a pan of ice cubes in front of it

We still don't have air conditioning.......that is why I love living on the beautiful central of California!

I gave in and had an a/c window unit put in the bedroom...because the room is on the west side of the house and my husband has gotten used to the a/c when he is at work, 3 weeks out of the month...and I had a litter of kittens that were suffering in the heat. As for me...I don't care that much about air conditioning. Fans are all I need. Heat doesn't bother me. I am outside most of the day, and I love having fans blowing on me when I am in the house.

I remember. Not being able to sleep and then waking at 3 am so glad that it was cooler. My mom has only had ac for about 10 years and she wasn't sure about it then. Now she has 3.

Heck, for some reason we didn't even have fans when I was growing up! My parents still don't have central air but they have fans all over the place and a couple of window a/c units. But growing up in the 70s/80s - not a single fan in the house. I can remember sleeping right under the window,trying to feel any small breeze. My sister actually went out and slept on the roof a few times (I was too chicken). I had a bed with a metal frame and I used to hang over the edge of the mattress so part of my body rested on the cool metal.

When I was three my parents bought a new house with central air. Before that I think they had window units but I was too young to remember or care!

My elementary school had a/c installed when I was in about 3rd grade I think.

I live in Houston, the a/c capital of the world. We like our indoors cold during the summer. Bring your sweater with you to the movie theatre, you'll need it.

Pretty much everyone here has central air. Gotta have it. Although I do still see some window units sticking out of houses built before the 60s.

When your a/c breaks here, it's an emergency!

Never had A.C. Of course this is northern Ontario but this summer was extremely hot so it would have been nice to have it.

our family funeral home was one of the first buildings in East Chicago to have A/C, that was back in the 30's. we had to pay $1000 a month for a dedicated electrical pole to service just that A/C line and to this day that permanent lease is still $1000 a month :-) of course now the electric bill is waaayyy higher than the pole LOL! that electric line has a guarantee to never go w/o power and since the 1930's it has not even once gone off! in the last 15yrs the neighborhood lost power once (only 3rd time ever) and that pole stayed on. my dad grew up living above the funeral home and my grandmother refused to have a/c upstairs, she thought it would spread colds & coughs. my dad and siblings slept downstairs when it was hot :-) she got the final laugh on her funeral day when a rare oct heatwave came thru (2007) and all the family was gathering upstairs for socializing lol the irony did not escape anyone lol!

myself growing up we had a window unit in the livingrm and slept on the floor in there sometimes. our rooms were in the basement so it wasn't tooo bad. of course as soon as i moved out my parents got central a/c lol. my dad just had a brand new commercial unit (funeral home) & his home central a/c units stolen :-( luckily he had done the accounting and taxes for a major HVAC co in chicago for 30 yrs and they came out the very next day w/ new units ea time :-) ~ liz

I was just thinking about this in bed last nite! LOL My dad used to drive us out in the country to cool off--Also, remember how the skeeters used to come thru the screens & buzz our sweaty bodies! UGH! Never had air til 1986 & now I'd DIE without it!

Donna (^_^)

"Air conditioning was originally developed to keep computer rooms cool so they would not overheat. I don't know how long it took for the AC to be adapted to homes and cars. "

Afraid that is not true. Air conditioning was originally designed to cool big department stores and movie theaters. Yep really.The first modern air conditioner was installed in 1924 in a department store. Its application in cinemas and theaters provided cool comfort to the masses. The big bulky contraptions were introduced to businesses and homes (well actually anyone with the money to spend the following year). It is since 1950 that air conditioners were widely accepted for use in homes, offices and shops. Initially considered a luxury; now it is a necessity. Sorry it is still a luxury in my book and I'm luxuriating as we speak. Mr Carrier was as smart as he was handsome. He knew there were a great many more stores and theaters than "computer rooms" and where the money would be. I'm pretty sure they were developed for cars, after factory in mid 60s and built in by late 60s early 70s.

LIL

I sure do remember every miserable minute of those hot summer nights when you couldn't even sleep because of the heat. Our bedrooms were all upstairs, which didn't help. We had fans but it was a big old house. We had a big wrap-around porch and a few times mother let us kids sleep on blanket pallets out there.That was in Indiana.

