A/C is less needed in Seattle than in other parts of the US because it cools off substantially at night. I was there two(?) summers ago when some weird inversion layer was both raising the temp (105+ F) and preventing the night time cooling. It was miserable.

Here in the southern US, even when it's only hitting 90 F during the day, the low might be in the upper 70s which isn't low enough to passively cool a house.

I bought an AC for my home in Seattle before last summer. Cost about $4,200 and was worth it in my opinion.

crazy. here in Israel everyone have AC. There are cities where some kind of AC is mandated if you are bulding a house.

And the price is rock botton. you can have a simple one that can cool a small to medium room for about 200$ and a bigger one for the main room is about 500-700$. installation is usually another 150$. 4200$?? - crazy.

We have those in the US too -- but if you're trying to cool an entire house, you'd use a central air conditioner to get better efficiency.

These are placed in the yard away from the house. Here's a picture: http://www.getgreenair.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/home_h...

Well, yes, you can have those here too, but most homes still have stand alone units in every room.

The point is if you can't afford to spend $4K on air conditioning, $600 might be within the budget.

Also I'm not sure central one is more efficient. it cools entire house while using individual units you can cool just one room. Of course it has the capability to limit the airflow per room etc, but I'd guess most people don't do that and just cool/head the entire house.

As someone else mentioned, this was for an outdoor unit that cools the entire house through the central air and heat system.

My time in Israel was rather cold and required a jacket most times :)