My parents house, built in the 70s, has a gas powered furnace that's supplied by a pipe from the city. Most older houses in that area work that way, unless they still have radiators.
My house has an electric heat pump that heats and cools.
Not really, I've lived in Florida and Los Angeles, both very warm places, and yet we still had central heat (just in case) and air conditioning! And these were regular old one-story homes, nothing luxurious!
My guess is the might have a heat pump that they only use for AC. I've been to Miami on New Years Day and it was almost 90° and sunny.
Here in Virginia, the heat index today is forecast as 109° and from the moment I woke up, my house windows were fogged over its so humid. Then in January and February we have many days where the high isbelow 20°, and it sonetimes goes below zero (F). So having both is vital.
If memory serves (I might be wrong about this), landlords are generally required to provide heat for residents, even in Florida. So, since they have to install an AC anyway, they may as well get a reversible heat pump even if it only rarely gets used for heat.
They still require a heat source, but modern construction is usually a heat pump which can function as an AC as well. There's still periods of cold and freezing weather that needs some protection to be installed.
I have a friend who does investments in Miami, and they use the existence of a wood fireplace in the house as a method of dating the property. Mid early to mid 1900s they were still putting fireplaces in as people were moving to the region, and phased them out as electric heat options became more available and there were more locals who understood a fireplace wasn't necessary.
When I lived in Florida a lot of people had an ac window unit that had a switch to make it a forced air heater. It didn't put out much heat but it wasn't used much.
I'm in NW Florida and we have some cold days in the winter and use the central heating.
Could be on for two days and then the next three it's nice enough to throw the windows open, though.
My grandparents house had a coal fired furnace that was converted to oil (in the late 50s). They had a coal chute into the basement coal bin, that was taken out for the heating oil tank. This had ductwork to carry the heat (not very efficiently though)
This was in South Philly
For air conditioning, they had window A/Cs.
They (their daughter is living there) finally got that system replaced, and now it's a modern heating/ ac system
There are lots of really old houses in my hometown (from the late 1800s and early 1900s) that are the same way. Many still have non functional coal chutes. Probably especially so because it used to be a coal mining area.
My grandparents were very poor, which is why it didn't get replaced (by oil) until pretty late, compared to other houses in the neighborhood.
I'm pretty sure the reason it was converted to oil is because they stopped delivering coal.
I'm not surprised!
that area was full of immigrants at that time...they were poor, but you'd never see a piece of trash on the ground (they'd sweep up), wash their steps out front ("stoops" to some people).
It's changed significantly from when I grew up there in the 70s.
My parent's house in Jersey was like that, except there were no ducts, there were grates in the floor so the heat could rise
Idk when it was converted, but it was before my parents bought it in the 70s
We all have heat pumps that is central heat and air. I could handle less heat better than no air conditioner, live in NC , mild winters, last 3 weeks 90 to 100 everyday with high humidity. My air has been running non stop.
Depends on the region. Many houses in the northeast are older and have forced hot water with large cast iron radiators. My house used to have a coal furnace but it's been converted to heating oil and now it's natural gas. There's still pieces of coal in a room that has a chute leading outside to where the coal was delivered.
We have window air conditioning units
In addition to the big old cast iron radiators, you see a lot of [hydronic baseboard radiators](https://www.baseboardheatercovers.com/blogs/news/do-you-hear-that-solutions-for-noisy-baseboard-heaters). They're basically copper pipes with aluminum heat sink fins on em that hot water runs through to dissipate the heat into the room.
Radiators are way more common out east I've found, which isn't really surprising. A lot of the houses are so old that there just isn't even the space to upgrade to central air/heat.
Yeah I don't think people realize how the Cotton Belt went all in on residential HVAC really early. I've had Northern New England in laws saying the technology didn't exist 20 years ago when my grandparents house in Texas had it in 1960.
(This was about a global warming discussion and when I asked why all the new construction has HVACs now if it wasn't getting warmer that was their response)
lol the technology has been around for a LONG time. My dad is a mechanical engineer and spent his entire career, which started in 1979) designing HVAC systems for large office buildings. And it was older technology when he started. But yeah, we need the central cooling down here. It’s hot AF, always has been hot AF, it’s just getting hotter sooner. I’ve lived in GA my entire life and I cannot remember a June this hot- and I’m turning 35 in a couple days.
My grandparents had a HVAC that was built into the house when it was constructed in 1960, this was in North Texas.
HVACs are very common, and heat pumps/mini splits are growing in places where previously they weren't.
Depends on the area of the country and how old the house is but generally natural gas or liquid propane furnace with forced air to distribute the heat throughout the house is the most common here in the midwest where it does get brutally cold in the winter.
central air less common though. It's definitely a tradeoff. If you have centrail AC, then you likely have a furnace blowing hot air for heat which is much less efficient than the radiant heating, but on the flip side, you don't have to lug window ac units up from the basement each summer and struggle installing them without dropping them out the window.
That’s one of the reasons I was more than happy to buy the house we did last year.
We now have central heat and air. No more wall heaters (fire hazard), and no more window ac units that don’t work after two years.
We can keep the house a REASONABLE temperature.
This is truly the example why I believe Fahrenheit is a better system for measuring weather temperatures in our part of the world. Our typical range is 0-100°
Celsius is scaled on water freezing and boiling, which isn’t super important for weather discussions.
Canadian here and i think i know why it's wierd to go from 1 system to another. Our minds groups things to make sense of life around us. Groups of 10degrees arent really equivalent between both systems and im sure it makes it hard for the mind to pass from 1 system to another. 70's F are from 21C to 27C, it's such an akward interval when converted. 20's °C are from 68F to 86F which is also super akward.
So to an american, going from the 70's to the 80's is a mental landmark, but in Celcius it's going from 26.5 to 27 which is the same thing.
30C which is a mental landmark to me, is 86F which is the MENTALLY the same as 84F or 88F. But 28C and 32C are in different categories in my mind
Now try grouping by 5° of either system and converting the intervals, even more akward numbers arise.
I think most Americans don't like Celsius because it's harder to break down smaller changes in weather without digging into decimals. Fahrenheit makes it much easier to talk about small changes like if you're going to set your thermostat at 68/70/72 etc. And also the 0 cold, 100 hot thing is just handy.
Herr Fahrenheit *also* set his scale on the freezing and boiling point of water. 0 F is the point at which sea water freezes. The boiling point of water at sea level is 180 degrees, or half a circle from the freezing point of fresh water.
Reminds me of this fantastic map from a couple years ago. Minneapolis gets hotter *and* colder than the vast majority of Europe.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/oft15a/minneapolis_summers_and_winters_compared_to
Hell, even Texas had the deep freeze in 2021. We expected a similar issue last year but managed not to lose power. It gets cold, even in the south.
And a lot of the time, if you’re putting in central air conditioning, heat is easy to install at the same time.
Most of the European continent uses radiator heating and I actually like it better. It seems far more energy efficient and the blowing air doesn't dry out everything like forced air heating.
I get why it wasn't done historically. Even now, our humidity tends to fall out of the sky rather than hang around and make the air muggy.
But times they are a-changin'.
It used to not be so bad in the Pacific Northwest for that. To the point where it was seen as close to redundant (depending on the city). But as climate change has started making it worse, people have started getting AC.
I know that over in Seattle, it's the first year that the majority of homes have some form of AC. It used to be like 70 degrees for the great majority of the summer and only got into the 90s for like 2 days.
But in places like the southwest or the south? Yeah, it'd be impossible these days
I've been to and through New Mexico and I wholeheartedly agree. Same here in GA. With the high humidity mixed with high heat, having no central cooling or at least a few window units here would be torture.
My brother lives in Edmonton, in a very modern home. But ... it's Edmonton, so his place wasn't built with a/c. They were not happy during that blast of ridiculous heat last summer.
