Strollerderby
When Mom Takes Away the A/C
All of us are looking for ways to cut costs these days. But has this Illinois mom pushed it too far?
Fiona Gierzynski and her husband Paul, parents of four kids, have decided to stop using air-conditioning in order to save some money. One of her sons has complained about the unbearable heat. Mom’s response: “If you’re that hot, go outside and sleep. Pretend you’re camping.”
Gierzynski does raise some valid points about A/C. She notes that plenty of people, especially in other countries, get by just fine without it. And she makes sure the members of the family can cool off in other ways, by using fans or going to the local pool. By not blasting the air-conditioning, she estimates the family is saving around nearly $200 every month, money they need to spend on other increasingly expensive commodities like groceries and gas.
From an economic and environmental standpoint, this family deserves major credit for its commitment to conservation. But if I were one of those kids, I’d be making up T-shirts that say, “Why don’t YOU pretend you’re camping, Mom?” And I’d be creating, like, a lot of them since I’d probably be sweating through one of them every 15 minutes. (To be fair, the kids, who all have their own jobs, agreed that they didn’t want to contribute to the cost of air-conditioning either. But now that it’s really hot, I wonder if they’ll rethink that decision.)
There has to be a happy medium here that would help the Gierzynskis cut back without torturing themselves for the entire summer. Maybe turn on the A/C every other week, so they could at least get an occasional break? It’s either that or set up a kiddie pool in the middle of the living room. And we already know how environmentally sound those are.
So is this the only family living without A/C because of the craptastic economy, or have you gone that route as well?
Image: Generalheating.com
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19 Comments
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI think it
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amClaudia’s right, I couldn’t imagine going without if we lived anywhere were it got over 100* a regular basis (AZ, TX, CA), but then perhaps we wouldn’t use our heat 80% of the time.
I will tell you in the winter months we keep the thermostsat at 64-ish and we wait as long as possible before we turn it on.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWe almost never crank up the ole AC and we live in Virginia where it gets hot and the air gets thick with humidity. I grew up in Puerto Rico and all we had was window unit ACs and we hardly ever used them. It is amazing what your body can acclimate to when you work with the seasons and not against them. But if you go from cold inside to hot outside and yo-yo like that all the time, you’ll never get used to the heat.
Living without AC is not torture, it is the way people have been living for thousands of years. Take a cold shower and get over it.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI’m an asthmatic with severe allergies, so going without AC in extreme heat and humidity is not an option. I can’t really even have the windows open afte April. I like the AC. It’s expensive, but we don’t go out to bars, clubs, the theater, or movies. We don’t buy expensive clothes. We don’t eat out frequently. AC, along with cable and netflix, make our life a bit more enjoyable. In a perfect world, I could roll in the grass, sleep with the windows open, and be fine, but that’s just not a realistic option for me.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI like how it’s people from New England and Illinois being all gung ho about how they don’t need ac… How long would you last without heat in the winter?
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWe don’t have A/C as we live in a turn of the century building and it’s too big an area to cool without installing some crazy industrial thing. We play outside alot and eat lighter when it’s hot, melon and salads, grilled meat… by the end of the summer my pants are always falling off. Still keeping cool in IL the old fashioned way here and I kinda like it.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWe installed ceiling fans in the bedrooms, and the only time we’ve had the air on is when it’s been storming at the request of thunder-addled toddlers. Aside from the cost savings, I’ve noticed my kids are much more eager to go outside and play now, and we don’t have that whole “hothouse wilted flower” thing when we move from air-conditioning to outside. We’ll flip it on when it gets to the mid90s with tons of humidity (Southern Indiana), but it’s not that big a deal.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amMaybe it’s not torture but it SUCKS. I went one summer without and sat in a cool bath most of the time. Could not sleep at night. Awful, I’d run it in moderation if I wanted to save money.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI’ll chime in with everyone else here – I grew up without A/C (in suburban Connecticut), and got through the last heat wave here in Boston without even a freaking fan. People are unbelievably spoiled. There are children going hungry in this country, and people are talking about lack of A/C as torture???? Let’s get our priorities straight, for god’s sake!
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI hear ya, Marsh’s Mom. I’m in Austin, and it is damn hot. I have the ac set to 77 and fans on all the time. But on the flip side, I lived in Seattle for 3 years and never needed a/c….okay, there were a couple days when we WISHED we had it in our house, but we never had it.
Combermere commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amAir conditioning didn’t even exist until the 20th century, and the human race survived to tell about it. Come on, its a luxury, not a necessity, people!
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amNone of those who have commented must live in Texas. It’s already hit triple digit temperatures down here. I’m all for conserving and saving money–we’re keeping the thermostat on 75 and running the ceiling fans constantly–but no a/c here could possibly qualify as torture!
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWhy is this news? Honestly! I live in Colorado, where we’re already in the mid-90′s, and I don’t have AC. To be fair, I really really really wish I did, as I’m sweaty and pregnant. However, it’s not ‘pushing it too far’ to go without! This is why you go to the local library, where their AC is cranked, or the pool, or a movie or something. If you can’t afford to run it, you can’t afford to run it. Very simple.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWe only had a swamp cooler in AZ until I was about 16. That’s torture. It only works when it’s not humid. Believe it or not, AZ gets very humid in July and August, when it’s also 115.
We keep our AC at 75 all the time, but I live in IL now.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amJeez, since when is living without A/C “torturing” yourself? I grew up with no air conditioning except for a window unit in my parents’ bedroom. And my bedroom was in the attic of the house. I still don’t have air conditioning and I don’t feel tortured at all.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI didn’t have AC until I was thirty-four years old! My mom’s solution (and later my own for my toddlers) was the same as this mom: fans and the town pool. On super-hot days, maybe a matinee movie or a museum. I’m not really understanding the problem here… Even now that we live in a house w/ AC we only turn it on during the very hottest, very muggiest days – usually 10 to 12 days out of 365.
anonymous2 commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWe’re definitely reducing our central AC usage this summer to save money and the environment, while not swearing it off completely. We live in upstate NY where AC is hardly a necessity. We’re turning the thermostat up to 75 so that we’re saving energy while keeping ourselves reasonably comfortable. But we’ll crank it down to 70 when we have guests this summer so that they’ll be nice and cool.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI don’t have A/C, a dishwasher, or a cell phone, why isn’t anyone writing about me?
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI grew up in a house with no AC. We didn’t even have window AC units until I was about 14 and even then it was just one unit in the living room window – and not nearly enough to cool an entire 2 story farmhouse. Sure it was hot, but you dealt with it, and as you can see – I survived quite well.
So I say good for them – keep the air off. Meanwhile I’ll keep mine going because I’m now a spoiled wimp who hates being hot and has decided she’d rather reduce our family’s eating-out habit rather than our AC use.
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