Air conditioners
19/06/16 04:58
The South Dakota National Guard is wrapping up their annual Golden Coyote exercises. Each summer national guard units from all around the United States gather in the Black Hills for a couple of weeks of serious training. For those of us who live in Rapid City, there is little direct effect. What we notice mostly is that there are a lot more large military trucks driving here and there around the hills. Having watched this phenomena over the past two decades, one of the things I notice is that each year there are more and more vehicles driving around with the windows closed. The participants in the exercises are wearing a lot of gear. They’ve got on kevlar vests, camouflage uniforms with long sleeves and long pants, and often they are carrying packs and other gear. And it is hot this summer in the hills. All of that can mean only one thing. More and more of the vehicles used by the national guard, from the lightest jeeps to the biggest semi trucks have air conditioning.
I don’t begrudge those soldiers their air conditioning. Keeping them healthy is in the best interests of all of us. But it is a change. World War II was fought without air conditioning and there wasn’t that much air conditioning in Vietnam.
My father had mixed feelings about air conditioning. He never lived in a home with an air conditioner and he never had a car or pickup with an air conditioner. He used to say, “If you work outdoors in the sun all day, a bit of shade and a glass of lemonade is sufficient. You don’t need air conditioning.”
He did, however, come to accept air conditioners in tractor cabs. It took a lot of years, but eventually he began to order cabs for his customers with air conditioners.
The first tractors he sold didn’t have cabs at all. We sold sturdy umbrellas with adjustable poles so that the farmer could have a little shade while doing field work. Of course the umbrellas didn’t provide any protection from dust. The first tractor cabs we sold were add-ons that weren’t made by the manufacturer of the tractor. They were mostly sheet metal with glass or plastic windows. Most of the early cabs were open to the back of the tractor so it would be easy for the farmer to get on and off to connect machinery, make repairs and the like. Later we sold fully enclosed cabs with heaters. A few of them also had radios.
Swamp coolers were the first mechanical coolers installed in the tractors we sold. It wasn’t long before there were air conditioners available on tractor cabs. in the final few years before my father sold his franchise, we were selling tractors with integrated bodies made by the tractor manufacturer with complete climate systems, radios and other amenities.
If you think of the number of hours a day a farmer spends on a tractor, it makes sense for the machine to offer a bit of comfort. Still, my father sold those machines from his pickup truck that didn’t have an air conditioner.
I haven’t exactly followed in my father’s footsteps. We didn’t have air conditioning in our car in the early years of our marriage, but when we made the move from being a one car family to a two car family we purchased a used car with air conditioning. At first it seemed like having only one car so equipped made sense as our need for air conditioning was relatively rare. Later, however, air conditioning became a feature that we felt was necessary and for many years all of our cars have been air conditioned. Our home has a couple of window air conditioning units that get pretty good exercise when the temperatures rise above 90 degrees or so, but we do not have central air conditioning.
Our church is one of an increasingly small number of public buildings in our city that is not air conditioned. A capital funds drive is underway that will result in the installation of air conditioning in the next couple of years or so. In the meantime, we practice behaviors that people in warm places have practiced for years - skills that future generations may lose as central air conditioning becomes a part of the design of nearly all buildings. We open windows in the late evening. We use fans not only to circulate air, but also to help remove warm air from the building. We turn on the furnace fans to draw cool air from the basement and distribute it throughout the building. We are judicious with the use of draperies, shades and window blinds to cut down on passive solar heating.
Air conditioning is relatively efficient in terms of energy consumption. I’ve read that driving a car with the windows down actually consumes more fuel than rolling up the windows and running the air conditioner. That makes sense for long trips on the highway, but I still am quick to roll down the windows for a short drive around town. Our children think I’m a bit strange driving around alone in the car with all of the windows down. They find the noise and air currents to be disturbing. Still, I am an old guy with some old habits and I like it.
When possible, I prefer to have my temperature change slowly - the way it happens in this country outside - rather than experience sudden cooling and warming. The transition from an air conditioned space to the outside world can be a bit of a shock to my system. Going from cool to hot seems to be more difficult than going from warm to cold for some reason. I guess I know how to bundle up for winter weather, but there are limits to how lightly one can dress for summer and still maintain a reasonable amount of modesty.
