AC Appreciation Day

When we moved last year it was with full knowledge that the AC in our new home was 16years old. In Texas, that’s quite ancient for this area given the AC is running 24hrs a day for nearly 8 months out of the year. As we anticipated, the AC failed just a bit over a year after we moved in (and not long after the home warranty expired).

We had several days of wondering if it was just extra hot before we broke down and called the AC guys. Turns out the freon is leaking. Given the age the of the system and the apparent severity of the leak, repairs would have been pointless. So new AC we go. Fortunately, given that they couldn’t begin repairs until the following week, the offered to refill the freon for free to get us through the weekend).

Unfortunately, the AC replacement was a two-day job. So Monday we were completely without it. In August. In Texas.

It’s fairly unpleasant without AC. During the day or night. But this was nothing. One time while still living in Florida, we lost power for a week due to a hurricane. And then less than a month later lost power for another week due to another hurricane. Those weren’t fun and we didn’t even have fans or internet to distract ourselves with. Though I didn’t have to contend with a young child whining about it the whole time so maybe its a wash?

Anyways, it got me thinking about how it would suck to not have AC permanently. I mean, there are plenty of people who still don’t have it these days due to poverty. And up until a century ago no one had it.  But plenty of people still lived in hot, muggy areas like Texas and Florida.

I started down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia thinking about this. Learned all about Willis Carrier and the first electric AC in 1902. But I also learned about different processes that have been used for cooling in the past. Came across one person, in Florida naturally, who came up with an idea for centralized cooling way back in 1842. He failed to develop it, in part due to the efforts of “Big Ice” wanting to maintain the status quo.

This got me angry about entrenched power structures ruining things for everyone in order to maintain their power.  Now I was hot and annoyed. Not a good combo.

So I left my look back at old-time ways of cooling and just nodded in appreciation at the fact we have AC now. Let’s keep it that way and work to ensure everyone around the world gets it too.