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Ask HN: How did free people in USA thrive in high heat before air-conditioning?

32 points by reactspa ↗ HN
I live in Mid-West USA. It's been hitting 95°F the past few days. I experimented with trying to go without air-conditioning. Couldn't do it. Couldn't work on my computer despite being indoors and having a fan on my desk. Had terrible sleep (despite having a powerful ceiling fan).

Air-conditioning is not even a hundred years old and was originally not even invented to keep people cool (it was invented to keep machines from overheating).

How did free people stay thriving and productive during summer in places like Florida, and certain other parts of America where there's not only extreme heat but also extreme humidity?

Is it a case of:

- temps have gotten hotter more recently?

- if I had continued my experiment, I would have eventually gotten used to the heat and learned to thrive in it?

When it gets extremely hot around here, I think a lot about the Bedouin with all their layers of clothes in unimaginable heat. I also think about photos of Americans from around a hundred years ago when all men seemed to be dressed in suits and a hat. Such a mystery to me. (And yes, I realize the Bedouin wear all those layers to protect themselves from hot wind. But still, it must feel like an oven in there.)

64 comments

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trinovantes
Climate change made heat waves more frequent and severe

Concrete/asphalt infrastructure and lack of shade makes cities several degrees hotter than rural areas

_int3_
I did the same, but succeeded. Only humidity was lower then in USA south. Humidity makes it hotter.
h2odragon
Interior spaces were built taller, more attention was paid to ventilation, giving a natural draft where possible.

People sweated and drank more alcohol.

It was easier for many, before air conditioning, to adjust their schedule to the hot months, rise earlier and nap in the afternoon.

Jtsummers
Home construction styles are a major one. Modern homes are generally blocky and offer little protection from the sun. They have large exposed exterior walls on the east and west side so that you have less than a foot of material protecting the interior from the heat introduced by sunlight. And often larger windows which are nice for lighting, but offer no help when the sun bears down on the home.

Wraparound covered porches, or even a covered porch providing protection for at least the ground floor from being hit with direct sunlight makes a major difference in the temperature of a building.

Homes can be built like they are now because of air conditioning, and since they are designed with an assumption that AC will be available they are miserable places to be when the AC fails.

cududa
Yep. 120 year old house and my AC bill is insanely low. It’s very drafty and has an east facing covered porch on both levels that does a great job with heat mitigation.

Just as a tip I noted in another comment, got into indoor plants over the winter and happened to just like humidity sucking ones. Required a lot of humidifiers during winter, but during the summer those plants just zap humidity from my home when I have my windows open.

I usually like my AC at ~73° but with all the plants I feel perfectly comfortable with the windows open (plus two window fans) up until about 78° indoors and outdoor humidity at 80% - the plants draw down humidity by at least 15%

wrycoder
TIL. What kinds of plants suck down humidity?
cududa
I have 2 very large monstera deliciosas (require a lot of humidity in winter/ early spring but suck up a ton of humidity this summer), 4 golden pathos in 2 wall mounted baskets near the ceiling around the living room, 2 Hoyas “ceiling mounted” (the chains come down so the planters are about 6 feet off the ground), and a lemon lime pray plant in my dining room ceiling mounted.
t-3
The populations in those areas used to be far lower, and temperatures were lower during the "Little Ice Age", which covers much of that period.

People just put up with it, or adopted appropriate traditions such as siestas during the hottest periods of the day. We also adapt to conditions remarkably quickly, and are physically capable of surviving far outside what we normally consider comfortable. When visiting the south, it's not uncommon to see people complaining of cold in 60F weather which is quite comfortable to northerners, who start to complain about heat past 70F.

Building materials and styles of construction were different - before modern transportation and logistics, you couldn't build exclusively with wood in areas with no trees and few rivers to float barges, and insulation was accomplished through thicker walls.

People used parasols, shawls, and other clothing to cover up and insulate their bodies rather than their entire surroundings. Swamp coolers have been known for thousands of years.

QuarterRoy
Before electricity they had things like sleeping porches which were just like what the name implies. After electricity and before AC, they used an attic fans. These are giant belt driven fans with an electric motor that have a sort of trap door in front of them - usually with some sort of mesh covering the trap door (I’ve owned two houses in the southern US built in the early 1900s with these fans).

In the summer months, you’d open all the windows, open the trap door, and turn on the fan. Historical homes were also built with crank windows above the doors to also help increase circulation when the attic fan was on.

It’s also about what you’re used to. My grandparents keep their central AC on in the mid 80s - which to me is very uncomfortable but they are in their late 80s and this is what they’re used to.

cududa
Oh wow. I forgot about the attic fan. Haven’t lived in that house for 14 years but wow - can’t believe I forgot about that. Those things were AWESOME! Shame more homes don’t have them now.
8jef
I live in a one bedroom city apt, 2nd floor, just under the roof. I'm getting very warm summer temperatures.

I've installed a powerful king air 20 inch window fan, and enjoy a warm, but nice breeze in all rooms, all day long. Perfect.

cududa
In the market for new window fans - what model numbers? Had two Comfort Zone CZ310R 3-Speed’s that failed after 5 years in 2 weeks of each other.

Replacements are nearing 3 months and the motors are whining.

Inflation seems to have hit small electric motors hard. Resigned to spending more to replace them again but want something good. Anyone know of any reliable/ durable window fans?

technofiend
Anecdotally we're nearing or reaching historical highs thanks to global warming, so in part people who lived in the South as I do didn't have to quite deal with such high temperatures. Even so my house which was built in 1936 has very high ceilings, multiple windows with window screens in every room, a whole house fan that creates a nice breeze in the house by drawing in outside air which it vents into the attic, and two screened attic vents that are 4-5 feet wide and around 10 feet tall. The house was very much designed to cool by moving lots of air. Add in the shade from a pecan tree and it can be quite pleasant. I'm still running the AC as we speak because even with all that moving air it's still humid.
UncleEntity
> My grandparents keep their central AC on in the mid 80s…

I always would set my AC to 78 during the Phoenix summers, the difference between that and the outside temperature was enough to keep me happy. I’d also have to mostly avoid businesses that kept it to a more “comfortable” temperature because I’d get cold and I don’t like being cold…which is the main reason (behind the electric bill) for my choice, I absolutely refused to pay to be cold.

I remember I was carted down to the basement of the VA hospital to get X-rays during the summer and I was literally shivering the whole time I was down there, they probably had it set to something reasonable like 72.

—edit—

To answer the actual question, I talked to old people who grew up in Phoenix and they said it wasn’t all that bad back in the day. The heat island makes a big difference and there was a lot more agriculture surrounding the city keeping the temperature down.

makersmasher
In my 20s I had an apartment with no air, you actually adapt fairly quickly, it took me 3-4 weeks of 90+, high humidity. The odd part is, I haven't been able to really adjust back, I have no tolerance for the cold now.
silisili
My parents grew up without AC. Their families used a series of open windows and window fans to create a housewide draft.

You can't just point a fan at yourself...a big problem is the air in your house getting hotter than outdoor air due to greenhouse, electronics, warm bodies, and ground temps. So recycling air out helps a lot.

That said, we had that same setup as a kid for about a month and it was still rather miserable compared to AC. Mainly because AC removes humidity, whereas fans don't.

cududa
I got very into indoor plants over the winter and outfitted the house with smart humidifiers to control humidity in each room as my old house is VERY drafty.

It’s absolutely wild to adapt to the plants summer humidity needs (based in Ohio). I can keep my windows open with a few window fans to circulate air and the indoor humidity level hovers around 15-20% less than outdoor humidity.

schiffern
The trick is to run the whole-house fan all night, and shut it off when the temperature starts to rise in the morning (effectively "banking" the cold night air by cooling the building mass). Turn the fan back on when it gets hotter inside than outside (usually 4-7 pm). Wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer are cheap nowadays!

A "cheater" whole-house fan can be made by putting a box fan exhausting in a window (fill in the rest with cardboard etc), and opening windows on the opposite (ideally coolest, usually North/East) side of the structure.

