A simple question: Why don’t you have air conditioning? For a few years I lived in a top-floor apartment in NYC, and had to sleep days in the sweltering heat. It was a mid-19th century building that didn’t have adequate wiring for A/C. And at the time, I couldn’t afford it anyway. My poor kittehs suffered too.
If you’re really suffering, what are your reasons?
For some people I’m sure it is price. They cannot afford the unit or the electricity to run it.
For others, they cannot put window units in their windows for various reasons. Maybe the windows are sealed shut, or they are afraid of break ins, or they are afraid of bugs getting in (bugs getting in was a major issue for my parents before they got central heating/air).
But a portable AC unit is only about $300. A good investment if you do not have central heating/cooling and you cannot use window units.
Or maybe you can no longer physically lift one of the damn things into the window. Our last window used died when it was dropped. Fortunately, no living things were hurt but it really did not do the AC unit any good whatsoever.
It was also around 2 am and nearly 100 degrees. Imagine two nearly-naked middle-aged folks smeared with grease and dirt trying to get a half-smashed AC unit to work. It was… not pretty.
^ That’s what we did. It sits on the floor, it has wheels when we need to move it, and we can pull the exhaust hose out of the window when we want extra security for the home.
When we moved jinto our current house, the temperature was close to 100F, late June. So I told the moovers to put our bedroom furniture in the basement bedroom.
No a/c in the house and June to September weather is typically 75 to over 100.
We couldn’t afford to a/c the whole house so in the summer we lived in the basement. There was also a kitchen down there.
One day we decided to turn most of the basement into a suite and rent it out. So now we have a dilemma. How do we survive the summers after losing access to most of our basement?
So into the cost of renovating. the basement, I added the cost of a heatpump, for about $4,600.
Life is great, and we still have our,main bedroom in the basement, which means we don’t have to run the a/c all night.
I live in an 800 square foot apartment, when I run the AC during hot summer months and set the thermostat for the low 70s my electricity bill only goes up by $20-50 or so above my bill in spring or fall when I am not using either AC or heating.
I have air conditioning at home, but I hardly ever use it. I guess I don’t mind the heat that much, and I don’t mind sweating at home. An open window and a fan is sufficient. I’ve done this in the last few cities I’ve lived (Huntsville, AL, Tokyo and Boston). When I stay at hotels in summer, I usually set the thermostat to the high 70s.
I do use air conditioning in my car because I don’t want to get the car seat soaked with sweat, and I’m often driving to a place I don’t want to arrive sweaty.
My house is in the mountains. I bought it in '07; in all this time, temps have gone above body temperature once. For that one day in a decade that the a/c would make sense, I’m not going to get one.
The rental is on Spain’s central mesa. Unlike Madrid, Cordoba or Seville, Valladolid is not on a frying pan: temperatures may go above body temp for maybe three weeks per year, but they get lower at night (this year, August has been cool - we only got real hot in July, and I was in my house for half of that month). During work hours I’m in an air-conditioned office. And it’s a rental: for a decent installation, aside from paying from the a/c, I’d need the owners’ permission. A portable… aside from being an offense to engineering, what do I do with it if I decide not to stay, stick it up my armpit? Hell no, I just play with the shadows and the windows. I survived a year in Seville, this is the North Pole by comparison 
I live in the mountains and it’s only uncomfortably hot for a couple of weeks each year. That, and I’m cheap.
But as I get older I find it harder to sleep under those conditions, so I may break down and install a small window AC next year.
I live on a tropical island with no A/C. But I live on the windward coast and the wind keeps blowing through the house except for the few days when it dies off completely.
Besides adding to the high electric costs, an a/c system would rust and fall apart in quick order. Just too much salt in the air. Even if major components are aluminum there will be something in there that rusts. Happens to every damn thing.
I don’t have it due to the expense. Our home isn’t built with any ducting.
Expense, like the others here. I have A/C and heating in my apartment, but haven’t used either in the thirteen years I’ve lived here.
I’d rather spend the money on books!
ETA: I don’t really “suffer.” Yeah, it’s hot in the summer, and cold in the winter. I just bear up. It isn’t as if I live in Death Valley, or even El Centro. San Diego has a wonderfully moderate climate.
