<
https://www.kut.org/austin/2024-06-06/air-conditioned-village-allandale-experiment-ac>
"When Gretchen Culbert was 11 years old in 1954, her parents moved the family
into a new house at the edge of Austin. There was a lot to marvel at. The
one-story home had a dishwasher and a fireplace. It spanned 1,468 square feet,
making it the biggest house in the neighborhood. A local paper at the time
called the home “outstanding,” with an entire glass wall that opened onto an
enclosed terrace.
But the feature that drew the most attention was harder to see. Culbert could
feel it on her skin, hear it as the mechanism that powered it flicked on and
off. It felt good, especially after a day spent playing in the Texas heat.
Culbert’s childhood home had central air conditioning.
“No one else had air conditioning around us except for stores or office
buildings,” Culbert, 81, said. “It was super exciting.”
Her father, Henry “Hank” Fenderbosch, worked for a local construction firm. The
company had helped build a subdivision on farmland off Burnet Road, 6 miles
north of downtown in the neighborhood now known as Allandale. Each of the 22
midcentury-style homes had been outfitted with central air conditioning, a
technology so rare that fewer than 1 in 10 new houses nationwide had it.
It wasn’t that builders didn’t know how to construct homes with central air.
The technology was there. But the government, which was pushing to expand
homeownership, was reluctant to back mortgages for homes with it. Officials
worried hefty utility bills would sap the budgets of middle-income families.
So when Fenderbosch, his wife and four kids moved into a home on Twin Oaks
Drive, they joined nearly two dozen families taking part in an experiment. The
neighborhood was called the Air Conditioned Village. For two years the homes
and the people living in them would be monitored by scientists, engineers and
the larger public. The question everyone was trying to answer: Who could afford
to live in central air conditioning?"
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-texas-air-conditioning-solar-power/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
