Seattle is now an air conditioning town

A changing climate has pushed the Seattle area over a threshold.

For the first time, most homes in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties now have air conditioning.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest biannual housing survey, 53% of homes in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties had air conditioning in 2021, up from 44% in 2019.

The survey shows that only 45% of low-income households in the region have artificial cooling.

Surveyors collected this information during the summer that a record-shattering heat wave killed hundreds around the Northwest. The heat was especially deadly for people living outdoors or in buildings without access to conditioned air.

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When it comes to air conditioning in America, Seattle has long been the odd city out.

More than 90% of American homes have artificial cooling. But in temperate, maritime Seattle, air conditioning has been the exception, not the rule, until recently.

Worsening summer heat waves and improvements in cooling technology, like heat pumps, have fueled the spread of chilled air.

Before Kim Virant, of Shoreline, got air conditioning, she took pride in not having it. She said her tipping point was the 2021 heat dome, when she and her dog had to flee their unlivable apartment.

“I’m relieved and thankful to have the A/C but also bummed out that you have to get it and that things have changed,” Virant said. “After that 2021 [heat wave], it was that realization that it's never going to be what it was before."

Hafizullah Chishti, of Lake City, recently lucked into a free portable air conditioner from an online group aimed at keeping goods out of the trash.

“My apartment building has south exposure, so it gets pretty intense in here at the height of the summer,” he said.

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Chishti said he tries not to use his new air conditioner too often. “Only when it's really necessary,” he said. “I really can't stand the noise.”

Nationally, 92% of homes have air conditioning, including 72% with central air and 20% with room air conditioners in 2021, according to the Census Bureau.

Among Seattle-area households with chilled air, room air conditioners are more common than central air.

“This will be our first summer with cool air,” Cynnie Foss, of Northeast Seattle, said in a text message. "We switched so we could sleep at night.”

Foss said she and her husband installed a heat pump — which can both heat and cool a home — in the fall.

“With all the recent regional wildfire smoke and poor air quality there were too many hot summer nights that we couldn't even open the windows to cool off,” she said.

More air conditioning adds to the surging demand for electricity that has utilities and government officials scrambling to keep the lights on, especially as the region phases out fossil fuels from its energy mix. The increased energy use and, to a lesser degree, leaks of climate-damaging coolants also add to the pollution that is driving the earth’s climate into uncharted territory.

RELATED: Climate change supercharged the Northwest heat dome

With the rising availability and popularity of energy-efficient heat pumps and the worsening of extreme heat waves, the Seattle area will likely see higher rates of air conditioning in the 2023 housing survey results. Census officials say they expect to publish those in October 2024.

Even so, many people, whether by preference or necessity, still rely on natural cooling techniques like good ventilation, heat-blocking shades, and having tall trees nearby.

“My home is on a hill above Puget Sound and rarely gets too hot because there is almost always a breeze from the sea,” Andrea Avni, of Vashon Island, said in a text message. “I'm well aware of how fortunate we are.”

Studies in the Seattle-Tacoma area and elsewhere have shown that asphalt, dark roofs, and other heat-absorbing surfaces can cause homes to get up to 20 degrees hotter than those in leafier neighborhoods nearby. The hotter neighborhoods often overlap with lower-income areas where discriminatory housing policies known as “redlining” forced people of color to concentrate in the 20th century.

Nicki Matthews lives on the top floor of an uncooled apartment building in Kent.

“It's like you're getting the sun beating down on you from the ceiling,” she said.

During the 2021 heat dome, while working at home, Matthews asked her boss if she could work in the office and bring her kids but was told no. So, the single mom found a hotel to stay in for several days. More recently, she’s been unemployed and has driven her kids to a shopping mall to stay cool for cheaper comfort.

Her landlords don’t allow tenants to put air conditioners in their windows.

“Management's here sending people notices about, 'You’ve got to get that out of your window, it looks bad.' But then they get to go home to their fancy houses with cooling or heat pump or whatever,” she said. “It just kind of sucks. It doesn't seem very fair.”

In 2022, less than six months after the deadly heat dome, the Oregon Legislature prohibited landlords and homeowner associations from banning window air conditioners.

Anita Latch lives in subsidized senior housing in Tacoma.

“We have an air-conditioned community room and an air-conditioned computer lab,” Latch said. “But the individual apartments are definitely not included in the A/C setup.”

“We're talking about the most vulnerable population in Tacoma,” Latch said.

RELATED: Seattle stayed cool in April while the planet felt record heat

Older people are generally less able to regulate their body temperature and are more susceptible to deadly overheating.

“I think it's a glaring mark of a lack of consciousness about people with limited income, what kind of options we have to deal with the high heat,” Latch said.

In Edmonds, Diane Martin Rudnick said she’d love to get an air conditioner, but they don’t work with her apartment’s windows.

“The place was built, like, in the '80s when nobody was thinking about this,” she said. “But now, we really, really have to start thinking about it.”

Dawn Webster Williams said she added an air conditioner to the one window in her North Tacoma house that can support it. She said she’s not a big fan of air conditioning: It bothers her eyes and sinuses and has a high environmental impact. She said she still relies on other methods to cool the home when she can.

“I do the window dance. You know, cover everything on this side and close it all up, and then it's in the shade, and I'll open it up, and then I have a fan that sucks and a fan that blows,” she said.

RELATED: Deadly heat waves to be more frequent, intense

Given the expense of heat pumps, whole-house cooling might be a few years away for her.

“We're definitely going to upgrade once either my daughter graduates from college or the furnace dies. Whichever one happens first,” she said.

Nicki Matthews said she has applied for a free portable air conditioner but has not heard back.

Multi-Service Center, which offers energy assistance to low-income households in South King County, has run out of funding for the year to offer free air conditioners, according to the nonprofit group's website.