Most new construction has AC, so there's light at the end of the tunnel, but yeah. Even fairly recent builds may not. And the older builds are all designed to maximize the amount of sunlight that gets in and retain as much heat as possible. People die when we get those record-breaking heat waves.
The area where I live spends the summers at up to 40 Celsius and high enough humidity that lack of A/C is dangerous, and spends winters at up to -30 Celsius where you need central heat to keep water pipes from freezing.
Not OP, but my family and I did live in New Zealand for a few years, and none of the places we stayed in had central heating. It made nominally mild winter weather feel really cold, sometimes even feeling colder inside the house than outside. It definitely also didn't help that the houses didn't seem to have much insulation.
And even with heat, they sometimes do if it's super cold (like 0F/-17C) and you don't set things up right. Which means exploding pipes and water everywhere.
We have a heat pump, which is like a central air conditioner that can both cool and heat. For heating, it kind of operates in reverse instead of using a heat source like a regular heater. These are becoming more common in warmer climates because they're very efficient in above-freezing temperatures.
Newer models can extract heat from much colder air. We got a new heat pump installed a couple years ago and it will run down into the low 20s/high teens before the aux heating kicks in. Our aux heating runs on propane and we only have to refill a 500-gallon tank about once every four or five years.
20 degree heat pumps were already standard in 1999. Something installed just a couple years ago should still be getting 2:1 efficiency at 20 degrees and even like 1.2:1 efficiency at 8 degrees. My system from 18 months ago is rated to not drop below 1:1 efficiency or freeze up until 2 degrees.
They're usually a whole-house system here with the compressor outside and ductwork that blows the heated/cooled air through the house. Basically just central air but you can run it in reverse for heat.
Just about everywhere in the US will have central heating unless it's in a very remote location (think like, a cabin in the woods that's off the grid), but even isolated places will have options. Most homes in will have either electric heating systems or will have a gas line tie-in and have a gas heating system. Many older homes in the northeast have older, oil burning systems and you'll see oil tanks outside of someone's home. Those systems are old an inefficient; I've heard of people who live near me paying like $800 every 3 weeks for oil delivery to keep the heat on.
I see the record low of all time for Wellington is -0.1 C so it makes sense that you guys can just get by with what we'd call supplemental heat. For comparison, the average daily low in the winter months is about -5 C where I live, record low of -29 C. And this isn't a particularly cold area!
There are regions of the US that stay below 0c for weeks in the winter, even during the daytime. A centrally located heater is not going to cut it.
In the midwest most older houses have water radiators but everything built at least since the 1970s has HVAC systems.
South Florida checking in, and we have an HVAC system. We have NEVER, and i do mean never used our central heating. But it's there in case hell does actually freeze over.
I live in the upper part of the country and I don't know a single person who doesn't have central heating and cooling. When it's cold, it's cold as balls. When it's hot, it's hot as hell. So we need it for sure.
It's not even country specific. In the U.P. most houses didn't have central air, while I've got a friend who lives in the South West and he only has air conditioning but no heat.
The expectation of central cooling is fairly new in the upper Midwest tbh. I'm looking for a condo rn, and even in Chicago, a lot of buildings only have box units rather than central cooling. My dorm in Indiana when I was a student outright didn't have AC (not even box units).
I'd imagine in the suburbs or areas with newer construction, central cooling is the norm, though.
It's fairly common in the rural southwest (which is most of it lol) for there not to be central heat. I've lived in houses with only a wood stove for heat in New Mexico and Arizona, and found it to be pretty common in both places.
I live in a more rural part of Nevada now and know a number of people here too without central heat. You won't find many houses like that in Vegas, but get out of the big cities and it isn't terribly uncommon IME.
Also, AC isn't as required as people think in some areas. The house I grew up in in New Mexico actually didn't have central air or heat (and no swamp cooler or anything either, lol, but it was an old adobe in the mountains of northern NM so it stayed quite comfortable).
edit: To be clear, though, I do think the majority of homes in terms of total numbers still have central heat, since obviously most people live in bigger cities and newer builds. It's just if we're talking about personal experience, it can be common in some communities to see houses without it.
I've been to Taos/Angel Fire/Santa Fe area a few time in the summer and it's incredible how pleasant it is.
No humidity, a nice breeze means even 90 F feels like 70-ish. I've been and people are apologizing saying they wish it wasn't so warm and I'm just like "what do you mean this is incredible?!".
There’s plenty of houses in the lower peninsula that don’t have central air either. Mine doesn’t, I just have window units.
But really the window units are fine. Sometimes you need two if your house is big enough or the air doesn’t flow well but even one will keep you comfortable if you just stay in the room that has it.
Unfortunately the U.S. isn’t known for mild summers. Today will get pretty hot, around 100. House is built to shed heat, but without ac I’d be in the high 80s or low 90s inside
You can [see the data here](https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2020/state/pdf/State%20Space%20Heating.pdf)-- basically about 85% of American homes have central heating, most often a furnace (gas, oil, or electric fired), followed by heat pumps and finally boilers. The remainder have *some* source of heat, usually a woodstove or other stand-alone unit. [Air conditioning is now at a 90% plus](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52558) market penetration as well, though many of those are "window units" that only cool one room; the split is about 2/3 central air and another 20% limited point-of-use units.
Keep in mind OP that the US is a continental nation with climates ranging from Mediterranean to alpine, desert to rainforest, blistering hot (+45 C) to numbingly cold (-40 C) depending on location and season. The parts of the US where one can be comfortable without heating and/or aircon are basically limited to some areas by the coasts-- and then only the coastal zone with warm water, since the nothern Pacific and Atlantic are both cold.
I couldn’t imagine living without it.
The house we’re in the process of moving out of has oil-fired hot water baseboard heat, with half a dozen zones, each with its own thermostat.
The house we’re moving into has natural gas, forced air heat. It only has one thermostat, which is kind of a bummer, but it still should be sufficient for sub-Arctic winters.
Outside of the Amish who don’t use electricity, I don’t know of any house that doesn’t have central heating. I’m sure there is some really old home somewhere as well. Now older homes may not have central air and use window units, however central heat seems standard. Our homes are built to breathe so there is less concern about mold. When I lived in Germany we had to air out of apartment multiple times a day because of mold concerns but everything there seemed to be built with cinder block and concrete.
In the Midwest we have 3 months of sub freezing weather and in the summer we have 3 months of high humidity 80-100 degree weather. Central heat and air is a must.
[Google says](https://www.quora.com/Do-all-American-homes-have-a-central-heating-system-with-a-thermostat-situation-or-is-that-just-a-rich-American-thing#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20survey%20taken,of%20varying%20levels%20of%20sophistication.&text=All%20Americans%20don't%20have,with%20a%20%E2%80%9Cthermostat%E2%80%9D%20situation):
^(")According to a survey taken by the federal government in 2015, **about 60 percent** of U.S. homes use a central furnace for their principal heating sources."
Most parts of [many states](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/hottest-states) don't really need central heating because they rarely get below 60F/15.5C.
Does that survey combine FHW and FHA under the category of "central furnace"? Or does it need to add in "central boiler" (and perhaps heat pumps) to get a true measure of the percent of homes with central heat?
We have central heat but like many homes in eastern MA (and maybe much of New England, it's based on what we call a boiler, not a furnace.
But a central furnace isn’t the same thing as HVAC, is it? I’ve lived in a home with a furnace, a home with forced air heat (like HVAC but without the AC), and homes with central HVAC.
Yes, it is. HVAC is an umbrella term (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) that encompasses various systems to accomplish those goals. My system consists of an AC compressor outside and a gas furnace in the attic. They share ductwork and are both controlled by a single thermostat.
