1. Yeah, that's warm alright.
2. I *think* Midea was the brand of portable A/C we had a few years ago. It wasn't too bad as that type of unit goes.
3. Do you get your A/C serviced every year, i.e. pressure checked, fins cleaned? Compressor could be good for a while yet if it's still reasonably smooth - fingers crossed.
4. What is the appeal of living where you do again?
a1) Yep but expected. As is the "it's getting hot now" convo you have with random people when you have to make small talk.
a2) Good to know. Not stuck on that brand particularly just thought the A/C split by window as interesting.
a3) Yes. I've also turn air up from 75 to 82 during the day to reduce stress on my unit.
a4) Sometimes not much. Can't always choose where you live. Taking care of mom who's losing it mentally so I can't go anywhere else anytime soon. No snow and little rain to deal with is something at least. And when it does rain it's an event and interesting.
I would go berserk seeing 110+ days in May. Heck, I'd go berserk seeing them any time of year. 80s is already very uncomfortable, 90s is borderline intolerable. Anything higher is life-threatening. What do you do in a place like Arizona if the power goes out? Seriously, you can literally die from the extreme heat.
Yeah 110+ is crazy but you just don't go outside so you are fine. Not working or traveling out of your house is painful. When I park the car I not only put the reflectix window shade in the window I drape a white towel over steering wheel to ensure it's not 195F when I get in car. I also have a small hand towel that I soak from a water bottle and whip down to help cool any plastic/metal parts on dash, door, seat belt buckle, shifter, etc. A/C can cool car faster is there are not a bunch of 195F surfaces. OCD maybe but I think it helps.
I think we've lost power for a total of 3 hours the last 15 years I've lived here. Maybe one hour for every 50,000 lived. Not too common. And unless the outage was many multiple hours in the summer I'd be OK.
I can see the appeal of living out in AZ. Lot of great scenery/parks and depending on where you might live, somewhat affordable housing. The heat is a killer though.
@jtr1962 I'd expect that A/C outages during peak summer seasons would be similar to how our area would need to deal with loss of heat or electricity in the winter.
Yeah Humidity sucks. Not a whole lot here but the monsoon season can get humid. Crazy being in a sudden downpour and being hot and sticky in 95F rainy temps.
Housing is not too bad outside the major cities. Interesting note: AZ is the fifth on the list of states with cities over 100k population. I would have never guessed that. AZ isn't all dessert. Phoenix isn't right next to large national parks but it is centrally located next those in AZ, Utah, CA, etc. I do wish I lived a bit further north or a bit higher in elevation so it would get cooler at night.
And of course Day 3:
