Study: Home air conditioning cut premature deaths on hot days 80% since 1960 • Hacker News Board

Re: Study: Home air conditioning cut premature deaths on hot days 80% since 1960

#41

Post by akgerber » Tue, Dec 25, 2012, 4:58 AM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #19

InclinedPlane wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth. Per capita GDP in the US increased by 180% in the time period mentioned (in inflation constant dollars). Which means that in the regions of the country where it is hot for a considerable period of time almost everyone will have air conditioning, and in areas where it's hot only a few weeks out of the year a lot of people will have in-window air conditioning units, since they are so inexpensive. The UK's per c…

Yeah, I love how in the US (in the Midwest) you can get a hermetically sealed McMansion on a developer's salary. I don't think you can get that anywhere else in the world. There's not enough land, energy costs are too high, and the cost of living in general is too high.

The only downside is per-capita carbon usage higher than nearly every other country in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...

Re: Study: Home air conditioning cut premature deaths on hot days 80% since 1960

#42

Post by dubya » Tue, Dec 25, 2012, 5:13 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #8

loeg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that part of this is that most of the lower 48 US states (24-47° North) are closer to the equator than most of England (50-54° North). 95°F isn't an extremely hot day. We get 95°F days in the summer in Seattle, the city of perma-drizzle (47° North). From personal experience, most houses in this area don't have air conditioning. In the South, people regularly see much hotter days (I think Arizona (33°N) tops 1…

Seattle is a good example because its weather is similar to London. For what it's worth, A/C is also pretty rare in Seattle homes.

A/C is less needed in Seattle than in other parts of the US because it cools off substantially at night. I was there two(?) summers ago when some weird inversion layer was both raising the temp (105+ F) and preventing the night time cooling. It was miserable.

Here in the southern US, even when it's only hitting 90 F during the day, the low might be in the upper 70s which isn't low enough to passively cool a house.

Re: Study: Home air conditioning cut premature deaths on hot days 80% since 1960

#43

Post by snuze » Tue, Dec 25, 2012, 5:37 AM UTC

cesarbs wrote: post #40

Someone wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"most apartments are significantly warmer than the outside at night" I see two reasons for that. Firstly, people simply do not know how to keep their houses cool. On hot nights, people will do the right thing and open windows to cool down the house. However, at day, they will not close windows and curtains to keep the cold air in and the heat out (opening windows will not cool your house if the air outside is warmer…

Are there places where one can open their windows at night when it's hot? In Brazil you get instantly covered by all sorts of insects if you do that.

Insect screens on openable windows are quite popular in the US.

Re: Study: Home air conditioning cut premature deaths on hot days 80% since 1960

#44

Post by marshray » Tue, Dec 25, 2012, 6:05 AM UTC

I've lived in the South and Midwest US my whole life. Reading the title and the article I had the reaction "Is this study a joke, air conditioning keeps people cooler?" Reading the comments here I see that many folks are, in fact, surprised that the heat and humidity can be (literally) unbearable.

Florida for example, was largely considered largely uninhabitable until the invention of refrigeration and pesticides to control the Malaria-spreading mosquitos.

Re: Study: Home air conditioning cut premature deaths on hot days 80% since 1960

#45

Post by Vitaly » Tue, Dec 25, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #31

Vitaly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

crazy. here in Israel everyone have AC. There are cities where some kind of AC is mandated if you are bulding a house. And the price is rock botton. you can have a simple one that can cool a small to medium room for about 200$ and a bigger one for the main room is about 500-700$. installation is usually another 150$. 4200$?? - crazy.

We have those in the US too -- but if you're trying to cool an entire house, you'd use a central air conditioner to get better efficiency. These are placed in the yard away from the house. Here's a picture: http://www.getgreenair.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/home_h...

Well, yes, you can have those here too, but most homes still have stand alone units in every room.

The point is if you can't afford to spend $4K on air conditioning, $600 might be within the budget.

Also I'm not sure central one is more efficient. it cools entire house while using individual units you can cool just one room. Of course it has the capability to limit the airflow per room etc, but I'd guess most people don't do that and just cool/head the entire house.