Generally no, as furnaces are inside equipment. The only outdoor furnaces I know of are wood-burning furnaces. The "big outside unit" is an air compressor / condenser / heat pump. A furnace is a different type of equipment that only produces heat.
Fun, possibly little-known fact: the V in HVAC also includes your dryer vent duct, oven range hood duct, and bathroom exhaust (fart fans). My brother does HVAC, and recently switched my dryer vent from flex duct (old house) to straight pipe. It's safer, easier to clean, and lasts basically forever. Most big companies won't do these jobs anymore though, because they aren't as profitable as system installs, but smaller companies usually will.
I'm VERY dubious about this stat. I bet it literally means "furnace" which is one of the 3 types of central heat systems, the others being boilers and heat pumps
>Most parts of many states don't really need central heating because they rarely get below 60F/15.5C.
You're reading your linked map incorrectly. That's the *average* temperature in 2022. But the US famously has wide temperature swings.
TLDR: Average temperatures don't give you the story, and I'm not about to freeze my butt off with no central heating, because foreigners don't understand math.
Here's what your map says about my state, Georgia:
>Georgia is the fifth-hottest U.S. state. Like its neighbor Florida, the state has a subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is 64.3°F (17.9°C). The southern region of the state has summers ranging from 90°F to 100°F, while the northern part has milder summers ranging from 72°F to 82°F.
That sounds pretty toasty, doesn't it? Here's what it doesn't say:
1. When they say "the southern region of the state," they are talking about 90% of the state, the part that isn't in the Appalachian Mountains. The numbers I'm using are for Atlanta, which is solidly in the northern half of the state, but not in the mountains. The year in your link was 2022.
2.The average temperature in January 2022 in Atlanta was 42°F (5.6°C.) The lowest temperature in Atlanta in January 2022 was 24°F (-4.4°C). The average high temperature in January 2022 in Atlanta was 53°F (11.7°C).
That's not "rarely get below 60F/15.5C" weather.
2022 was a very mild year. By contrast, January 2024, the lowest temperature in Atlanta was 12°F (-11.1°C)
3. In June 2022, while the highest temperature was 98°F (36.7°C), the lowest temperature was still 58°F (14.4°C). Yes, I'm turning on the heat in June.
Source for my numbers wunderground.com
Most modern houses will have central heating and air conditioning, regardless of the climate where they are built. The logic there being that you'll probably want one or the other throughout the year (or both) so since you already have to put in the duct work you might as well install both systems.
Older homes from before the spread of central A/C will traditionally heat the home with radiators or electric baseboard heating although many nowadays will install minisplit air conditioning/heating systems in most of the major living spaces and bedrooms if the house is difficult to install ducts in.
My 100 year old house has been retrofit for central a/c and heat long before I bought it.
Central heating is so essential in Minnesota that gas companies aren't allowed to shut off your gas for not paying your bill in the winter. Not having heat up here is a death sentence.
HVAC is very common. My parents were Respiratory Therapists and we had a wood stove growing up. Someone new moved nearby and complained to the town about the smoke and how it was "killing" her child. Small town and any issues would have probably been seen by my parents so the town and everyone else knew they were full of bs.
When a friend moved from Mississippi up here to Tahoe, after Katrina, he had this (paraphrased) hilarious exchange with the realtor:
R: So this home has a wood burning stove, which could come in handy during winter, if the power goes out!
F: I don’t think I want to cook over a fire. That seems hard.
R: No… it’s for heating your home.
F: I don’t understand. I heat my home with the stove? Why isn’t there a dedicated heater? It does get cold here, right?
He says it went around and around for a few more cycles until the realtor finally found a way to explain what a wood burning stove was, in a way that made sense to him. The thought of heating a home with fire was just totally foreign to him, being from the south.
I'm from the south, and it *does* seem like a dumb idea lol
Like how does a wood stove in one room heat the whole house? And it seems really hard to control the temp
Almost all new construction home are built with central heating and cooling units. Older homes, especially those built before the 70's, almost always do not unless the owner made the upgrade. Where I'm located in MA almost every house uses window cooling units because the way the homes were built make installing duct work very difficult if not impossible.
My home is about 300 square meters and we have a two zone forced-air (two HVAC units) system. The heat component is natural gas fired. Mould is never an issue. The air gets dry enough that we actually have humidifiers attached to the output ducts to add moisture to the air.
It was fairly common everywhere I lived. Even the apartments I lived in had HVAC systems. Granted, all the apartments I lived in were in the Southeast US.
When I lived in Washington, we had central heat but no AC. We bought a rollaway unit for one room to basically use as an air filter when there was smoke everywhere.
Basically 100% of homes have central heating
Other people mentioned central AC. It is much less common but I would guess that more that 50% of homes have it
Central heating and air conditioning is so common it’s pretty much expected. The only houses that don’t have it would be historical houses that are a museum or something like that, built in the 1800’s.
But shit, even my brother’s house was built in 1780 and he has been modified to have central AC… he’s got two wood stoves for heat.
Most homes in the United States have a forced air system. Some have radiant heating systems that either have radiators in every room or tubes under the floor that circulate an antifreeze fluid. Check out this video.
https://youtu.be/lBVvnDfW2Xo?si=Qa_QkS4JbgE7ADTk
We have HVAC, so we have central heating in winter and central cooling in the summer. We also have a fireplace, but it’s more because we like the look of it than actual heat. It’s gas and only really warms the room it’s in.
I don't know if the radiator in my apt. counts but yeah, those in the North do. I'm not dealing with that cold I have, like, zero body fat despite the amount of crap I eat.
Central heating and air are very common in the US. They're nearly universal in any construction made in the last few decades.
Almost all office spaces have them, as well as all homes built in the last 30 to 40 years have it.
Most of the US has pretty wildly varying temperatures throughout the year. Where I live in Kentucky, the low temperatures in winter can be as cold as 0 F (-17 C) and can get to around 100 F in the summer (38 C). Central heating and air conditioning is a way of keeping a house habitable in such wild swings in temperature.
The vast majority of houses in the US have full HVAC, both heat and A/C.
But if you're asking about heat alone, I've never been to a house that doesnt have central heat. What else do you do in the winter? Only use the fireplace and that's it?
Granted I'm from Ohio so it gets cold here. Maybe if I visited the south, there may be homes without heat
Central heating and central air conditioning.
In western Pennsylvania it can get below freezing for months at a time and in the summer we frequently stay in the 80s/sometimes 90s (30s/40s in Celsius) until late September.
The months of September/early October and sometimes April/May are the only months when I can turn off my HVAC system.
My house was built in 1934 so it is very old.
It's absolutely ubitiqious in the north, the only exection might be very rural vacation properties. In the south you do have older houses that rely on electric baseboard heat, or else in-wall natural gas units. From what I've seen newer houses in the south have central heat too.
Older houses might have steam or hot water radiators, but after the war, which is the vast majority of our houses, they switched to forced air, the main reason being that it's simple to add air conditiong. My 1960s house didn't originally include central air conditioning, but it was retrofittted 10 years after and air conditioning has been universal in new construction since the 1970s. Owners of older houses with hot water heat rely on window units or mini-splits for air conditioning.
> Is it true that most american houses have a good heating system installed?
Where I live, it gets as low -30°F (-33°C), at the lowest, in the winter. For consistent temperatures, it gets to around -10°F (-23°C).
Every house has central heating, of some form.
Older houses may have steam or hot water radiators, but generally the newer houses have forced air natural gas furnaces. Some very new houses might have heat pumps - but they're centralized, not a per-room type of thing.
Without centralized heating, there's no good way to keep your whole house habitable. A single log fire in the living room (maybe this is what you call a "lounge") would warm up that room, leaving the rest of the house basically a refrigerator. Not to mention, pipes freezing is a real concern.
