I moved into an apartment in January and wasn't giving a/c too much thought;
I should have. I'm in a suburb of KC on the top floor, flat roof, 1
bedroom, probably about 850 sq. feet.

The sliding glass doors get blasted with the afternoon sun living room faces
west. I put up "supposedly insulated" draperies. Things weren't too bad
until about 3 weeks ago when the temps really soared and the sun has been
relentless. The entire side of the apartment has no windows, but faces
south.

The ancient no-name a/c does OK until it hits the mid 90's and if the sun is
shining all day, by about 3pm the temp in the area towards the sliding glass
doors is 83 and 80-81 in the interior. It helps a bit to shut off the vent
to the bedroom (and shut the door) until the evening to try to force a
little more towards the "sunny side" but even at that, if it's a 93-100
degree day, and the sun is shining all day, the a/c runs continuously from
about 10-11am until 7-8pm, then cycles (and cools) very well even on recent
very hot nights. If it's a cloudy day, there is no problem; the a/c cycles
all day, maintaining 75 with no problem and seemingly not a lot of run time.
This is my first summer here and I don't know the climate, but I used to
live in the Washington, DC area and remember some top-floor garden units
having the same problem.

The weather has moderated just a bit, down perhaps 5 degrees, resulting in
78-81 in the living room with the a/c running nonstop until sunset where it
quickly attains 75.

The engineer here says the a/c units are old, undersized, and there's
nothing I can do. He says they are 1 1/2 ton units, probably very, very
old. There is no question that the a/c works under reasonable conditions,
but it seems to really lose it past a certain point. I'm used to living in
apartments since the 70's that had individual heat pumps, and they seemed
more resilient with extreme temps; this unit is still cooling on these hot
days, but either due to the extreme heat load from the sun/top floor/flat
roof/etc. OR the vintage equipment, it has to run a lot to keep it cool. He
says the unit is functioning as well as it can, pressures checked and all
that. I did what I could as a "tenant" - I was amazed to see the electric
furnace/ac coil on top unit tucked into a little closet with a bifold door
with tiny slits that can't possibly pass enough air, and in fact the unit
rumbled and got quieter when I just started leaving the door open a few
inches. I figured that another bad thing about starving it for air is that
it would pull more from the small but still-there spaces around
wiring/duct/refrigerant lines going up through the ceiling... that it would
pull down hot air. The engineer is trying to get me a new bifold door with
real air intake vents on the bottom (furnace built up on a wooden platform,
draws air underneath from the front).

So the bottom line is the engineer says this is the best I can do, my
electric bill will no doubt be tremendous next month. I'm having some
health problems, and my landlord is looking into "waiving a move charge
before my lease is up" to another unit in the complex. Should I expect more
from the a/c or was I spoiled by the shady trees and powerful heat pumps
back east?

Thanks - Bill