The future is not air conditioned - and we'll take a pass

There were lines around the corner for this "house of the future" at CES, built by NextGen Home, and apparently stuffed with the latest marvels of modern technology from the likes of Microsoft, HP and Intel. But we saw all we needed to from the outside, without having to wait on line for an hour: window fans, as shown in the picture above. We don't know about the rest of you, but we have absolutely no interest in being part of any future that isn't air conditioned.

[Edward Grefenstette @ Jan 8th 2006 9:17AM]

... but air conditioning is so horribly unhealthy and polluting. Ready for it or not, you're probably going to have to learn how to live without it one day.



Easy solution though: just build houses like in europe, where the walls have a bit of thickness and insulation, for a change.

[Tara @ Jan 8th 2006 9:27AM]

You honestly think that here, in the US, we'll have to learn to live without air conditioning because it's polluting? Not to get too political, but hahaha. Our government isn't going to institute any laws anytime soon that make people unhappy to "save the animals".



Just the voice of a cynic who wishes more people cared about saving the environment.

[geoff @ Jan 8th 2006 10:41AM]

Air Conditioning as we know it is a fad. It's unhealthy and expensive. Houses of the (near) future won't be hot, but they won't be cooled by condensers pushing air. Expect something that is smarter -- more driven by airflow and dehumidification.

[Simon @ Jan 8th 2006 10:43AM]

Hahaha, it's soooo true that it's sad on many levels!!!



Japanese could learn a thing or 2 as well!!! Damned apartments and houses here are paper thin, and the windows let so much heat out it's unreal!!! My A/C doubles as a heater and if i turn it off, within 5 mins the place is freezing!!!! grrr!! and I thought they were all up on energy consevation!!!

[Osman @ Jan 8th 2006 11:13AM]

No air conditioning? HAH. I guess you have never lived in a place like Georgia in the summer.

[stulong @ Jan 8th 2006 11:17AM]

I have stayed at many hotels and motels in Australia that had no air conditioning - strangely enough with proper vents, insulation and old fashioned common sense design (heat rises etc) they were all very comfortable for sleeping.



These days we work in a square box with a flat black roof with sealed windows and little insulation- no surprises there.



Stuart

[geoff @ Jan 8th 2006 11:45AM]

By coincidence, I live in Atlanta, Georgia (summer and winter), and am a home builder and real estate developer. We are presently using conventional AC in our houses, but technology is just beginning to creep into this area, so I expect things to change dramatically within 5 yrs. Mold (and other indoor air quality issues) are in large part the product of conventional AC.

[Scott @ Jan 8th 2006 11:54AM]

I don't know about you, but I don't have thousands of people going in and out of my front door all day. And if I did, I wouldn't be running the air conditioning.

[siggy @ Jan 8th 2006 11:59AM]

Could someone explain to me why air conditioning is unhealthy and polluting? I've read some stuff and it seems if you keep proper maintenance of the air conditioner (maybe couple it with an "air ionizer" to be safe), it shouldn't be unhealthy.



As for polluting, what does it emit? If you're talking about where the power comes from, what if your power source isn't coal or natural gas? Is it still polluting?

[Rob @ Jan 8th 2006 12:03PM]

What's so unhealthy about A/C? It removes moisture from my home, bringning humidity down to a tolerable level, as well as the temperature.



I run a hepa filter, adn I've removed all carpet and re-tiled. What else can i do to make my home healthier??

[BuzzKill @ Jan 8th 2006 12:08PM]

Ummm... maybe all the computers, technology, and "Intel Inside" are generating so much heat that the AC can't keep up. And nobody ever bothers to mention who is picking up the tab for the electric bill that the poor sod that owns one of these homes will get nailed with.

[Alex @ Jan 8th 2006 12:10PM]

Did you mean Windows fans (like... fan as in.. err.. enthusiast?), or window fans (shown on the top right corner)? Oh, you meant window fans...



Anyways... what's so great about this nextgen home? Some specific examples would be nice.

[jk @ Jan 8th 2006 12:25PM]

They probably do have AC.

But there is no way standard AC can keep up with that kind of crowd; each person generates about 100W of heat.

[stulong @ Jan 8th 2006 12:29PM]

No air-conditioning can keep up with an open door and hundreds of heat and moisture producing bodies.