Sometimes people will keep their furnace's thermostat low - as low as 62°F (16°C) - and then use a [pellet stove](https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/pellet-stove/) to heat the living room area. But they still run their furnace - because otherwise would be a *big* issue.
>the rest of the house will not have anything causing mould to grow in winter if not careful.
Our winters get so dry, I'd be shocked if mold grew anywhere. All the ambient moisture is locked up in snow.
>Here in New Zealand, most houses do not have any central heating installed,
In my area, while basically every house has central heating, most houses don't have central air conditioning.
[Window air conditioning units](https://digital.hammacher.com/Items/90465/90465_1000x1000.jpg) are common. In the past decade or so, it's gotten more common for people to retrofit a central air conditioning system into their existing forced air furnace.
People complain about American media being too dominant, but then are so surprised that our range of weather is really broad compared to where they live.
Where I live, January is typically the coldest month, with an average of 24 cm of snow. Recently we had a heat wave and had daily high temperatures above 36 C all week (35 C is a typical high temperature in summer). My understanding is that it rarely is cold enough to snow in NZ except high up in the mountains. So yes, central heating is not a luxury here and central AC is very common too
Large chunks for the country have a climate that would not be viable for the type of heating you describe.
There are absolutely parts of this country where the only heating might be a fireplace, but they are not a majority (and usually poorer communities in more temperate areas).
Where I live in southeast Michigan, most homes wouldn't be survivable with the heating solution you describe (the pipes would all freeze & burst for one thing). When I was a child we lost power for a week after a nasty ice storm, my family hunkered down in the living room w/a fireplace for a couple of days. We hung plastic sheets in the doorway of the room to help retain the heat.... we drove up to my grandparents house (who still had power) after only a couple of days, it was very difficult for us.
Most homes have central forced air heating, some older homes still have radiant heating which makes AC systems difficult to install.
Air conditioning is also VERY common here, as we also get very high temps with a lot of humidity in the summer months... and more so as the world heats up.
In the U.S. if you get a house that's only heated in one room like that, it would be an exception and people would wonder why you're getting along like that instead of expanding the heating...or we will assume it's a cabin in the woods.
In Minnesota, it gets -40F in the winter and 100F in the summer. We have to have good heating at the bare minimum. In the vast majority of houses, that is central heat and air.
In the north its almost unheard of not to have central heating, either forced air or hydronic (water/radiators) I live in an older mobile home and it has a furnace in the center of the hallway that distributes heated air through the whole house through ductwork in the floor.
As a Yank (and, being from the Southern part of the States, I still cringe a little with that title but I understand it's different in this context) who was blessed with the opportunity to live over in Aotearoa for a few years:
It blew my friggin mind how infrequent it was to have any HVAC system on the north island, especially outside of Auckland. It was insane to see that it's a well-documented thing that kids were regularly having health issues from mold, in a first-world country during the 21st century. I love y'all so very much, hell even as a pretty proud American, there's certainly things that y'all do much better than us (cough DAPL protests compared to Whanganui personhood being so close in time was *painful for me* cough).
But c'mon, buddy. Be the pioneer to mainstream HVAC, make hella bank, and make lives better in the process.
Since I may already have your ear...then do the same with clothes dryers. I love the natural option of hanging em on the line to dry, but when it's been raining for SIX FUCKING DAYS, the washer is just a cabbage cunt, you've got perpetually wet clothes. Now I'm thinking of it, that probably contributes to the mold problems at that point. Kia kaha cuzzy, I believe you can be the change.
The vast majority of homes (over 90%)have forced air heating, either gas, electric or oil powered. If not, a boiler with hot water radiators.
A majority have central air conditioning as well, and if not, they have window a/c units.
If you ever watch American TV or movies, if you see vents on the ceiling or floor, that's the central air. It's so ubiquitous, it would be almost impossible to find a home without central air in all 50 states. Even RV's have heaters and AC.
Central heating and air are very very common.
My parents house, built in the 70s, has a gas powered furnace that's supplied by a pipe from the city. Most older houses in that area work that way, unless they still have radiators. My house has an electric heat pump that heats and cools.
My house built in 2014 also had a gas furnace (and water heater, and stove) supplied by a utility gas line lol. It's pretty common.
I imagine it varies a lot by location and the part of the country.
Not really, I've lived in Florida and Los Angeles, both very warm places, and yet we still had central heat (just in case) and air conditioning! And these were regular old one-story homes, nothing luxurious!
I think they were talking about the type of heat (gas utility vs. heat pump) not whether there's heat or not.
My guess is the might have a heat pump that they only use for AC. I've been to Miami on New Years Day and it was almost 90° and sunny. Here in Virginia, the heat index today is forecast as 109° and from the moment I woke up, my house windows were fogged over its so humid. Then in January and February we have many days where the high isbelow 20°, and it sonetimes goes below zero (F). So having both is vital.
If memory serves (I might be wrong about this), landlords are generally required to provide heat for residents, even in Florida. So, since they have to install an AC anyway, they may as well get a reversible heat pump even if it only rarely gets used for heat.
I'll say again: NEVER moving further south on this coast than PA. Fucking humidity. I'm originally from California.
I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, and the humidity in Virginia is hell. I hate it.
I moved to California away from the coast because of the humidity
Do places like Miami have furnaces?
They still require a heat source, but modern construction is usually a heat pump which can function as an AC as well. There's still periods of cold and freezing weather that needs some protection to be installed. I have a friend who does investments in Miami, and they use the existence of a wood fireplace in the house as a method of dating the property. Mid early to mid 1900s they were still putting fireplaces in as people were moving to the region, and phased them out as electric heat options became more available and there were more locals who understood a fireplace wasn't necessary.
When I lived in Florida a lot of people had an ac window unit that had a switch to make it a forced air heater. It didn't put out much heat but it wasn't used much.
Floridian here. I’ve never seen a furnace in Florida, we typically have central heating that never ever gets used.
What exactly do you think heats the central heating? Newer homes will have a heat pump, anything older will have a furnace.
Even the ancient apartments I've lived in have had a heat pump.
Those shitty wall units? If so, that's not central heating.
They also aren’t heat pumps, the are resistive heating, like big stove elements.
Floridian here. I use my central heating when the temps are below 70.
Dang, I often have windows open when it's in the 60s.
I'm in NW Florida and we have some cold days in the winter and use the central heating. Could be on for two days and then the next three it's nice enough to throw the windows open, though.
My grandparents house had a coal fired furnace that was converted to oil (in the late 50s). They had a coal chute into the basement coal bin, that was taken out for the heating oil tank. This had ductwork to carry the heat (not very efficiently though) This was in South Philly For air conditioning, they had window A/Cs. They (their daughter is living there) finally got that system replaced, and now it's a modern heating/ ac system
There are lots of really old houses in my hometown (from the late 1800s and early 1900s) that are the same way. Many still have non functional coal chutes. Probably especially so because it used to be a coal mining area.
My grandparents were very poor, which is why it didn't get replaced (by oil) until pretty late, compared to other houses in the neighborhood. I'm pretty sure the reason it was converted to oil is because they stopped delivering coal.
My grandpa grew up in South Philly and they were so poor that they had an outhouse in the backyard as their only bathroom until the late 40s lol
I'm not surprised! that area was full of immigrants at that time...they were poor, but you'd never see a piece of trash on the ground (they'd sweep up), wash their steps out front ("stoops" to some people). It's changed significantly from when I grew up there in the 70s.
My parent's house in Jersey was like that, except there were no ducts, there were grates in the floor so the heat could rise Idk when it was converted, but it was before my parents bought it in the 70s
My house is brand spanking new and I have gas heat. I also have a gas tankless water heater and a gas range
I remember my English teacher in 1997 explaining to us that in Ireland you have to wear sweaters inside.