Remember: locate the wireless thermometer sensor outside the cool intake window[s], otherwise your temperature reading will be off.

On sticky wet days, I find it helps to run the AC for a couple hours in the morning, after shutting off the fan. This dehumidifies the indoor air while it's still cool outdoors, so the AC runs more efficiently. Pro-tip: running an AC on LOW fan speed makes it dehumidify more effectively.

Later in the day, I use AC set at 75-80 to "shave off" the worst of the heat in the afternoon/evening, prior to turning on the fan.

Using only the fan without any AC, this results in a ~90% reduction in electricity used for cooling (at the cost of a few less-than-comfortable evening hours). Using the fan+AC technique, I yield about a 75% energy reduction (but with higher comfort).

HarHarVeryFunny
Before modern A/C, in some parts of the US they used "swamp coolers", which as I understand it was basically a large box of damp wood chips through which outside air entered the house. These were a type of evaporative cooler - they work by the heat in the hot air being used to evaporate the water on the wood chips, leaving cooler air which then flowed into the house. No electricity required - just keep the wood chips damp!
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HarHarVeryFunny
Evaporative cooling is also used in cooling towers to cool both indoor and outdoor spaces. These are basically a tall hollow tower with hanging fabric inside at the top that is kept wet. Hot air enters at the top, and gets cooled by losing it's heat to evaporate the water; then, with cooler air being more dense, the air "falls" town the inside of the tower and flows out at the bottom cooling the surrounding area.

http://www.2030palette.org/evaporative-cooling-towers/

missedthecue
In 1900, the population of Las Vegas was 22. One way of avoiding high heat back then was trying not to live in it.
azemetre
Yeah kinda shocked that people in other comments are ignoring the fact that most of the south west was devoid of people in the US. Same could be said for Florida as well. They didn’t experience massive population shifts until some time AC was invented and had widespread adoption.

As someone who grew up in central Florida, you’d basically go into one AC boxed room into another while driving in an AC car in between. Those that didn’t have this luxury were basically living at/below poverty levels.

Day laboring was even worse. If you didn’t drink enough water you’d get heat stroke. There would always be a few people who thought they were “tough” then three hours would pass and they’d be nearly passed out begging someone to drive them to the hospital (if you left you’d lose your hours and pay).

It’s only gotten worse.

vidanay
Fun fact...my mother-in-law's cousin and her husband moved to Florida in the 50's to start a new business. Installing air conditioning. Needless to say, they are a pretty wealthy family now.
paulcole
I grew up in the most extremely hot/humid part of Florida for the first 18 years of my life (I’m about 40 now). My dad didn’t believe air conditioning was necessary and he was right. It’s possible to survive, but it’s absolutely miserable.

Our house (he designed/built it) was wide open, essentially one big room with huge ceiling fans and screened in windows. It was built inside of a ton of tree cover for shade. House was full of bugs (occasionally snakes) and still hot and humid. Take a shower/bath and never get dry. Clothes had to be stored in our cedar closet (designed like a humidor) or they would smell dank and moldy.

You do get used to it though. It’s just that it’s not worth getting used to.

Moved away to college and my first A/C bill was something like $300. Didn’t care at all.

grumpitron
It just takes time to get used to it. For example, I lived in a city with very little A/C for a few years and got used to it. One July I went to North Florida where the temps were 90-100F while being very humid, and although I was warm I was fine without the A/C. My friends who came from Chicago and were used to constant A/C were miserable, though.
AlotOfReading
You would have eventually found it more tolerable. Adaptation time is typically on the order of a couple weeks. Above a certain temperature (~100F for myself ), you'd still be uncomfortable regardless.

Historically, in hot climates you'd also spend some of the hottest parts of the day doing things inside, which helps tremendously. That can be tens of degrees cooler. On top of that, you'd also have a house designed for the climate. In the desert that might be a big adobe building, which would get you another significant reduction in temperature.

Bedouin-type clothing also helps a lot. The point is actually to be flowy and generate lots of airflow over your skin while blocking the sun.

Beyond that, historically you just didn't live in places where it was unlivably hot. Typically those are places without much water, which is a bad thing. Dangerous wet-bulb temperature was significantly less common prior to the modern era as well.

