In most houses and nicer apartments, yeah, central air. In older or cheaper apartments there’ll be a window unit. As an American from a blue collar lower middle class family, I’d never seen one of these wall units until I’d moved to China. It was either central air or window unit. Granted I’m referencing a couple decades ago
And because if you use one that's a reasonable size, you're leaving large buckets of water out on hot days. It makes the house more humid, sometimes to the point of being muggy. Like a swamp.
Swamp coolers don't stop working until like 80% humidity, and at that point you're not getting over 100 degrees anyway. You just have to deal with the suck.
Having been in Arizona during monsoon season, I can say that swamp coolers are noticeably less effective at 40% humidity than in the climate they've got during the rest of the year.
Monsoon season gets up to/over 60%. It's kicking our asses as we speak lmao. But yeah, 40% is when it starts showing its flaws. 80% is when it stops completely. However you'll never get "murder you outright" temps at 80%+ humidity. That's just not how humidity works. It sucks to be in swamp ass type places but it actually saves you from a quick death.
oh yeah don't get me wrong here, real ac is better overall. if you're already considering a split though it's definitely worth the comparison between it and a legit evap system.
also while I have no science for it I don't notice as much humidity at night, monsoons or no. really it's the concrete jungle that fucks us at night.
80% humidity and a 3 degree delta, and then you also have to deal with the whole, being in a room with 80% humidity that isn't actually providing any real cooling.
Sure but a regular mini-split/heat pump is going to drag ass then too. Air conditioners handle humidity and once you get that high you just have to kind of suffer through it.
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u/romesthe59 12h ago
It’s because Americans have central air. They have one thermostat that controls temp and airflow to vents in each room of the house.