Another Reason to forgo Air Conditioning: Sex.

I have just learned that I am in excellent company.  My not-so subtle disdain for air-conditioning is probably not a lonely upshot of my up-bringing, but another happy element of my bond with the sisterhood.  As Washington Post reporter Steve Hendrix put it this his piece, A/C Setting can push couples to the boiling point, "Researchers who study sex differences agree that when it comes to temperature, it seems women are from Venus and men are from Planet Freon."

Natural and happy as it may sound to have men and women occupying different planets, in fact we share just one.  And some of the more intrepid among us share just one house, too. That's where indoor air trouble takes hold. Hendrix interviewed one service provider whose tactics sound more reminiscent of  911 response team training than air-conditioning repair.  The cause: calls from homeowners dead certain that the air conditioner is broken, who learn the appliance is in perfect working order... it's just been flicked off, surreptitiously, by a spouse.

"What normally follows is a threat of bodily harm to the other person in the house," the service provider said. "We get it all the time. Now we make sure to have them check the setting while we've still got them on the phone."

Egad. We can do better, folks. In fact, we at Energy Circle have long championed fans as a top-notch alternative to flaccid refrigerated carrot syndrome, a little-known side-effect of AC. Fans provide a sense of wind-chill on hot stale days, (and ours do so quietly, and efficiently) but spare us the raw bite that Hendrix reports sends women running for front porches and throwing on fleece while men surreptitiously tip the thermostat down in the wee hours of the night.

In the spirit of taming hysteria, Hendrix interviewed a marriage counselor who acknowledged that fighting is a natural part of a healthy, long lasting marriage....  So long as couples "talk to each other, even when they disagree, in a way that will make them want to make love that night."

So just how much could a whole-house fan that saves energy and cools your house change your life?  Ahem.  Men of Freon: When was the last time you got lucky in a meat locker?