I also have a relevant Askhistorians answer about the desert southwest you might find relevant [1] which gives real numbers and some further discussion of historical strategies.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c8rizq/how_d...

javchz
Good Architecture, insulation, cross ventilation and orientation of rooms can make a huge difference.
wrycoder
High ceilings, hotter air rises.

Large double hung windows that open at the top and the bottom. Hot air flows out the top.

wrycoder
“From a little after two o'clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that—a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.”

— Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner

Read Faulkner or Dos Passos to experience heat as people did a century ago.

muzani
I've been using dehumidifiers as an alternative to air conditioning and it works well.
chadcmulligan
There's a style of house where I am (Queensland, Australia) called the Queenslander [1] - its a timber house, with high ceilings - typically 10 or 12 feet, the walls are tongue and groove timber which is pretty leaky, so any breeze goes through. It works, I've lived in one, my mum still does, without air con, just fans and evaporative coolers for those hot days. Another thing is placing your home facing the right direction - to the north east here to catch the cooling breezes.

They don't build them any more - brick and air con is standard now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queenslander_(architecture)

mikewarot
The Bedouin are in a desert, where sweat actually works to cool you down. That's not so here in the Midwest, where the humid air gets pulled northward from the gulf of Mexico.

Sleep during the day, when it's too hot to do anything, and work at night, if at all possible.

Our house is white, and has 4 large Maple trees around it, which passively cool things by about 5-10 degrees, but even so, we had to go with AC this time.

mattpallissard
My wife, kids, and I lived in an old farm house located in a marshy area of the Midwest without AC for nearly a decade. Summers in the upper 90s with really high humidity. I've also spent a fair amount of time with family who don't have AC south of Flagstaff.

* Windows and doors wide open all night, always paying close attention to the temperature outside. Once it's hotter outside than in, we'd close up the windows and blinds. Typically this only lasts for a few hours.

* When you live without AC, your body adjusts to temperature more quickly. So, you turning AC off for the day feels markedly worse than if you didn't have it at all. We'd be "fine" outside on a hot day while our family members with AC would turn into puddles.

* When it's really bad at night you tuck your pants into your socks and your shirt into your pants (bugs), then go sleep in on the ground in the yard.

* You eventually just accept that you're going to be hot and uncomfortable. Personally, once I hit this point I realized the feeling that you can't escape the heat is often worse than the heat itself.

Interestingly enough when you live without AC it's common to get headaches when you go into a HVAC controlled building.

Edit: grammar

johnthescott
> marshy area in the Midwest

central illinois? i spent a summer recently in peoria ... and i thought houston was humid.

mattpallissard
North/central along the Kankakee river near the Indiana border. Way back in the day it used to be the "Grand Kankakee Marsh". It's been mostly drained for nearly a century now but there are still quite a few sloughs and stands of flooded timber throughout the area. Even the drained areas in the flood plain (which is immense) start turning back into marsh pretty quickly after an extended rainfall.

There's an interesting/cheesey B list documentary on the area called "The Everglades of the north"

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vidanay
The houses were designed differently. I live in a 120+ year old house in the middle of corn country in Illinois. We finally installed central AC only three years ago. How is the house designed different from current construction methods? WINDOWS! My 2400 sq ft 2 story house has 54 (FIFTY FOUR!) windows. Every room in the house (except the bathrooms) has windows on two separate walls. After the sun goes down, by opening all the windows in the house and leaving all the doors open, the cooler night air can permeate throughout the house. In the morning (before dawn), all the windows are closed and the curtains are closed. This will trap the cool air and reduce solar heating.
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gregw2
I grew up on the hot and humid gulf coast and was surprised after moving north that it was nearly equally hot and sticky in New York coast during summer when it hit 90-95 degrees.

In the early mid 1990s, not every place in NY had air conditioning (because the hot summer on lasted 2 months) so it was actually worse than where I grew up. The solution in NY then was fewer clothes, fans, and getting breezes to work for you in whatever space you were staying in. I fanned myself with my church bulletin in church in the summers when it got hot.