The Pros and Cons of Living in an A/C World (sinuses, allergies)

[Grandpa Pipes]

"There's no doubt that air-conditioning can save your life, but as heat waves increase in the future, should we all be armed with A/C?"

Surviving the Great Indoors: The Pros and Cons of Living in an A/C World | Environment | AlterNet

World simmers in hottest year so far - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100716/wl_nm/us_weather_hottest_record - broken link)

[jtur88]

You don't need to be a slave to your AC.

Where I live, the heat index has been over 100 every day for a month (it was 107 yesterday), but I've never run my AC for more than 12 hours in a day. I don't turn it on until it reaches about 85, and then I close the windows and set it on 80. Normally, that is around noon. Then, about 9 pm, I turn it off and leave the circulating fan on. At bedtime, I turn off the curculating fan, and open the windows. I have ceiling fans that stay on continuously.

[Creek Hollow]

We're bringing some of this on ourselves. I cannot stand it when developers clear cut and level an area, then plant ridiculous saplings that take 20 years to be of any use because they're too lazy to work around existing trees.

The neighborhoods where trees were preserved are beautiful and cooler.

I hate having to use A/C for 9 months a year, but severe allergies demand it. The A/C dries out sinuses and eyes something terrible so I drink about a gallon of water per day. I never use our ceiling fans because I can't stand so much air flow.