Stuart

[Brian Flowers @ Jan 8th 2006 12:35PM]

You think the lack of A/C is bad, look on the poster! A Windoze logo! I wouldn't want to like in a house that's gonna crash 10 times a day! How often would you have to reboot the fridge? If you ever left the house all your food would spoil 'cause the fridge would lock up :-P

[Brian @ Jan 8th 2006 12:43PM]

Unhealthy AC? The only thing about AC being unhealthy is the lack of maintenance for the humid climates. The VOC's (from carpets, paints, cleaning solvents, ect) are what is unhealthy in most houses. Buy one of those UV lights to put in the return before the filter, run your fan continuously, and your system is a bacterial killing machine..... Make it work for you!

[heh @ Jan 8th 2006 1:00PM]

You americans need to toughen up. When i visited corfu(small island, part of greece, VERY hot) the local people lived with it. Only places that had air con was any place that had tourists. Why can't you lot live with hot weather?



Me on the otherhand, from UK, enjoyed the air con very much :).

[jhvac @ Jan 8th 2006 1:02PM]

No AC in the future is a joke and as long as we are human we will always have A/C.



A/C is not unhealthy, the energy to run your A/C is... so in that case in the future we don't get to use our computers, cell phones, TV's.. get the point. Also the freon is unhealthy but there are many subsitutes that are being worked into new A/C units that will be better for the ozone.



In to response to #2 �the Gov�t won't make a law to save the animals because it will make us unhappy...� well in the next few months the NEW law will require all MFG's of air conditioners to only manufacture 13 seer condensers. This will increase the cost significantly making many people wanting to install a new air conditioner very unhappy, but a significant efficiency increase will help save the animals�.

[Ripperrim @ Jan 8th 2006 2:45PM]

I dont see what the big deal on A/C is i went to america and hated the A/C. It would be boiling hot outside and then like back home(england) when i got into buildings and considering it was hot and i had shorts and a T-Shirt on the A/C was just annoying

[Kevin @ Jan 8th 2006 2:49PM]

In the building industry, Air-conditioning is a recent development. Prior to Air-conditioning, we actually built our homes so that the south-facing windows were sheltered from the sun during the summer and let the full sun in during the winter.



That along with thermal mass, sinking the house 2 feet to take advantage of the constant temperature of the earth, cooling towers, apses, wind tunnels, courtyards, cross-ventilation etc have worked well for us for centuries. They are all but lost since Air-conditioning has been introduced.



Newer developments like ground-source heat pumps, california heat pumps, e-crete, green roofs, etc can make air-conditioning obsolete.



Don't be so quick to judge a book by it's cover. Try reading the first chapter, at least.

[Larry Bernard @ Jan 8th 2006 3:51PM]

Yes we all see how well that one year no air conditioning worked for all those people in france....



you remember that year in france where all sorts of people DIED for lack of AC

[Sammich? @ Jan 8th 2006 4:54PM]

I don't care about the animal humping, tree hugging, politically ignorant freaks blowing hot air. But a home in Las Vegas filled with tech without any AC and using a window fan, is fucktarded!



And yes, their are ways to build a home without having an AC unit in it. Take a trot out to the Arizona desert and look at some of the homes being made out there. What you see in the above picture is NOT that kind of home.

[yjs @ Jan 8th 2006 6:40PM]

You funny Americans. Just wait till your powerplants die, and we'll see how many days you guys will live. Much of the world live just fine without air conditioning.

[Lee Gibson @ Jan 8th 2006 7:05PM]

23, much of the world also lives without sanitary water supplies. What makes that a good idea, exactly?

[Fred @ Jan 8th 2006 7:19PM]

AC is essential in NYC. With these old buildings and it getting up 100 F, old folks die of heat stroke and people start to smell bad. I know you Europeans don't really care about old people or taking showers but we Americans like to keep our elderly alive while staying clean and cool. Are you going to complain about how we waste water because we shower everyday?

[Butter @ Jan 8th 2006 7:20PM]

That would explain why much of the world has that kickin B.O.

[Faentur @ Jan 8th 2006 7:29PM]

Walked by the "House of the future" saw the fans, laughed and took a picture. well, I guess you won't be wanting my crappy cell phone picture after all.



-F

[Solar Energy Blog @ Jan 8th 2006 9:15PM]

I agree with Kevin.



Air conditioning is only one option and a pretty inefficient one at that.



People should also consider ground source heat pumps (that both heat and cool homes):



http://alt-e.blogspot.com/2005/06/home-savings-from-ground-source-heat.html



James

Alternative Energy Blog

[Jesus @ Jan 8th 2006 11:50PM]

Wow, this argument has gone to the level of American-bashers vs. European-bashers. #22 is right--any house in Las Vegas not built in the traditional southwestern style will require an air-conditioning unit (especially now that Las Vegas has reached 52C/125F). France also learned a rather grave (ahem) lesson when thousands of old people died of heatstroke two years ago, as has been mentioned--but this was also largely due to poor administration (too many nurses had their holidays at the same time), and not a lack of air conditioning.



I have lived in both America and in different European countries for many years, and I think you're both right and wrong. Many American houses require air conditioning because they are situated in some of the hottest places in the world (Death Valley, Las Vegas, New Mexico), and some require it becuase they are poorly made out of particle board and no insulation (Georgia, Florida, New Jersey). In any case, everyone knows that Las Vegas is unsustainable, since it's already begun to run out of water, so a future home in Las Vegas is most likely to be filled with cobwebs than anything else.

[splig @ Jan 8th 2006 11:59PM]

Hot climates have been populated for thousands of years without bad electric "air condition" systems. Get a grip and live in the real world, america. It is perfectly possible to survive healthily in such climates with common sense. Use real solutions, not ones taught to you by an industial complex that only cares about short term profit.

[andrew @ Jan 9th 2006 2:04AM]

#22 and 29, what about normal, affordable housing? AC is a necessary commodity. Not everyone can have their home dug 2 feet into the ground and insulated like... I can't think of a good example. Sure, there are lots of people here in central AZ (Phoenician here) with solar panel this and concrete that and shade there and all this but as of now those concepts are out of reach for all but the absolute richest portion of the population. PLUS ALSO these homes are all built on like 5 acres on virgin desert, so it's really not sustainable, even if it's off the grid.

Call McDonough, we need high-rise scale residential that keeps people cool in the Southwestern US. He'll tell you that for now, AC is the only way to go...

[dan @ Jan 9th 2006 4:40AM]

This is a really sad thread, because it shows me how unaware many people are of the power consumption of an AC system.

There are very efficient ways of cheaply insulate houses to keep the heat outside or ventilation systems that work without electrical assistance....

And this is not about being the super-duper eco friendly muesli guy who takes care for animals but about a common sense and understanding how our behaving is having influence on the future.



And I'm being sad about reading such a statement from the engadget crew, thought you guys would be more considerate...

[Revrant @ Jan 9th 2006 7:39AM]

Well this thread went to hell then, didn't it? Wow.



House of the future turned into some kind of Right vs. Left esque political debacle.



I for one couldn't live without the A/C, even in Michigan, but it's true, houses are constructed without cooling or heating in mind most of the time, if we progressed that then we wouldn't need the A/C nearly as much. Also true that A/C, or some form of it, will advance, eventually the systems will be efficient and will cool differently, there's already quite a handful of good systems slowly advancing and becoming good alternatives, give it time.



Now, on *topic*, really, no "House of the Future" is going to be futuristic enough right now, we don't have the materials to make technology work in a constant day-to-day use filling roles we take ourselves, not until the designs and materials perform better, so there's no point in such a house - though I'm interested in exactly what's so "futuristic" about it.

[Jeremy Grosser @ Jan 9th 2006 8:30AM]

Regardless of how warm it was (77F according to the touch screen) this was one of the most interesting booths at CES in my opinion because they actually showed applications of the products and not just a little demo of what you might be able to do in the right environment. HP, Microsoft, Intel, and a few others created this digital home exhibit to show how everything can interoperate well. I think this exhibit also reinforced the idea that Windows Media Center will sit at the center of EVERYTHING when it's setup right.

[Jeff @ Jan 9th 2006 12:00PM]

Wow! Who knew people were so passionate about AC? Sounds like some are jealous for not having it.



It's winter here in the US, and those of us in the northern half are more concerned about heat right now. I don't think man has EVER lived without heat. Whether it be thick animal pelts or wood burning stoves, we need heat to survive.



Heating a home takes a LOT more energy than cooling a home. Think about it. You're heating the air 40-60 degrees F. in the winter, and cooling it only 10-20 degrees in the summer (unless in the SW). My utility bill will back up that assertion.



I set my AC at 78 degrees F. That's just enough for it to kick on during the hot part of the day, and take much of the humidity out of the air.

[Ivan Icin @ Jan 9th 2006 3:14PM]

Just to join the team "don't use air-conditionin unless you really need to" - as it is unhealthy, isolates man from the world, and makes world worse place (hope that you understand that that heat from your apartment goes somewhere; it is a matter of basic culture for modern man).

[Dylan Horkin @ Jan 9th 2006 7:33PM]

air conditioning is a rediculous idea in some parts of the world. I live in washington state - there is at most two weeks a year that you'd even want one, and usually it's more like 3 days.

[Bret Fitzgerald @ Jan 10th 2006 11:42PM]

Hello - it's a trade show! Do you really expect them to have a full-fleged AC unit in the house?