By Jura Koncius
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 20, 2006; H01
Growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., where summers are short and heat advisories are rare, Elissa David never had air conditioning. Her parents didn't believe in it. Now she lives here, where on some summer days the only thing higher than the temperature is the humidity, but she is sticking with family tradition: She never switches on the window unit in her fourth-floor Arlington apartment. She keeps her shades half-drawn, turns on a few fans and dresses in shorts.
"Air conditioning makes me feel like a flower that doesn't have any water," says David, who works for a nonprofit environmental organization. "It sucks the moisture out of my body."
Her June electricity bill: $18.
Across the Washington area, in shaded bungalows and high-ceilinged rowhouses and downtown lofts, some people actually prefer to live without air conditioning. Their homes can be sweltering caves where fans whir, glasses of iced tea sweat, ovens are abandoned, and residents wake up in a pool of perspiration. And yet they seem to have little temptation to switch on the instant relief of artificially chilled air.
When Sarah Fairbrother and Luke Wassum bought their brick rowhouse in Petworth 16 years ago, their house inspector told them the air-conditioning compressor was dead. They've never replaced it.
"We decided it wasn't worth dropping money on something we only need two or three weeks a year," says Fairbrother, who works at American University. "I grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and I moved south to thaw." Fairbrother says the only time they ever considered a portable air conditioner was for their large and furry cat.
The couple are clearly in the minority. According to the latest statistics from the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, 57 percent of all occupied homes in the United States have central air conditioning; an additional 25 percent have window units.
So what's driving the holdouts? Some people simply cannot afford to pay for air conditioning. For others, it comes down to priorities.
Some say air conditioning in any form is a lifestyle indulgence. For others, the issue lies in a deep conviction that AC is a waste of energy, and it's worth suffering a bit for the sake of the Earth. Some don't like the feel, or the noise, of AC. Some just don't want to spend the money.
"It's a war between comfort and cost, in my experience," says Mary-Beth Corbitt Hutchinson, a spokeswoman for Pepco. This year, Pepco residential customers saw an average annual increase in their rates of 12 percent over last year; it was 39 percent for Maryland residential customers. Dominion Virginia Power's rates are capped so customers are paying essentially the same rate as in 1993, according to a spokesman.
Kathy Jentz happens to live in a former 1935 Pepco substation brick Colonial in Silver Spring. These well-constructed houses, built in various styles to blend in with the neighboring properties, contained a giant transformer. Over the years, Pepco has sold off some of them, and they have been remodeled into private residences.
Jentz, who publishes Washington Gardener magazine, admits cost is one of the reasons she leaves the central air conditioning off. She also avoids using her clothes dryer and chooses not to own a car. On Monday, when the Air Quality Index was at Code Orange, with temperatures in the 90s, it was a sweltering 88 degrees on the thermostat in Jentz's main floor, where she was working from home using just a small fan. She reported that a load of laundry she had hung in the sunroom dried in a record three hours. She expresses a dislike for AC's frigid air, which she says feels "artificial."
"I'm environmentally aware," she says. "I don't feel like I'm suffering."
There are social consequences to her chosen lifestyle. "My dad won't come over to my house if the AC isn't on," says Jentz. What do her friends say? "Oh, they just say, 'Well, that's Kathy . . .' "
Some non-users don't impose their steamy lifestyle on friends.
"We just don't entertain in the summer," says Debra Roush, who lives with her husband, Steve, and two college-age children in a brick Cape Cod in University Park. "Nobody will come and sweat with us." Roush says they used to invite over other friends who didn't have air conditioning. "I used to walk around the neighborhood and feel good that other people had their windows open. There aren't too many of us left."
Roush says she and her husband have had estimates of $15,000 to put a central system in their home, but they always seem to have more pressing expenses, such as college tuition. "We cope with ceiling fans and, if it gets over 95 degrees, we might put in a window unit, but I hate that because then you can't open your windows."
Some households swear by attic fans as an alternative to central air. Pamela Roddy's 1973 cedar-sided contemporary home in Bethesda has a high-volume, 36-inch, industrial-grade exhaust fan installed in the attic. This powerful type of fan draws out the hot air from the whole house and sucks in the cooler evening air through a few slightly open windows.
Roddy says that's all she and her husband need to keep cool, and last Sunday, they even baked a blackberry pie at 450 degrees."We are not penny-pinching. I just love the soft breeze of this fan," says Roddy, a scientist who works in public health. She recycles, does not use pesticides and does not water her grass in the summer. She says the only problem is that the rush of air from the powerful fan wreaks havoc with her dining table candles.
For Abigail Rome of Takoma Park, wasting energy and global warming are reasons enough to keep her fans whirring and windows open. Her house has one window unit in the main bedroom, which she says she has turned on only three times in the past eight years. "Money saving is an issue, but I can afford air conditioning if I want it," says Rome, a consultant in conservation and eco-tourism. "I strongly believe anything we can do to reduce our negative impact on the environment is worth it. I drive a Prius, but most of the time I bike."
Jeff Cohn, a writer, gets by in the summer months in his Takoma Park house using ceiling fans and not using his oven. When his daughter is in residence, he will turn on a window unit in his home office if it gets unbearable for her. For Cohn, a Minnesota native, it's all about priorities.
"Put it this way: I'm cheap," he says. "Why spend money on air conditioning? I would rather spend my money on food and women."
Beat the Heat Without AC
· Take a cold shower before bed. Added cooling: Go to bed with wet hair. (This risks bed head, but hey -- it's a look.)
· Put the oven off limits until fall. Use the microwave. Grill everything you can outdoors, even veggies.
· Eat light. Salads. Fruits. More salads.
· Drink lots of liquids.
· Be aware that caffeine or alcohol can increase blood flow to the skin, raising the risk of dehydration.
· Dust yourself with talcum powder before dressing and before bedtime, like the Europeans do. And sprinkle some between the sheets.
· Put a bowl of ice or a freeze pack in front of your fan to give it a blast of coolness.
· If it gets really bad, go to the movies. It's always freezing in the theaters.
Jura Koncius