Central air conditioning in apartments is a bit of a novelty here in the Sound. For that matter, so is central heat. The weather isn’t hot or cold enough for months on end to justify the expense, so it gets left out. Usually, this is perfectly fine. I’m on the top floor of a building, and the thermostat (tied to the baseboard heater) usually has me at a constant 70-72 degrees without doing much other than leaving a window open during the day.
During the summer months, it’ll get worse. Cooking will spike the temperature up to the upper-70s in the living room, sometimes going as high as 80, with the bedroom lagging a degree or two behind. Last year I mitigated this somewhat by buying a window fan and reversing its flow of air depending on the outside temperature. Below 70 outside? Pull air in. Above 70? Exhaust air out. This worked for awhile, at least until the wildfires came and destroyed the quality of the air outside. Then I had to leave the fan on exhaust mode all the time.
We got our first real touch of heat earlier this week, the first week of June, as the temperature reached 80 outside (I did say I moved out here for a reason). Fortunately this year I was a bit better prepared, as I had bought a portable air conditioner for the living room a few weeks prior. The air conditioner takes up a bit of floor space, but is so far otherwise doing a good job at keeping the living room cool. So that’s a win.
However, that leaves the bedroom yet to be figured out. The bedroom is cooled by a fan only, and the general heat and stuffiness has a noticeable impact on my ability to get a full night of sleep this time of year. Now, staying horizontal much past 630 is actually a challenge, as by that point I’m usually wide awake. It’s been like this essentially every year I’ve been out here. There isn’t quite enough floor space in the bedroom to support another portable air conditioner, either.
Once upon a time, I swapped my bedroom and living room around to solve a noise-related issue, as I was essentially sleeping under the stairwell at the entrance to an apartment building. Might consider doing that this time just for the heat, but then I have to figure out how to keep the bedroom from overheating due to electronics…