re: Question about the west coast and central air

I was in San Francisco and Napa this past weekend. Our hotel room in San Francisco didnt have AC. It was in the upper 80s on Thursday and lower 70s Thursday night. We were on the 7th floor and opened up the window. It wasnt hot, but wasnt cool either and I didnt sleep great. I am used to sleeping really cold.

In Napa, it got to 110 and thankfully we had AC.

The weird thing in San Francisco was that everyone complained about not having AC in their homes, but no one really used it. Restaurants, stores, Uber drivers all had AC, but barely used it. It was weird. I am just used to going indoors here and freezing from people over using AC. Def was not the case there.

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Our hotel room in San Francisco didnt have AC. It was in the upper 80s on Thursday and lower 70s Thursday night. We were on the 7th floor and opened up the window. It wasnt hot, but wasnt cool either and I didnt sleep great. I am used to sleeping really cold.

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Keep in mind that SF just set their record high temperature. It's usually pretty cool.

In Los Angeles, when i was younger i had a tiny apartment with no kitchen that i lived in for several yrs-- but it was only about a 1/4 mi from the beach, so i was ok with it.. i would keep the windows open almost year round and of course there was no a/c.. this was a great set up for about 90% of the year-- the problem was that for about 3 or 4 wks each year, we'd get a heat wave and it was absolutely miserable.. so yeah you can definitely live without A/c for most of the year, but i would advise having A/c for when you need it b/c there will be times when you'll be glad to have it.

I was stationed at Edwards AFB, California and the house I lived in did not have either central a/c or a window unit. It had a swamp cooler which worked great when the humidity was low, no matter how high the temperature was. When the humidity was high, that thing blew out nothing but warm air. I'm thankful the high humidity days were few and far between.

Some friends live in Ventura and they have neither central heat nor AC. Average high is in the seventies year round.

my sister had a $450,000 house in Pleasant Hill, across the bay from San Fran.

No AC Unit in the home

They were on a hill and said it would be a waste of money

I loved going out there (Reno, San Fran, Tahoe, Pebble Beach, Muir Wood etc), she freaking moved to the F'ing North Shore in Louisiana now

We do alright in Denver with a swamp cooler, only a few days per year where it can't keep up and my summer utilities are $75/month at the most.

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I just moved to the greater LA area, and after living in a few different places, and growing up on Louisiana, it was a huge shock for me, as well. My condo does have AC, but most apartments go without, or have a window unit. Average since I've been here (since May) has been in the low to mid 70's. It's gotten up to 90 once or twice, but it is rare. I could not go without either, but I am soft when it comes to AC. I just enjoy being cold. However, if I travel 20-30 miles east to Los Angeles, temperature usually rises by 20 degrees, so I dont know how, or if, they go without there.

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Your situation is probably different than most since you are living on a boat in the middle of the ocean

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A lot of those places are arid enough to use evaporative coolers (AKA swamp coolers) which are much cheaper to use than a traditional AC and very effective in low humidity areas.

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My father in law owns an older home with central AC and was looking into that, but he ended up getting solar panels on the roof about 2 years ago. He just recently paid off the installation cost and now his bill is next to nothing for a 3BR house.