A small house is easy to cool
As a Gen Zer right out of college, I was saddled with significant debt and had no work experience. Then the COVID pandemic closed everything down, and I had to fight to survive for a few months. I managed to make a living writing web content, but it didn’t pay a lot, and my living situation was tentative. This is what led me to purchase a “tiny house” to live in, because I realized it might be the only house I could ever afford. The entire house is two hundred square feet, about the size of a large bedroom ,but it had power, plumbing, and air conditioning. There are no air ducts, of course, there isn’t enough room for them, so instead I rely on a small, portable air conditioner that I can sit in the window. It looks kind of funny, a boxy metal air conditioner sitting on a neat stack of cinderblocks, because the tiny window sill is not strong enough to support it. The thing is that it works great, and since my place is so small an AC unit designed for one room cools down the whole house. When the weather turns, I can store the air conditioner in the shed, move the cinder blocks, and get back to normal. When it gets cold I have a space heater, but it is so small I don’t have to stick it outside. Another benefit of using these devices instead of a central HVAC system is that I save a whole lot of money on my utility bills.