> I found myself really unsettled by this. Light a fire, and turn up the air conditioning?

You should be, I've never seen anyone in Texas do this. Many fireplaces throughout the state (that average both colder and hotter than Houston which fluctuates temp much less than other places) are used as they are in other states, just less frequently and the fireplaces are not designed to heat as well. And people don't run A/C in the winter in places like Houston unless there was a very rare situation.

Aside the inefficiency, surely it's not necessary to 'turn up' the AC in that case? I thought that you set a target temperature once and just leave it there?

Domestic AC is very rare in the UK so I may have misunderstood.

The temperature won't be consistent throughout the room if you have a big heat source like a fire in part of the room, so you would need to set it too a lower temperature to keep it comfortable near the fire.

Open fireplaces are inefficient heaters, the house probably lost more cool air due to the fireplace sucking in unconditioned air from outside than from direct heat from the fireplace.

Not sure if it is for temperature contrast or just because the aesthetic but not liking the heat that is insanely wasteful.

There are also some extraordinarily stupid out there doing stuff like opening the windows and turning on the air conditioner on full blast despite explict and clear instructions on to close all of the windows before. Or thinking that rabbit ears tv antennas were illegal - in the later half of the 20th century no less. All adults too young to be suffering dementia too.

I do the "open windows, A/C on" thing sometimes in my car. Too warm to really be comfortable with just the window down, but I really like the fresh air a lot more than the super dry cold air coming from the vents. I wonder if that's the same motivation for people who open windows in an air conditioned house.

We have awning windows at my house, and I try to open them when it's raining to get some fresh air flowing through the house without completely killing the AC system. Luckily summer is the wet season here so it works out.

This kind of thing is quite common in Texas, where A/C is ubiquitous and energy has always been cheap. It's ridiculous, but not unusual.

Agree wholeheartedly.