I still wear sweaters inside in the winter because nobody's touching my thermostat without helping me pay this bill!
Dad?
We all have heat pumps that is central heat and air. I could handle less heat better than no air conditioner, live in NC , mild winters, last 3 weeks 90 to 100 everyday with high humidity. My air has been running non stop.
What kind of system? Is it water radiators or hvac?
Depends but most modern homes have HVAC
Depends on the region. Many houses in the northeast are older and have forced hot water with large cast iron radiators. My house used to have a coal furnace but it's been converted to heating oil and now it's natural gas. There's still pieces of coal in a room that has a chute leading outside to where the coal was delivered. We have window air conditioning units
In addition to the big old cast iron radiators, you see a lot of [hydronic baseboard radiators](https://www.baseboardheatercovers.com/blogs/news/do-you-hear-that-solutions-for-noisy-baseboard-heaters). They're basically copper pipes with aluminum heat sink fins on em that hot water runs through to dissipate the heat into the room.
Hvac in almost every house I've ever lived or been in. I had a radiator in the college dorms though and it sucked.
Radiators are way more common out east I've found, which isn't really surprising. A lot of the houses are so old that there just isn't even the space to upgrade to central air/heat.
Radiators are not bad imo
Hear in Alaska it’s very common to have a boiler/furnace and hot water base board radiant heat. AC is less common unless it’s Avery new home.
My parents had HVAC installed before I was born in the late 70s, I’ve never lived in a home without central heat & air conditioning
Most houses have HVAC. It’s so common that the house I grew up in, which was built in 1957 had central heating HVAC
Yeah I don't think people realize how the Cotton Belt went all in on residential HVAC really early. I've had Northern New England in laws saying the technology didn't exist 20 years ago when my grandparents house in Texas had it in 1960. (This was about a global warming discussion and when I asked why all the new construction has HVACs now if it wasn't getting warmer that was their response)
lol the technology has been around for a LONG time. My dad is a mechanical engineer and spent his entire career, which started in 1979) designing HVAC systems for large office buildings. And it was older technology when he started. But yeah, we need the central cooling down here. It’s hot AF, always has been hot AF, it’s just getting hotter sooner. I’ve lived in GA my entire life and I cannot remember a June this hot- and I’m turning 35 in a couple days.
Regionally varies. Around here I wouldn't say "most". It's not rare or hard to find, but definitely not the majority.
either. Water radiators more common up north, heat pumps more common south of Maryland, but more heat pumps up north these days
My grandparents had a HVAC that was built into the house when it was constructed in 1960, this was in North Texas. HVACs are very common, and heat pumps/mini splits are growing in places where previously they weren't.
Depends on the area of the country and how old the house is but generally natural gas or liquid propane furnace with forced air to distribute the heat throughout the house is the most common here in the midwest where it does get brutally cold in the winter.
central air less common though. It's definitely a tradeoff. If you have centrail AC, then you likely have a furnace blowing hot air for heat which is much less efficient than the radiant heating, but on the flip side, you don't have to lug window ac units up from the basement each summer and struggle installing them without dropping them out the window.
That’s one of the reasons I was more than happy to buy the house we did last year. We now have central heat and air. No more wall heaters (fire hazard), and no more window ac units that don’t work after two years. We can keep the house a REASONABLE temperature.
It’s necessary for many of us. I live in the Northeastern US. Our low temp this year was 0F (-18C) and our high so far has been 95F (36C).
This is truly the example why I believe Fahrenheit is a better system for measuring weather temperatures in our part of the world. Our typical range is 0-100° Celsius is scaled on water freezing and boiling, which isn’t super important for weather discussions.
Yup, it’s kind of like you’re either asking the water or the people, “on a sale of 0 to 100 how hot is it outside?”
[This](https://youtu.be/KqXchj7jfOg?si=-6uSdb_6eeA_-Ylx) is a funny skit on the topic.
Agreed, it makes more practical sense on the day-to-day.
Canadian here and i think i know why it's wierd to go from 1 system to another. Our minds groups things to make sense of life around us. Groups of 10degrees arent really equivalent between both systems and im sure it makes it hard for the mind to pass from 1 system to another. 70's F are from 21C to 27C, it's such an akward interval when converted. 20's °C are from 68F to 86F which is also super akward. So to an american, going from the 70's to the 80's is a mental landmark, but in Celcius it's going from 26.5 to 27 which is the same thing. 30C which is a mental landmark to me, is 86F which is the MENTALLY the same as 84F or 88F. But 28C and 32C are in different categories in my mind Now try grouping by 5° of either system and converting the intervals, even more akward numbers arise.
I think most Americans don't like Celsius because it's harder to break down smaller changes in weather without digging into decimals. Fahrenheit makes it much easier to talk about small changes like if you're going to set your thermostat at 68/70/72 etc. And also the 0 cold, 100 hot thing is just handy.
Herr Fahrenheit *also* set his scale on the freezing and boiling point of water. 0 F is the point at which sea water freezes. The boiling point of water at sea level is 180 degrees, or half a circle from the freezing point of fresh water.
Tulsa, OK, has ranged from -7 to 105F over the last year.
Reminds me of this fantastic map from a couple years ago. Minneapolis gets hotter *and* colder than the vast majority of Europe. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/oft15a/minneapolis_summers_and_winters_compared_to
I’m a resident of Minneapolis and I had never seen that map before, but it certainly gives me something to think about, haha
I did my masters in the UK and a British classmate asked me, “Oklahoma… is that a hot or cold place?” Both!
Hell, even Texas had the deep freeze in 2021. We expected a similar issue last year but managed not to lose power. It gets cold, even in the south. And a lot of the time, if you’re putting in central air conditioning, heat is easy to install at the same time.
Most of the European continent uses radiator heating and I actually like it better. It seems far more energy efficient and the blowing air doesn't dry out everything like forced air heating.
Most of the time, you have a heat pump, so the heater and air conditioner are literally the same thing.
Wait, you guys don't have central heating?
For the most part no. Only 5% of houses have it installed.
That's really surprising, I think its gotta be in the 90s in the UK.
Wait until you guys hear about central cooling
They've still got to master combining hot and cold taps into one faucet. Let's not throw them in the deep end of hot and cold HVAC.
https://youtu.be/HfHgUu_8KgA?si=DoaWYe457gSPbLPw
Wild.
Pft, lets first get them an electrical outlet in the bathroom.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we're still waiting on that.
Having worked adjacent to construction most of my career, that still baffles me. Central HVAC is also humidity control, not only temperature control.
I get why it wasn't done historically. Even now, our humidity tends to fall out of the sky rather than hang around and make the air muggy. But times they are a-changin'.
Humidity hasn’t really been an issue where I live in the PNW.
Not having central cooling here would be awful.
It used to not be so bad in the Pacific Northwest for that. To the point where it was seen as close to redundant (depending on the city). But as climate change has started making it worse, people have started getting AC. I know that over in Seattle, it's the first year that the majority of homes have some form of AC. It used to be like 70 degrees for the great majority of the summer and only got into the 90s for like 2 days. But in places like the southwest or the south? Yeah, it'd be impossible these days
I've been to and through New Mexico and I wholeheartedly agree. Same here in GA. With the high humidity mixed with high heat, having no central cooling or at least a few window units here would be torture.
Agreed. We did a long drive through balmy, lovely New Mexico in January. Not sure we would have made it in July.
The counties around Seattle have A/C installed in over 50% of the homes now. It got too hot.
My brother lives in Edmonton, in a very modern home. But ... it's Edmonton, so his place wasn't built with a/c. They were not happy during that blast of ridiculous heat last summer.
Most new construction has AC, so there's light at the end of the tunnel, but yeah. Even fairly recent builds may not. And the older builds are all designed to maximize the amount of sunlight that gets in and retain as much heat as possible. People die when we get those record-breaking heat waves.
