[bobaloo]

I grew up in Missouri, now live in western Oregon, have never had a house with AC in my life. When I lived in MO I definitely saw that the people who had AC suffered a lot more from the heat, the shock of going from the cold air to the outside seemed pretty bad. I also noticed that they seemed to get sick a lot in the summer and I suspect the AC had something to do with that.

If you can live without it your body will acclimate a lot better to the heat. I do want to add that I always lived in the country, the cities are a lot worse for heat, and I usually had enough sense to get the hard work done early in the morning or right at sunset, but it was the heat as much as anything that caused me to flee the midwest.

Out here it's been in the 40's at night, highs around 60 during the day, so no need for heat or AC for most of the year. December, January and February a little heat is pretty nice. I have a friend who is working on living on about $500 per month, in the winter he lives in one room of his house and just uses a little space heater, keeps him cozy. In the olden days of yore country folks would shut off most of the house in the winter and live in a few rooms around a big stove, they didn't try to heat the whole house. Some even had a small winter cabin and a big summer house, just moved back and forth Spring and Fall. They adapted their lives to the weather instead of using oil to adapt the air to them, something we're all going to have to think about.

[perdition79]

No thermostat. I breathe better in high humidity. Very low humidity gives me nosebleeds. (in Vegas, for example.) I'm one of the few sickos in the Tampa area with the windows open in August. In the summer, I sleep with a pedestal fan pointed at me, dries the sweat and feels like air conditioning. My power bill is $37 a month, all year long.

[Ivan_M]

i live in Louisiana and mines at 68. if you think thats unreasonable then screw you. i only got here for the tail end of the petrol party and I'm damn well going to have a good time before its time clean up the mess.

[grampybone]

We keep ours at 72 here. Only turned on the A/C last week.

[Jack]

75 during the day...
73 at night...

[ravensburg]

I don't have AC, so I turn everthing off during the summer and just run a couple of fans, I hate the heat but have gotten used to it. I hate sitting at home during the summer and try to be out and about (I have my new mountain bike I am trying to break in) so I think its a waste to have AC when I would not run it anyway.

[lotrfan55345]

Winter: 68F
Summer: 74F

My family is bad.