I've had a very similar experience (both in terms of coming from the southeast and the "you don't need air conditioning here" lines). I don't know why people still say that AC isn't needed. Year over year, it seems to get worse. Add in the smoke from the fires that seems to settle in every other year, it just doesn't make sense _not_ to have AC.

A couple of summers ago, when the heat was so bad in the Seattle area, I called a local HVAC installation and repair company to talk about getting AC installed at my home (built sometime in the 80's). There was a wait list of _hundreds_ ahead of me and unit shortages. It was a nightmare. Luckily, folks seemed to reconsider installation over the winter and I was able to work our way up to the top of the line to get things installed during the winter. Best decision I've made.

Yeah I think the 9 months of winter tends to make people forget precisely how miserable summer can be without at least a little bit of AC. With the climate heat pumps are effectively ideal here and electricity is relatively cheap and renewable. There’s literally no reason other than stubbornness at this point.

Part of me wonders if it's similar to the "never carry an umbrella" dynamic? Maybe it's just a "well, this is just how it is, carry on"?

Anyway, it's probably different in our minds because in the southeast, the heat + the humidity can literally kill you. Not having AC isn't just an inconvenience there; it's an emergency.

Yeah absolutely. I spent so many nights with the bedsheets plastered to my body I can’t sleep if it’s even warm, I start flashing back to the trauma of my youth.

Perhaps an explanation is that the climate has changed? Some kind of warming of the globe?

I moved to Seattle 25 years ago and you truly didn’t need AC. Summers were pretty reliably amazing with clear skies and temps seldom above the low 80s. There were a couple of weeks with uncomfortable temperatures (by PNW standards), easily dealt with by ventilating the house at night and closing it up during the day. It’s gotten steadily worse, to where now I’d say you do need AC. Which is a terrible shame.

I came here to say the same. I moved here in 2003 and I can only think of one week in one summer (2009? 2010?) where an AC was critical.

This has completely changed in the last 6-7 years to the point now where I can't imagine not having an air conditioner here anymore.

On the opposite corner of the US, Florida winters are about 20° warmer than they were in the early 1990s. We've gone from regular frosts and seeing teens every few years to seeing frost every few years.

There's precious little of Florida that isn't transforming into Hell.

Its funny to me that we rely on AC's; where we bring energy from someplace else, cause some work to be done, and dispalce heat outside; thus overall increasing temps just by heat displacement and work involved. (similar thoughts as to "just open up your freezer to cool off your house" but in reality that just HEATS up your house, as you bring energy into house and cause it to work harder).

surprised musky isnt trying to build an AC for the earth on the moon... make the moon warm again.

Well, we can’t control how much heat there is (though we have found we can increase the average pretty effectively!) but we do have ways to control where it is.

E.g., in our house we just got heat pump water heaters that are basically air conditioners that pump heat from the room (which the furnace puts its waste heat into, btw) into the water tank instead of venting it outside.

Yeah, I moved to Seattle recently and also knew coming up here that not having AC would be a mistake. I ended up using my portable AC a lot last year.

Mysteriously I still know people who refuse to acknowledge even after it got up to like 115F you need air conditioning. They’re like “it’s only a few weeks a year.” Uh…. On the other hand, their SO’s and children often whisper on the side how they’re going to force the issue this year.