For me it’s competing self-interest between comfort and resilience. This is part of an extreme environmental do-gooding / early retirement scheme that looks at every single purchase you make and decide whether its a good value. The minimum period of time that should be looked at for building wealth or most major projects is 10 years. Is morning coffee going to cost $10-$15K? Would I be excited if someone offered to sell me coffee for $10,000 or would I think they are nuts? Then why would I pay $12,000 for it? (Assuming $5 per day on weekdays over 10 years)
This year I decided to significantly decrease usage of heat and air in my 1300 sq house. - I live in a high humidity area and used very little air this year. (I purchased a window unit for the bedroom to make it easier to sleep at night. Mostly use it an hour or two then turn it off.) So far I have noticed no significant discomfort other than wishing to take showers more often when warm. In July the average high here was 87 degrees, and my total electric bill was $57. I think I will do better this month.
I doubt I’ll do this permanently. This has been a fun experiment though. If I can air-seal and insulate my attic I can help myself AND any future occupants save money / help the environment.
Confused why people would ‘suffer’ in the heat? Do a quick search on the folks ditching their clothes dryers for similar reasons. That will really throw you for a loop. 
My not-aging-well parents went without air conditioning. When I started looking in on them I tried to figure out why and got no good answer other than they’d never had it so why get it. On one sweltering day I told them I was going to go buy them a window unit, and Dad finally admitted they had a window unit in the garage but he couldn’t lift it anymore so he didn’t put it in. I’ve been installing it and putting it away for them for the last few years.
In my mom’s case? Stubborness. I finally got it for her this summer by waiting until she had heat exhaustion and looking it up for her on her tablet.
Never underestimate the power of pigheadedness.
For a few years I lived in an apartment on the south shore of Long Island, right on the beach. My bedroom had an air conditioner that had rusted out, and some birds had built a nest in it. It was nice to hear them singing in the morning.
I don’t have one largely for environmental reasons.
I think I turned into an old cranky person, that would sum it up.
For many years, there were only very brief periods during the summer when it was hot enough for AC, so it was rare for homes to be built with central air. Even on typical warm days, it would cool off at night, and a fan would be fine. But now, there are more and more days with high temps and high humidity each summer. It would be SO costly to put in central at this point. And I’ve seen how even a single window unit spikes the electric bill. And if we had a window unit, or multiple window units, usage would creep. Sure, we’d say we’d only turn it on if it was very hot. But it’s the thin end of the wedge! Then we’d turn it on when it was moderately warm, just to cool down. Then it would stay on, longer and longer. Get off my lawn!
We have window ACs in the bedrooms. I love sleeping with tons of blankets just so I can breathe cold air. Of course now that I am in perimenopause there are nights when the blankets get flipped back and I swear Mistermage has changed the settings to at least 90F vs the 68-70F we went to bed with.
Not having AC in the rest of the house means I get out of a lot of cooking in the warm weather because the Mister will grill and then I come up with the sides.
As long as it stays under 90F I am fine during the day. I figure the lil bit of sweating I do is good for losing weight (I don’t sweat all that much… I like the heat). The overhead fans move enough air that it’s not too bad for me. But I am looking forward to kicking chicks out of the nest and moving into one of the bedrooms so my pc doesn’t get so hot.
Maybe someday we will run the ducting to have whole house AC… maybe at the same time we switch from wood furnace to propane heat AKA not holding my breath.
The windows in my house are not suitable for air conditioners. Most are cranked and the ones in the bedroom is an odd thing that folds down on the inside. We have hot water radiators so whole house air is not possible. We do have a strong fan in the BR window that blows in air and rare is the night that the overnight low is above about 70F. And in fact, days above 90 are also rare.
My folks grew up without a/c, and we didn’t have it in the house where I grew up. My mother claims to like the heat.
My dad, on the other hand, really suffered in the summer, so they broke down and got central air installed shortly after he retired. Since Dad died, my mom almost never turns the air on. She will for company, but she’d rather sit in front of a fan. She also turns off the power strip to her computer when she’s not on line and switches off the power to her microwave outlet when not using it. She obsesses over the pennies, even tho, in the 14 years she’s been a widow, she hasn’t had to touch the principal of the investments Dad left her.
I think it’s a lot of stubbornness and a strange source of pride. But she lives alone and her temperature choices don’t usually affect anyone else, so it’s not a huge deal. And she will close the house and drop the temp when it hovers in the upper 90s for a long stretch.