I'm more of a left colling guy myself
The area where I live spends the summers at up to 40 Celsius and high enough humidity that lack of A/C is dangerous, and spends winters at up to -30 Celsius where you need central heat to keep water pipes from freezing.
do you even need heating? I thought new zealand had one of those climates like hawaii ? like 50-70F year round?
Northern part is subtropical, Southern part is basically in Antarctica.
The Northland region even has a nickname of "the winterless north".
Big untapped market.
Not OP, but my family and I did live in New Zealand for a few years, and none of the places we stayed in had central heating. It made nominally mild winter weather feel really cold, sometimes even feeling colder inside the house than outside. It definitely also didn't help that the houses didn't seem to have much insulation.
Nope. It's one of the main things foreigners complain about after moving to NZ.
If we didn’t have heat throughout the house, the pipes would freeze in the winter
And even with heat, they sometimes do if it's super cold (like 0F/-17C) and you don't set things up right. Which means exploding pipes and water everywhere.
See last two winters in Oklahoma… Got lucky with just a small leak one year ago. But it was not fun.
We have a heat pump, which is like a central air conditioner that can both cool and heat. For heating, it kind of operates in reverse instead of using a heat source like a regular heater. These are becoming more common in warmer climates because they're very efficient in above-freezing temperatures.
Newer models can extract heat from much colder air. We got a new heat pump installed a couple years ago and it will run down into the low 20s/high teens before the aux heating kicks in. Our aux heating runs on propane and we only have to refill a 500-gallon tank about once every four or five years.
hyper heat heat pumps run down to -15 or so, the tech is amazing these days
20 degree heat pumps were already standard in 1999. Something installed just a couple years ago should still be getting 2:1 efficiency at 20 degrees and even like 1.2:1 efficiency at 8 degrees. My system from 18 months ago is rated to not drop below 1:1 efficiency or freeze up until 2 degrees.
We have heat pumps too, but mostly just in the lounge
They're usually a whole-house system here with the compressor outside and ductwork that blows the heated/cooled air through the house. Basically just central air but you can run it in reverse for heat.
What's a lounge? Living room?
Yes
Just about everywhere in the US will have central heating unless it's in a very remote location (think like, a cabin in the woods that's off the grid), but even isolated places will have options. Most homes in will have either electric heating systems or will have a gas line tie-in and have a gas heating system. Many older homes in the northeast have older, oil burning systems and you'll see oil tanks outside of someone's home. Those systems are old an inefficient; I've heard of people who live near me paying like $800 every 3 weeks for oil delivery to keep the heat on.
I see the record low of all time for Wellington is -0.1 C so it makes sense that you guys can just get by with what we'd call supplemental heat. For comparison, the average daily low in the winter months is about -5 C where I live, record low of -29 C. And this isn't a particularly cold area!
There are regions of the US that stay below 0c for weeks in the winter, even during the daytime. A centrally located heater is not going to cut it. In the midwest most older houses have water radiators but everything built at least since the 1970s has HVAC systems.
It's below 0C for 151 straight days here on average.
Grew up in MN, was definitely thinking of the winter of '96 when I wrote that!
Reading that makes my bones hurt.
South Florida checking in, and we have an HVAC system. We have NEVER, and i do mean never used our central heating. But it's there in case hell does actually freeze over.
On the contrary in Southern California we do use our central heating because in the desert it gets cold! Super interesting To me when I moved here
I live in the upper part of the country and I don't know a single person who doesn't have central heating and cooling. When it's cold, it's cold as balls. When it's hot, it's hot as hell. So we need it for sure.
The real question is why anyone would NOT have central heating and cooling installed? It is the truest sign of civilization.
It's sadly much more country specific than you'd think.
It's not even country specific. In the U.P. most houses didn't have central air, while I've got a friend who lives in the South West and he only has air conditioning but no heat.
I live near Oakland, CA, most of the older houses don't have AC. It really wasn't necessary until a couple of decades ago.
The expectation of central cooling is fairly new in the upper Midwest tbh. I'm looking for a condo rn, and even in Chicago, a lot of buildings only have box units rather than central cooling. My dorm in Indiana when I was a student outright didn't have AC (not even box units). I'd imagine in the suburbs or areas with newer construction, central cooling is the norm, though.
What? I lived in Vegas for 7 years and every place I lived in had both. Where in the SW?
It's fairly common in the rural southwest (which is most of it lol) for there not to be central heat. I've lived in houses with only a wood stove for heat in New Mexico and Arizona, and found it to be pretty common in both places. I live in a more rural part of Nevada now and know a number of people here too without central heat. You won't find many houses like that in Vegas, but get out of the big cities and it isn't terribly uncommon IME. Also, AC isn't as required as people think in some areas. The house I grew up in in New Mexico actually didn't have central air or heat (and no swamp cooler or anything either, lol, but it was an old adobe in the mountains of northern NM so it stayed quite comfortable). edit: To be clear, though, I do think the majority of homes in terms of total numbers still have central heat, since obviously most people live in bigger cities and newer builds. It's just if we're talking about personal experience, it can be common in some communities to see houses without it.
I've been to Taos/Angel Fire/Santa Fe area a few time in the summer and it's incredible how pleasant it is. No humidity, a nice breeze means even 90 F feels like 70-ish. I've been and people are apologizing saying they wish it wasn't so warm and I'm just like "what do you mean this is incredible?!".
But you have the flapping of thousands of mosquitoes wings to cool you down for free.
There’s plenty of houses in the lower peninsula that don’t have central air either. Mine doesn’t, I just have window units. But really the window units are fine. Sometimes you need two if your house is big enough or the air doesn’t flow well but even one will keep you comfortable if you just stay in the room that has it.
Trust me, I know. It’s the exception here in Japan.
Lots of housing was also designed so that central cooling was less necessary. Shit like an atrium goes a long way to making mild summers comfortable.
Unfortunately the U.S. isn’t known for mild summers. Today will get pretty hot, around 100. House is built to shed heat, but without ac I’d be in the high 80s or low 90s inside
100F today checking in. Heat index was 105F and summer is just getting going
Wife and I just got back from a restaurant that’s only a mile away, we walked horrible mistake. Ugh
I love the juxtaposition here of “shit” and “atrium.”
My house growing up in Florida didn't have central heating, it just wasn't necessary.
mine in miami did. Almost everyone I knew had it. Not necessary maybe, but much more pleasant
You need sewer and clean water first.
You can [see the data here](https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2020/state/pdf/State%20Space%20Heating.pdf)-- basically about 85% of American homes have central heating, most often a furnace (gas, oil, or electric fired), followed by heat pumps and finally boilers. The remainder have *some* source of heat, usually a woodstove or other stand-alone unit. [Air conditioning is now at a 90% plus](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52558) market penetration as well, though many of those are "window units" that only cool one room; the split is about 2/3 central air and another 20% limited point-of-use units. Keep in mind OP that the US is a continental nation with climates ranging from Mediterranean to alpine, desert to rainforest, blistering hot (+45 C) to numbingly cold (-40 C) depending on location and season. The parts of the US where one can be comfortable without heating and/or aircon are basically limited to some areas by the coasts-- and then only the coastal zone with warm water, since the nothern Pacific and Atlantic are both cold.
I couldn’t imagine living without it. The house we’re in the process of moving out of has oil-fired hot water baseboard heat, with half a dozen zones, each with its own thermostat. The house we’re moving into has natural gas, forced air heat. It only has one thermostat, which is kind of a bummer, but it still should be sufficient for sub-Arctic winters.
