How Many Households in Washington State Have Air Conditioning?

For the reason that warmth dome, and even earlier than, everybody’s been questioning what number of households in our nook of the world have lastly embraced air-con. Yesterday, we obtained our greatest clue but—although it nonetheless leaves a lot to the creativeness.

A brand new nationwide survey from the U.S. Power Info Administration experiences that 53 p.c of households in Washington used some type of air-con in 2020, the second least of any state (AC? Alaskans would by no means). About 30 p.c of Washingtonian properties deployed central air to chill their properties, nicely beneath the 67 p.c nationwide common for states. 1 / 4 put in particular person items.

The Residential Power Consumption Survey arrives with an vital caveat: The information does not inform us how many individuals sprung for AC to arrange for that treacherous warmth wave final 12 months, naturally, since its responses are from 2020, not late 2021. Nor does it element how many individuals in Seattle ponied up.

However it’s the first time this explicit U.S. Power survey has launched state-level knowledge, providing a uncommon snapshot of how folks cool off throughout Washington and its many climes. A number of different takeaways from the info drop:

• Whereas we had the second-least AC use of any state, a handful of others—New York, New Hampshire, Hawai’i, Maine, and Vermont—had fewer properties, proportionally, with central air.
• We’re no fan of followers. Oddly, given our lack of AC, solely 44 p.c of Washington properties have ceiling followers. That is final amongst states. (It have to be a Washington factor; DC is at 41 p.c.)
• Nationally, our neighbors would possibly rank low, however each Oregon and Idaho have a lot larger percentages of properties utilizing air-con: 76 and 80, respectively.

We’ll have to attend for the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Housing Survey to get city-by-city numbers. In 2019, about 44 p.c of Seattle properties had air-con, per the AHS. The bureau relayed that knowledge shall be out later this quarter.