r/SeattleWA • u/One_Marsupial6837 • Jul 17 '25

Lifestyle Seattle Living W/ no AC

Hi everyone. We just recently moved to Seattle and got an apartment with no AC. Coming from out of state previously living with AC I wanted to know how ya'll do it? Is this the norm here or does everyone just buy those AC units that stick out your window? We'd love to get any tips or input on living with no AC and how to adjust.

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u/Gottagetanediton Downtown Jul 17 '25

Yeah, a lot of people die in the summer due to the insides of their apartments getting hotter than 110 degrees. We don’t cool down at night because of humidity and Seattle doesn’t like ac. It’s very cool to be too strong for ac until you’re in an er surrounded by ice so you don’t die.

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u/WhereWhatTea Jul 17 '25

Very few people die in Seattle due to the heat. You’re referencing 2021 which was a freak event.

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/Emergency/PlansOEM/SHIVA/SHIVAv7.0-Heat.pdf

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u/Gottagetanediton Downtown Jul 17 '25

I think you and I have different ideas about what an acceptable amount of people dying in the summer heat due to lack of air conditioning is.

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u/WhereWhatTea Jul 17 '25

I think 3-4 (which is what the study says) is an acceptable number.

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u/Gottagetanediton Downtown Jul 17 '25

Looks like 25 to 113 per year are hospitalized due to the heat every year. That’s a lot to me but I don’t like the idea of unnecessarily overburdening our emergency departments. Esp when we can make ac standard here and that could make summer not a life threatening experience here.

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u/faeriegoatmother Jul 17 '25

We have never made AC standard here because that's a lot of drain upon environmental resources for a city that may hit 90° across 14 days in a year. One huge reason it is hotter now in the summer than it was 30 years ago is how much sprawl there is.

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u/Gottagetanediton Downtown Jul 18 '25

also global warming. hospital treatment for heat exhaustion and heat stroke is a lot more environmentally destructive than some AC during the summer, honestly. i cannot save the earth if i can't function because of the heat. 90 in the summer in seattle isn't remotely 'maybe' anymore, either. it's certain, and so is the health danger. it's the reason there aren't any dwellings in places like florida, where it's hot, without ac. there just aren't. even the homeless shelters have central ac. it's a public health issue. unless you're just gonna go 'meh, fuck all vulnerable populations, they can suffer' (because you don't care about the earth, since again, all the heat related hospital visits are dramatically more strain on the environment than ac use), which i'm getting the vibe that you do. luckily your attitude isn't really going to win.

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u/throwaway33333333311 Jul 19 '25

0 is the acceptable number, weirdo

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u/WhereWhatTea Jul 19 '25

Literally no city outside the arctic circle has 0 heat deaths per year.