Approximately 39 million Americans do not use AC. Many people can’t afford it or don’t need it (still, as the planet warms up), but some just don’t like it.
Slow temperatures from the Midwest to the East Coast
With heatwave warnings in effect nationwide, temperature inhaling has driven people to parks and fountains.
She is finishing a meeting with the new maid service when the thermometer inside Shelly Snyder’s three-storey Victorian home in Columbus, Ohio reaches 88 degrees., I water plants and do chores. And she does it all without air conditioning.
Snyder said she’d be fine without it. Even during the hot recommendations, she found a way to deal with it.
“You can wait all winter, open windows and doors, and have fresh air and summer,” she told reporters on a day when the heat index exceeded 100 degrees.
Snyder is one of the roughly 12% of people who don’t use AC, one of the roughly 39 million Americans, according to the US Energy Information Agency. Many people can’t afford it or don’t need it because they live in cool climates, but others choose to abandon their air conditioners to lower their carbon footprint. Then there’s something like Snyder. They choose to withstand the swell-like temperatures of her “big old house with high ceilings” and the open high-floor skylight windows.
“The ceiling fans just pull the cold air out of the basement just above the house,” she said.
Air conditioners can save lives, but especially amid setting a record heat wave that burned the country in late June — some people don’t like it, according to Gail Brager, director of the UC Berkeley Center for Construction Environments. Certain AC uses can cause “experiential monotony,” Brager said.
“There’s nothing fun about it,” she said. “It’s not healthy for our bodies to be in the same state all the time, anywhere. And it’s not always comfortable, either empirically or very interesting.”
Cooler cities and states don’t need AC – yet
Alaska leads its citizens without AC, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Energy by Professor Lucas Davis, University of California, Berkeley. Only 7% of households there are air-conditioned, but state temperatures are rising exponentially as the planet warms.
Officials issued historic recommendations during the June heat wave in Alaska. There, it is warmed 2-3 times faster than the global average.
San Francisco is the city with fewer air conditioning in the lower 48 states, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s U.S. Housing Survey.
Devin Carraway’s house is one of them. Caraway said he has lived in the Bay Area for most of his life and heat waves are rare and therefore eliminates the need for air conditioners. Even if the weather changes, he said, “AC will not be the first thing I do.”
“AC throws a lot of energy into problems that need to be solved through building design first,” Carraway says.
Instead, Carraway chose to install insulation and a white roof. He said solar panels on the roof and his neighbor’s “really amazing Monterey Cypress trees” also help keep the house cool on occasional hot days.
Support that is so threatened that AC is out of reach
Many Americans simply can’t afford AC because the cost of cooling in the summer is rising. It could make them at a higher risk of fever disease or death.
According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, the average electricity bill is projected to reach $784 this summer. According to the health policy organization KFF, blacks, Hispanics and low-income households are more likely to say they don’t have or use air conditioners due to financial challenges.
“Many people are afraid to turn on air conditioners because of the cost,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director at Neada.
There are state and federal programs that help customers pay their energy bills with limited revenue, but Wolfe said it’s not enough to meet their growing needs. And the 2026 budget proposed by the Trump administration will eliminate funding for one of those programs, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). If established, Wolf said nearly six million households might have to go without air conditioning or heat.
Adams, 56, on Tuesday in Cathedral City, California, may be one of them. She arrived at the county aid department, clutching a utility bill that had been postponed to June 25th, as temperatures reached 102 degrees, and was smashing over $20,000. Edison of Southern California extended the deadline for more than a year, but she received a notice of breaking up.
She said she had received help from Liheap in the past but was trying to avoid asking too often. She was not chopped out when informed of the looming elimination of all federal funds for the program.
“They have to do something, they can’t stop this program… There are so many people here who are really, really struggling… there are a lot of families in the dark in this heat,” she said.
Giving up AC to break the “vicious cycle” of climate change
The use of residential energy, including cooling, heating and power, accounts for around 20% of US greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2020 survey published in minutes of the US National Academy of Sciences.
“It is this malicious cycle that air conditioners contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, and the temperatures of the warming require more air conditioners,” says Brager.
Stancox wants to break that cycle. The author of “Our Cool: Losing the Unpleasant Truth About Our Conditional World” unfolds fans underground on hot days at his Kansas home, or spends time in a wooden basement. As a result, he used 80% less electricity last June than neighbors of similarly sized homes, he said he was citing the Utilities Bill.
He acknowledges something about “love relationships” with innovation. When he experienced the central air as a child in 1967, he thought “I died and went to heaven,” but later began to dislike the contrast between the cold indoors and the heat outdoors. “I didn’t like it,” he said.
But Cox turns on AC at least once every summer “to make sure it’s still working properly.”
“Or if there’s someone coming for dinner,” He said. “Because when we’re at 85 degrees in our house, we can’t really invite people to dinner.”
Back in Columbus, Ohio, Snyder’s neighbor has a large oak that partially shades her home in the morning. And when it’s toast or stuffed, Snyder says she’ll find something to do in the basement or outside.
Snyder has a portable window AC unit, but she reserves it just for visitors staying at night. She hasn’t used it in 10 years.
“I’m grateful for the air conditioner like the next guy,” she said. “Do I personally want to have that? Certainly. I will be 70 this year.
Contributions: Sarah Chernikov and Sarah Elbeshvisi, USA TODAY
