August 28, 2011

Percentage of Homes With Air Conditioning From 1973 to 2009

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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