Article for Walter

[oujour76]

Walt--saw this article, thought might be of particular interest to you and general interest to the board.

getpocket.com/explore/item/how-air-conditioning-created-the-modern-city?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[Walter]

Good article.
I cannot tell you how difficult it is to try to sell design for climate to clients whose first response is, "Why? Can't we just turn on the AC?"

[AlaCowboy]

Growing up in Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s, air conditioning was a luxury for only the rich. Other that going to Sears or W. T. Grants department stores two or three times a year for clothes shopping, or Saturday morning trips to the movie theater in town for the cartoons, serials, and movie, I never was in an air conditioned building. Not even the schools and church were air conditioned back then. The first air conditioned house I ever entered was a friends house that lived in the country club neighborhood. I was 15.
I still remember sitting on the front porch on hot summer nights until the house cooled enough for us to go to bed. Having a cold glass of milk and cornbread was like Heaven. We would have old coffee cans stuffed with oil-soaked rags to light and keep the skeeters away. Sometimes we would push the old Philco radio to a window and tune in a baseball game if we could pick up Cincinnati, Chicago, or St. Louis.
We did have a big window fan in the living room window that cooled the house down at night so we could sleep.

[Walter]

Jul 24, 2019 9:42:42 GMT -5 AlaCowboy said:

Growing up in Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s, air conditioning was a luxury for only the rich. Other that going to Sears or W. T. Grants department stores two or three times a year for clothes shopping, or Saturday morning trips to the movie theater in town for the cartoons, serials, and movie, I never was in an air conditioned building. Not even the schools and church were air conditioned back then. The first air conditioned house I ever entered was a friends house that lived in the country club neighborhood. I was 15.
I still remember sitting on the front porch on hot summer nights until the house cooled enough for us to go to bed. Having a cold glass of milk and cornbread was like Heaven. We would have old coffee cans stuffed with oil-soaked rags to light and keep the skeeters away. Sometimes we would push the old Philco radio to a window and tune in a baseball game if we could pick up Cincinnati, Chicago, or St. Louis.
We did have a big window fan in the living room window that cooled the house down at night so we could sleep.

Living in the SF Valley without AC in the 50s, the saving grace for us, unlike most areas of the country, was that as soon as the sun went down, the cool onshore breeze from the coast would roll in. That, along with Vin Scully on the radio, defined summer evenings.
First house I ever lived in that had AC was in '61.

[AlaCowboy]

Jul 24, 2019 10:29:56 GMT -5 Walter said:

Jul 24, 2019 9:42:42 GMT -5 AlaCowboy said:

Growing up in Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s, air conditioning was a luxury for only the rich. Other that going to Sears or W. T. Grants department stores two or three times a year for clothes shopping, or Saturday morning trips to the movie theater in town for the cartoons, serials, and movie, I never was in an air conditioned building. Not even the schools and church were air conditioned back then. The first air conditioned house I ever entered was a friends house that lived in the country club neighborhood. I was 15.
I still remember sitting on the front porch on hot summer nights until the house cooled enough for us to go to bed. Having a cold glass of milk and cornbread was like Heaven. We would have old coffee cans stuffed with oil-soaked rags to light and keep the skeeters away. Sometimes we would push the old Philco radio to a window and tune in a baseball game if we could pick up Cincinnati, Chicago, or St. Louis.
We did have a big window fan in the living room window that cooled the house down at night so we could sleep.

Living in the SF Valley without AC in the 50s, the saving grace for us, unlike most areas of the country, was that as soon as the sun went down, the cool onshore breeze from the coast would roll in. That, along with Vin Scully on the radio, defined summer evenings.
First house I ever lived in that had AC was in '61.

Money from my after school job bought us a 10,000 BTU window air conditioner in spring of 1963, at the end of my junior year in high school. Just before I left for college I bought a 6,000 BTU unit for my parents bedroom. When I got to college, my dorm was not air conditioned, so I was back to the old days for me. Only the football and basketball players got to live in the new air conditioned building built by the Athletic Department.

[Deleted]

We had huge attic fans that pulled cool (LOL) air in through open screened windows.