The planet is warming and forecasters predict that we will see more temperature extremes and more severe weather as we undergo this change. It is good to have modern climate controls. Still, I do enjoy simply being outside and there are days when a breeze, a bit of shade and a cool drink provides all the comfort I need.
I don’t begrudge those soldiers their air conditioning. Keeping them healthy is in the best interests of all of us. But it is a change. World War II was fought without air conditioning and there wasn’t that much air conditioning in Vietnam.
My father had mixed feelings about air conditioning. He never lived in a home with an air conditioner and he never had a car or pickup with an air conditioner. He used to say, “If you work outdoors in the sun all day, a bit of shade and a glass of lemonade is sufficient. You don’t need air conditioning.”
He did, however, come to accept air conditioners in tractor cabs. It took a lot of years, but eventually he began to order cabs for his customers with air conditioners.
The first tractors he sold didn’t have cabs at all. We sold sturdy umbrellas with adjustable poles so that the farmer could have a little shade while doing field work. Of course the umbrellas didn’t provide any protection from dust. The first tractor cabs we sold were add-ons that weren’t made by the manufacturer of the tractor. They were mostly sheet metal with glass or plastic windows. Most of the early cabs were open to the back of the tractor so it would be easy for the farmer to get on and off to connect machinery, make repairs and the like. Later we sold fully enclosed cabs with heaters. A few of them also had radios.
Swamp coolers were the first mechanical coolers installed in the tractors we sold. It wasn’t long before there were air conditioners available on tractor cabs. in the final few years before my father sold his franchise, we were selling tractors with integrated bodies made by the tractor manufacturer with complete climate systems, radios and other amenities.
If you think of the number of hours a day a farmer spends on a tractor, it makes sense for the machine to offer a bit of comfort. Still, my father sold those machines from his pickup truck that didn’t have an air conditioner.
I haven’t exactly followed in my father’s footsteps. We didn’t have air conditioning in our car in the early years of our marriage, but when we made the move from being a one car family to a two car family we purchased a used car with air conditioning. At first it seemed like having only one car so equipped made sense as our need for air conditioning was relatively rare. Later, however, air conditioning became a feature that we felt was necessary and for many years all of our cars have been air conditioned. Our home has a couple of window air conditioning units that get pretty good exercise when the temperatures rise above 90 degrees or so, but we do not have central air conditioning.
Our church is one of an increasingly small number of public buildings in our city that is not air conditioned. A capital funds drive is underway that will result in the installation of air conditioning in the next couple of years or so. In the meantime, we practice behaviors that people in warm places have practiced for years - skills that future generations may lose as central air conditioning becomes a part of the design of nearly all buildings. We open windows in the late evening. We use fans not only to circulate air, but also to help remove warm air from the building. We turn on the furnace fans to draw cool air from the basement and distribute it throughout the building. We are judicious with the use of draperies, shades and window blinds to cut down on passive solar heating.
Air conditioning is relatively efficient in terms of energy consumption. I’ve read that driving a car with the windows down actually consumes more fuel than rolling up the windows and running the air conditioner. That makes sense for long trips on the highway, but I still am quick to roll down the windows for a short drive around town. Our children think I’m a bit strange driving around alone in the car with all of the windows down. They find the noise and air currents to be disturbing. Still, I am an old guy with some old habits and I like it.
When possible, I prefer to have my temperature change slowly - the way it happens in this country outside - rather than experience sudden cooling and warming. The transition from an air conditioned space to the outside world can be a bit of a shock to my system. Going from cool to hot seems to be more difficult than going from warm to cold for some reason. I guess I know how to bundle up for winter weather, but there are limits to how lightly one can dress for summer and still maintain a reasonable amount of modesty.
The planet is warming and forecasters predict that we will see more temperature extremes and more severe weather as we undergo this change. It is good to have modern climate controls. Still, I do enjoy simply being outside and there are days when a breeze, a bit of shade and a cool drink provides all the comfort I need.