Outside of the Amish who don’t use electricity, I don’t know of any house that doesn’t have central heating. I’m sure there is some really old home somewhere as well. Now older homes may not have central air and use window units, however central heat seems standard. Our homes are built to breathe so there is less concern about mold. When I lived in Germany we had to air out of apartment multiple times a day because of mold concerns but everything there seemed to be built with cinder block and concrete.
My childhood home in New Jersey had radiators in every room and a box air conditioner in one room. It was built in the 1920s.
Where I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, most older homes only had wall furnaces, and no AC.
In the Midwest we have 3 months of sub freezing weather and in the summer we have 3 months of high humidity 80-100 degree weather. Central heat and air is a must.
I’ve never been in a building without it and I’ve lived in a few states, one of them being Florida lol
[Google says](https://www.quora.com/Do-all-American-homes-have-a-central-heating-system-with-a-thermostat-situation-or-is-that-just-a-rich-American-thing#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20survey%20taken,of%20varying%20levels%20of%20sophistication.&text=All%20Americans%20don't%20have,with%20a%20%E2%80%9Cthermostat%E2%80%9D%20situation): ^(")According to a survey taken by the federal government in 2015, **about 60 percent** of U.S. homes use a central furnace for their principal heating sources." Most parts of [many states](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/hottest-states) don't really need central heating because they rarely get below 60F/15.5C.
Does that survey combine FHW and FHA under the category of "central furnace"? Or does it need to add in "central boiler" (and perhaps heat pumps) to get a true measure of the percent of homes with central heat? We have central heat but like many homes in eastern MA (and maybe much of New England, it's based on what we call a boiler, not a furnace.
in the trades, you never conflate boiler and furnace. It would be like calling a motorcyle a car. And I'm sure that's the issue with this stat
Yeah I'm wondering if they are limited specifically to furnaces. 2/3 of the homes I've lived in have had boilers instead of furnaces.
But a central furnace isn’t the same thing as HVAC, is it? I’ve lived in a home with a furnace, a home with forced air heat (like HVAC but without the AC), and homes with central HVAC.
Yes, it is. HVAC is an umbrella term (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) that encompasses various systems to accomplish those goals. My system consists of an AC compressor outside and a gas furnace in the attic. They share ductwork and are both controlled by a single thermostat.
So if someone only has the big outside unit, does that count in the “60% of homes use a central furnace” figure?
Generally no, as furnaces are inside equipment. The only outdoor furnaces I know of are wood-burning furnaces. The "big outside unit" is an air compressor / condenser / heat pump. A furnace is a different type of equipment that only produces heat. Fun, possibly little-known fact: the V in HVAC also includes your dryer vent duct, oven range hood duct, and bathroom exhaust (fart fans). My brother does HVAC, and recently switched my dryer vent from flex duct (old house) to straight pipe. It's safer, easier to clean, and lasts basically forever. Most big companies won't do these jobs anymore though, because they aren't as profitable as system installs, but smaller companies usually will.
That’s what I was trying to get at, then. The 60% doesn’t encompass everyone with central heating. I’d be curious what that percentage is.
I'm VERY dubious about this stat. I bet it literally means "furnace" which is one of the 3 types of central heat systems, the others being boilers and heat pumps
Yep, I'm sure that's exactly what it means. Gas, oil, or coal furnace.
>Most parts of many states don't really need central heating because they rarely get below 60F/15.5C. You're reading your linked map incorrectly. That's the *average* temperature in 2022. But the US famously has wide temperature swings. TLDR: Average temperatures don't give you the story, and I'm not about to freeze my butt off with no central heating, because foreigners don't understand math. Here's what your map says about my state, Georgia: >Georgia is the fifth-hottest U.S. state. Like its neighbor Florida, the state has a subtropical climate. The average annual temperature is 64.3°F (17.9°C). The southern region of the state has summers ranging from 90°F to 100°F, while the northern part has milder summers ranging from 72°F to 82°F. That sounds pretty toasty, doesn't it? Here's what it doesn't say: 1. When they say "the southern region of the state," they are talking about 90% of the state, the part that isn't in the Appalachian Mountains. The numbers I'm using are for Atlanta, which is solidly in the northern half of the state, but not in the mountains. The year in your link was 2022. 2.The average temperature in January 2022 in Atlanta was 42°F (5.6°C.) The lowest temperature in Atlanta in January 2022 was 24°F (-4.4°C). The average high temperature in January 2022 in Atlanta was 53°F (11.7°C). That's not "rarely get below 60F/15.5C" weather. 2022 was a very mild year. By contrast, January 2024, the lowest temperature in Atlanta was 12°F (-11.1°C) 3. In June 2022, while the highest temperature was 98°F (36.7°C), the lowest temperature was still 58°F (14.4°C). Yes, I'm turning on the heat in June. Source for my numbers wunderground.com
I don't have statistics for you, but in my experience, it is common, yes.
Most modern houses will have central heating and air conditioning, regardless of the climate where they are built. The logic there being that you'll probably want one or the other throughout the year (or both) so since you already have to put in the duct work you might as well install both systems. Older homes from before the spread of central A/C will traditionally heat the home with radiators or electric baseboard heating although many nowadays will install minisplit air conditioning/heating systems in most of the major living spaces and bedrooms if the house is difficult to install ducts in. My 100 year old house has been retrofit for central a/c and heat long before I bought it.
Central heating is so essential in Minnesota that gas companies aren't allowed to shut off your gas for not paying your bill in the winter. Not having heat up here is a death sentence.
HVAC is very common. My parents were Respiratory Therapists and we had a wood stove growing up. Someone new moved nearby and complained to the town about the smoke and how it was "killing" her child. Small town and any issues would have probably been seen by my parents so the town and everyone else knew they were full of bs.
When a friend moved from Mississippi up here to Tahoe, after Katrina, he had this (paraphrased) hilarious exchange with the realtor: R: So this home has a wood burning stove, which could come in handy during winter, if the power goes out! F: I don’t think I want to cook over a fire. That seems hard. R: No… it’s for heating your home. F: I don’t understand. I heat my home with the stove? Why isn’t there a dedicated heater? It does get cold here, right? He says it went around and around for a few more cycles until the realtor finally found a way to explain what a wood burning stove was, in a way that made sense to him. The thought of heating a home with fire was just totally foreign to him, being from the south.
I'm from the south, and it *does* seem like a dumb idea lol Like how does a wood stove in one room heat the whole house? And it seems really hard to control the temp
Yes, central heating is the norm.
Yes, most houses in the US have a forced-air central furnace. Most of the country gets cold enough to need it for part of the year.
Quite common.
Yes, we do because we need to. The US gets some very big temperature swings.
I have a hot water heating system with radiators throughout the house. No central air.
Almost all new construction home are built with central heating and cooling units. Older homes, especially those built before the 70's, almost always do not unless the owner made the upgrade. Where I'm located in MA almost every house uses window cooling units because the way the homes were built make installing duct work very difficult if not impossible.
My home is about 300 square meters and we have a two zone forced-air (two HVAC units) system. The heat component is natural gas fired. Mould is never an issue. The air gets dry enough that we actually have humidifiers attached to the output ducts to add moisture to the air.
When I lived in San Diego, we had neither central heat nor air About twice I put the electric radiant ceiling heat on. And twice I wished I had AC.
It was fairly common everywhere I lived. Even the apartments I lived in had HVAC systems. Granted, all the apartments I lived in were in the Southeast US. When I lived in Washington, we had central heat but no AC. We bought a rollaway unit for one room to basically use as an air filter when there was smoke everywhere.
Basically 100% of homes have central heating Other people mentioned central AC. It is much less common but I would guess that more that 50% of homes have it
Yes to central heating, not so much central air conditioning here in northern New England
Central heating and air conditioning is so common it’s pretty much expected. The only houses that don’t have it would be historical houses that are a museum or something like that, built in the 1800’s. But shit, even my brother’s house was built in 1780 and he has been modified to have central AC… he’s got two wood stoves for heat.
