Our home does not have central air conditioning. This year for the first time we bought a window air conditioner. I was curious how many people actually have air conditioning.
I got the data out of the American Housing Survey results from the previous years. I had to pull up individual years and copy the figures for each year. Note that I'm just looking at owner occupied homes so the data I show below does NOT include rentals. I could have gotten numbers for all housing or for rentals separately but to make it easier I just grabbed the number for owner occupied units.
Here is a graph showing the % of owner-occupied homes with air conditioning either central AC or one or more window/room units.
Here are the numbers in table form :
| AC | central | window | |
| 1973 | 52% | 19% | 33% |
| 1974 | 55% | 21% | 33% |
| 1975 | 55% | 22% | 32% |
| 1976 | 57% | 25% | 32% |
| 1977 | 58% | 26% | 32% |
| 1978 | 58% | 28% | 30% |
| 1979 | 59% | 29% | 30% |
| 1980 | 62% | 30% | 32% |
| 1981 | 61% | 31% | 30% |
| 1983 | 63% | 33% | 30% |
| 1985 | 66% | 37% | 29% |
| 1987 | 69% | 40% | 29% |
| 1989 | 73% | 45% | 28% |
| 1991 | 75% | 47% | 27% |
| 1993 | 75% | 50% | 26% |
| 1995 | 79% | 54% | 25% |
| 1997 | 80% | 56% | 24% |
| 1999 | 83% | 60% | 23% |
| 2001 | 85% | 63% | 21% |
| 2003 | 86% | 65% | 21% |
| 2005 | 88% | 69% | 19% |
| 2007 | 89% | 70% | 18% |
| 2009 | 89% | 72% | 18% |
I'm a little surprised how many homes actually have air conditioning. I live in the Northwest where summers are pretty mild so its not as common out here. But its clear that over the years more and more homes have gotten air conditioning. Also the growth is all in central air conditioning systems. Over the past 4 decades the % of homes with window air conditioning units has steadily dropped while the % with central air has steadily grown.
Part of the growth in AC is due to higher population growth in the Southern states. The AHS has data for regions as well. If you look at all housing units then per region the % of homes with some form of AC is as follows :
| AC | Central | Window | |
| Northeast | 84% | 32% | 51% |
| Midwest | 91% | 70% | 22% |
| South | 98% | 86% | 12% |
| West | 67% | 52% | 15% |
As you can see the percent of homes with AC is a lot lower in the West and Northeast. In the South 98% of homes have AC so its basically a given that a home will have some form of AC. Window units are a lot more common in the Northeast.
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