When we moved to Florida, a lot of the schools still didn't have air conditioning and at that time kids weren't allowed to wear shorts to school!

You're right, Glenda. Thank goodness for it and bless dear Mr. Carrier.

We had air conditioning when I was little, but my parents wouldn't turn it on until it got close to the 100's. It didn't matter to me, I hated cold air.

I get mad at DH. He likes to keep the temps higher at the house during the day to conserve energy. Then he comes home at night and turns the air down so he is comfortable. I'm acclimated to the higher temps so I get a double zing.

I remember our house in the City (Buffalo NY) had no air conditioning. I'd sleep in my room with the windows open.It must have been about 90 in that stuffy little room. I'd ofyen take off my pajama top. Very hot in that house! When my parents moved to the suburbs, they put a fan in every bedroom window. Much better. Then when I was about 16 they finally got Air Conditioning.

Gosh, I didn't even think about how hot schools got! No air conditioning in any of the public schools I went to. Not until I went to Colorado Institute of Art did I have the luxury of air. I had to drive in from Boulder, to Denver though in my little orange Pinto with a sunroof, but with out air conditioning.

I remember seeing photos of thousands of Chicagoans sleeping in the parks along the lake during heat waves. That was not unusual in the first half of the 20th Century. (A lovely thought, that people felt that safe!)

My mother said she and my father once dragged a mattress into the vestibule of our house during a heat wave. They slept with the front and back doors wide open, trying to catch a breeze. (We didn't routinely lock our doors until well after WWII.)

I still see some old Victorian houses with 'sleeping porches'; most have been enclosed as living space.

donna_oh -- Ah, yes, the torture of hearing a mosquito buzzing around you. Waiting for it to land on you. SMACKING it, and hoping you got it before it got you. No good turning on a light and hunting for it; that would just attract more mosquitoes. (Life was HARD, sob, sob.)

Our town's movie theater advertised that it was "Air Cooled". That meant fans blowing over blocks of ice. It did help, and of course the theaters were dark. True "Air Conditioning" came later.

A/C in schools? Hah!

Our electricity bill just came yesterday: $222 for June. I've been experimenting with a setting of 68 degrees at night and 77 during the day. That cooler nighttime temp means the air usually doesn't come on again until around six p.m.

We don't really need AC where I live. I would definitely want it if I lived someplace that gets hot.

From what I understand, in the very old days, they would dig a trench in the ground in such a manner that it provided cooler air inside a house...natural AC.

My mother lived in the south with no AC and she said they would sleep in screened-in porches at night.

"Afraid that is not true. Air conditioning was originally designed to cool big department stores and movie theaters. Yep really.The first modern air conditioner was installed in 1924 in a department store."

Afraid that is not true either. Carrier's system was invented in 1902, and was originally designed for use in a printing plant where low humidity was needed. It was in later years that it caught on in other applications like the ones mentioned.

I remember when we were kids we were allowed to sleep on the floor in front of the front door. Didn't lock in those days and the screen door was all we needed. We thought that was just great!

I forgot to mention cars. My parents had a Ford Fairlane station wagon, probably bought it around 1965, no a/c. At some point, my dad decided to have after market a/c installed in the car. There were vents attached by brackets to the floor that sat just under the dashboard area. They were always leaking water, some of which they spewed out at us. LOL

I don't know if they make cars without factory installed a/c anymore, but if they do, none of them get shipped down to Houston!

aannd the prize goes to----

Chad said. AC was designed to remove the humidity in printing plants.

Surprisingly enough I picked up a book my ex had one boring Sunday afternoon. It was a biography of Carrier and the surprising thing was, I found it pretty interesting. The ex was a mechnical engineer and had a lot of books I would probably never have thought to try.

I was sitting here trying to remember the details when Chad posted his comments and triggered the memory. I was on the point of checking out the book cases to see if it was still here. I just knew that computer rooms and retail stores didn't ring true.

We didn't get AC until my Junior year in HS. A window unit in the DR that cooled the LR, DR, and Kit. and one in my parents BR. They usually left their door opened and the two pretty much cooled the house. (small house) I hated it. I kept my door closed and when I got up in the morning, I would go to the LR couch wrapped in a blanket. Of course now is another story. I would live in a meat locker if I could.

Heat never really bothered me until I was twenty/twenty one and drove across the state of Iowa in my little '76 Ford Pinto with the sunroof and vents open to keep cool. About 3/4 of the way, my Mom was following me, Mom passed me and pulled off the road for me to follow. She said I was swerving more than normal and she was afraid for me. Guess I got too hot and didn't realize I was driving erratically. We stopped at the next exit to take a break at a cooled restaurant and cool off. I had to keep driving my car since it was a stick, but she kept a close watch on me and we stopped often for more cool drinks. When we got to our home town I bought a tube top shorts at K-Mart and laid on my cousins bed right by the window air conditioner the rest of the weekend. My Dad was working near by so we left him my car and drove the Merc with air back to Nebraska. Poor Daddy who worked at a tinner (sheet metal) all day in the heat had to use my car since my folks were worried about me. You just don't think about their sacrifices at the time do you?

Have never had air conditioning. Here in Minnesota, it typically gets unbearable for only 1-2 weeks per summer. Then I go shopping, sit in a coffee shop, or go to the movies. I DO love my ceiling fans: they help cool the house tremendously!

I was just talking about this subject today.

We didn't have a a/c until I was 16 years old. I came home from work one day and my Dad had cut a hole in the wall. He had bought a used upright wall unit a/c. I couldn't believe my eyes.

My 4 brothers slept upstairs and I shared a room and sometimes a single bed with my sister. Once all 7 of us shared the same bedroom so it would get pretty hot in the summer. LOL One by one during the night we would leave the room and come and sleep on the floor in front of the screen door hoping for a breath of air. Sometimes my best friends and I would make tents out of sheets flung over the clothes line held down with rocks and sleep outside when it got too hot out. We never had real tents just ones made with sheets.

We didn't have fans either growing up. I used to love going to my Grandparents house because they had all kinds of fans blowing around the house. My brother brought home a box fan once and it caught on fire so that was it. Our bedroom windows didn't have screens on them so we had those small wood slide screens that let in a few inches of precious air.

That old used air conditioner lasted for another 20 something years before I had to replace it. Cost me almost $800 to find another upright unit and even then I had to hire a carpenter to enlarge the hole and put trip around the unit. If I had spent a little bit more money I could have had central air but what did I know. LOL

I don't turn my air conditioner on until the temps go into the 90's. I am fine as long as I have a fan blowing on me. Last night I turned it off but just turned it on again a few minutes ago. My sister is staying with me for a week and she doesn't tolerate the heat well.

My brother was just saying tonight when I was over at his place he doesn't like air conditioning either.

Anne

Yes, I remember when we did not have air conditioning. I grew up up on a small farm on southern IL and I remember what we did on those hot, humid, summer nights - we suffered! I recall getting out of bed on particular bad nights and seeking out the linoluem floor in the front room where the door was open to let in air. I'd lay on the floor to garner what ever coolness there was, and when one spot soon heated, I'd roll onto a new, cooler spot.

Having not sleep a wink until the wee hours of the morning, I would have a headache the next morning and would not be worth much as a farm laborer the following day.

People with electric power could have fans. We did not. Electric power did not arrive to the rural farm in southern IL until 1947 when the REA was restarted after WW2. Only one household in our neighborhood had a home elecric plant and that used principaly for refrigeration, a radio, clothes iron, and a few lights. Fuel and maintaining the engine was deemed expensive enough to cause tight conservation.

In the pre-airconditioner days (before 1940), the rich on the Atlantic seaboard headed inland to the Smoky Mountains for relief. They maintained summer homes and places near Asheville, NC became their playground. The Vanderbuilts erected the Biltmore manson during those times. And then after 1940, home air conditioning came to market. It was this event that took away the edge to those mountain properties and these fell into decline as they were no longer "fashionable".

The kids of today really have no clue how lucky they are, do they?