in heat : a/c confessional
While you were complaining about the heat, seeking out shady spots to read your Sunday paper, or basking in the faux sea spray of the Cha Cha’s air conditioner, Ed Tang was busting the myth about Seattleites and their home climate control situations:
That’s right, I have an Air Conditioner.
… it is a commonly held myth that Seattle is a temperate enough climate that most residents don’t need air conditioning during the summer. I do, admittedly, live in an upper floor of a condo in an extremely energy efficient (read: airtight) building that’s incredibly warm (mid-high seventies to eighties) in the evening without additional heating in the dead of winter, that’s well above the tree line and without any sort of natural cross ventilation. I am, perhaps, being overly passionate about the subject at the moment because I’m living in the heat at the moment. [antiexperience]
From his fortunately cooled apartment, he gathers the strength to rant about the rest of us and our suffering at the hands of building codes that prevent residents of ugly condos from further uglifying them with window air conditioning units.
What do you think? Is poor ventilation just another reason to steer clear of high rise living? Do we just indulge in ritual heat whining because the rainy season is off limits and simply not complaining about the weather at any point in the year would be too American even for the latte liberal class?
Just to be clear: unless it is sunny, clear, and 60 degrees with mild to no humidity and a very, very gentle wind, I’m complaining about the weather.
I’ve called BS on the idea that no one in Seattle needs an air conditioner during the summer at least a billion times. While I’ve never lived in a place that had it (where I live now I barely would ever need it as my basement apartment stays at least cool enough to be tolerable), I’ve only ever worked in one place that didn’t. Sure, it’s warmer during the day than at night but if it didn’t get hot enough to require air conditioning, would malls, restaurants and movie theaters invest in it almost without fail? I think not.
I consider it every person’s right to complain about the weather, actually.