• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    A lot of that AC usage comes down to poor insulation, older and poorly maintained units, single family housing, overly large housing, vacant housing that still needs to be cooled to keep it from deteriorating before someone can cover the inflated asset price, the need to insulate offices separately from housing because we’ve abolished work-from-home rules…

    A well-maintained stock of publicly accessible homes in dense mixed-use walkable neighborhoods, with a professionally managed building-wide AC unit, could reduce the per-capita electricity demand enormously.

    But instead, we’ve queued up billions of dollars in concrete and steel to build city-sized warehouses for scorching hot chipsets.

      • DeepRoots@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        ? and how many to cool a house and how much power does each draw. Which was their point. Not the dollar cost of the unit.

        • Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          You don’t need to cool an entire house unless you have a family or pets and even still you can get away with using a 24" pedestal fan with using the AC you can cool 900 sq ft.

          I mean yeah a mini split is the modern option but not everyone wants to drill into their homes.

          It’s all about needs vs generalizations. I don’t need to cool every room in my house and I can get away with using one window ac in my living room and sending the cool air through my house with a penguin pedestal fan from Ocean State job lot.

          Yeah it sucks having to put it in the window every year and it sucks bringing the fan down and walking by it but I have a natgas boiler based steam radiator system with heat in every room and given how the winters in New England are harsher than the summers, I think I’m okay.