Maine gives air conditioning cold shoulder

PORTLAND – Even as New England swelters in midsummer heat, Mainers remain cool to air conditioning.

Michael Caliendo, division director of the Northeast for Whirlpool, says his company sells far fewer air conditioners in Maine than in other states in the region.

Some suggest that Maine’s climatological conditions avert the need for an appliance that people in other parts of the country deem essential. Others say it’s simply a case of Yankee stoicism.

On unbearably hot summer nights, Susan and David Rooker of South Portland haul their dog and two young children onto their bed, as four high-speed fans positioned around them create a vortex of warm, fast-moving air.

“We do whatever it takes to get through the night,” Susan Rooker said.

Everything, that is, except buy an air conditioner.

Air conditioners remove people from nature, Rooker said. Her family would rather suffer in the heat, she said, so they can keep their windows open and rejoice when a cool sea breeze finally arrives.

“For us, it’s living in a way that reflects why we’re here in Maine in the first place,” she said.

Many Mainers who pride themselves on being able to suffer through extreme weather view ownership of a home air conditioner as a character flaw.

They are a waste of money, bad for the environment, and “use energy that could be better put to use elsewhere,” said Kate McDonald of Standish, who once lived in an apartment with a built-in air conditioner but refused to turn it on.

Many of Maine’s public buildings – including half of the state-owned buildings – do not have air conditioning. Although central air systems now are standard in new homes in many other states, Maine home builders generally avoid them.

Weather patterns in the state play a role in this apparent aversion to comfort.

For those living within a few miles of the coast, the Atlantic Ocean serves as an adequate air conditioner most days, says climatologist Augie Sardinha of the National Weather Service. The Cape Cod peninsula shunts the warm waters of the Gulf Stream eastward, trapping cold water in the Gulf of Maine.