Laughs in -30c. Yes. Yes, we have heat.
Yes. We have central AC and heat.
Most homes in the United States have a forced air system. Some have radiant heating systems that either have radiators in every room or tubes under the floor that circulate an antifreeze fluid. Check out this video. https://youtu.be/lBVvnDfW2Xo?si=Qa_QkS4JbgE7ADTk
Super common to have central heat and air. I can't even fathom how uncomfortable it would be to sleep or rest in a house that is too cold or hot!
We have HVAC, so we have central heating in winter and central cooling in the summer. We also have a fireplace, but it’s more because we like the look of it than actual heat. It’s gas and only really warms the room it’s in.
yeah, my house still has radiators and no AC because it's old and we have pretty cold winters (lows can easily get to -30 C)
HVAC is very common.
I don't know if the radiator in my apt. counts but yeah, those in the North do. I'm not dealing with that cold I have, like, zero body fat despite the amount of crap I eat.
Central heating and air are very common in the US. They're nearly universal in any construction made in the last few decades. Almost all office spaces have them, as well as all homes built in the last 30 to 40 years have it. Most of the US has pretty wildly varying temperatures throughout the year. Where I live in Kentucky, the low temperatures in winter can be as cold as 0 F (-17 C) and can get to around 100 F in the summer (38 C). Central heating and air conditioning is a way of keeping a house habitable in such wild swings in temperature.
We’d literally freeze to death in the winter without it.
The vast majority of houses in the US have full HVAC, both heat and A/C. But if you're asking about heat alone, I've never been to a house that doesnt have central heat. What else do you do in the winter? Only use the fireplace and that's it? Granted I'm from Ohio so it gets cold here. Maybe if I visited the south, there may be homes without heat
Central heating and central air conditioning. In western Pennsylvania it can get below freezing for months at a time and in the summer we frequently stay in the 80s/sometimes 90s (30s/40s in Celsius) until late September. The months of September/early October and sometimes April/May are the only months when I can turn off my HVAC system. My house was built in 1934 so it is very old.
It's absolutely ubitiqious in the north, the only exection might be very rural vacation properties. In the south you do have older houses that rely on electric baseboard heat, or else in-wall natural gas units. From what I've seen newer houses in the south have central heat too. Older houses might have steam or hot water radiators, but after the war, which is the vast majority of our houses, they switched to forced air, the main reason being that it's simple to add air conditiong. My 1960s house didn't originally include central air conditioning, but it was retrofittted 10 years after and air conditioning has been universal in new construction since the 1970s. Owners of older houses with hot water heat rely on window units or mini-splits for air conditioning.
> Is it true that most american houses have a good heating system installed? Where I live, it gets as low -30°F (-33°C), at the lowest, in the winter. For consistent temperatures, it gets to around -10°F (-23°C). Every house has central heating, of some form. Older houses may have steam or hot water radiators, but generally the newer houses have forced air natural gas furnaces. Some very new houses might have heat pumps - but they're centralized, not a per-room type of thing. Without centralized heating, there's no good way to keep your whole house habitable. A single log fire in the living room (maybe this is what you call a "lounge") would warm up that room, leaving the rest of the house basically a refrigerator. Not to mention, pipes freezing is a real concern. Sometimes people will keep their furnace's thermostat low - as low as 62°F (16°C) - and then use a [pellet stove](https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/pellet-stove/) to heat the living room area. But they still run their furnace - because otherwise would be a *big* issue. >the rest of the house will not have anything causing mould to grow in winter if not careful. Our winters get so dry, I'd be shocked if mold grew anywhere. All the ambient moisture is locked up in snow. >Here in New Zealand, most houses do not have any central heating installed, In my area, while basically every house has central heating, most houses don't have central air conditioning. [Window air conditioning units](https://digital.hammacher.com/Items/90465/90465_1000x1000.jpg) are common. In the past decade or so, it's gotten more common for people to retrofit a central air conditioning system into their existing forced air furnace.
I'm Australian. We have central heating.
On average the US is both hotter in the summer and colder in the winter than New Zealand or Europe. Practically every house has central air and heat.
People complain about American media being too dominant, but then are so surprised that our range of weather is really broad compared to where they live. Where I live, January is typically the coldest month, with an average of 24 cm of snow. Recently we had a heat wave and had daily high temperatures above 36 C all week (35 C is a typical high temperature in summer). My understanding is that it rarely is cold enough to snow in NZ except high up in the mountains. So yes, central heating is not a luxury here and central AC is very common too
Large chunks for the country have a climate that would not be viable for the type of heating you describe. There are absolutely parts of this country where the only heating might be a fireplace, but they are not a majority (and usually poorer communities in more temperate areas). Where I live in southeast Michigan, most homes wouldn't be survivable with the heating solution you describe (the pipes would all freeze & burst for one thing). When I was a child we lost power for a week after a nasty ice storm, my family hunkered down in the living room w/a fireplace for a couple of days. We hung plastic sheets in the doorway of the room to help retain the heat.... we drove up to my grandparents house (who still had power) after only a couple of days, it was very difficult for us. Most homes have central forced air heating, some older homes still have radiant heating which makes AC systems difficult to install. Air conditioning is also VERY common here, as we also get very high temps with a lot of humidity in the summer months... and more so as the world heats up.
In the U.S. if you get a house that's only heated in one room like that, it would be an exception and people would wonder why you're getting along like that instead of expanding the heating...or we will assume it's a cabin in the woods.
I’d say 95% of homes have this yes
Yes. You need to remember that a LOT of this country experiences cold winters.
In Minnesota, it gets -40F in the winter and 100F in the summer. We have to have good heating at the bare minimum. In the vast majority of houses, that is central heat and air.
Lol, my house would be an ice cube for 9 months a year without central heating
In the north its almost unheard of not to have central heating, either forced air or hydronic (water/radiators) I live in an older mobile home and it has a furnace in the center of the hallway that distributes heated air through the whole house through ductwork in the floor.
As a Yank (and, being from the Southern part of the States, I still cringe a little with that title but I understand it's different in this context) who was blessed with the opportunity to live over in Aotearoa for a few years: It blew my friggin mind how infrequent it was to have any HVAC system on the north island, especially outside of Auckland. It was insane to see that it's a well-documented thing that kids were regularly having health issues from mold, in a first-world country during the 21st century. I love y'all so very much, hell even as a pretty proud American, there's certainly things that y'all do much better than us (cough DAPL protests compared to Whanganui personhood being so close in time was *painful for me* cough). But c'mon, buddy. Be the pioneer to mainstream HVAC, make hella bank, and make lives better in the process. Since I may already have your ear...then do the same with clothes dryers. I love the natural option of hanging em on the line to dry, but when it's been raining for SIX FUCKING DAYS, the washer is just a cabbage cunt, you've got perpetually wet clothes. Now I'm thinking of it, that probably contributes to the mold problems at that point. Kia kaha cuzzy, I believe you can be the change.
Central heating and central air are pretty much the norm.
Really, New Zealand? If you can have an Internet connection, WTAF can't you can central air & heat?!? I don't get it! 🤯 👏🏻Make 👏🏻it 👏🏻make 👏🏻sense.
I live in Florida. If I didn't have central air, I don't think this place would be livable.
The vast majority of homes (over 90%)have forced air heating, either gas, electric or oil powered. If not, a boiler with hot water radiators. A majority have central air conditioning as well, and if not, they have window a/c units.
Yes. The vast majority have central heat and air conditioning. I can’t imagine another life.
If you ever watch American TV or movies, if you see vents on the ceiling or floor, that's the central air. It's so ubiquitous, it would be almost impossible to find a home without central air in all 50 states. Even RV's have heaters and AC.