I have lived in this region all of my life.
The temperatures and the humidity level during the year are something that just comes with the territory for me.
While the HVAC cooling is probably on, to some degree, from about mid March to November, it doesn’t dominate our lives. I have neighbors who go from one air conditioner to another to another. They can hardly even deal with the weather here if it gets above the high 70’s. And believe me, the temperature is far higher than that for month after month after months. For me, I sort of take a multi pronged approach to air conditioning and beating the heat. I’ll be the first to say that my approach is also based on making sure that I can spend my money on other stuff besides HVAC cooling. And it’s really not as complicated as some might think. I find dealing with the heat to be more of a perspective than an all out HVAC cooling blitz. Once the heat starts rising in the spring, I simply get acclimated to it. Instead of immediately cranking the air conditioning thermostat setting way down, I let the house heat up a bit. This is a key part of the plan. When it’s 98 for days, if not weeks, at a time, a house that’s in the low 80’s feels really comfortable. And a person can still get outside and not be completely overcome by the heat because all they do is sit inside the air conditioning. I’ve been doing this for 50 plus years and it just keeps working. I’m thankful for HVAC cooling for sure. It’s just that I’m not going to over use it either.