On Thu, 4 Mar 2021 11:38:32 -0500, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...
I imagine they found out swamp coolers don't work in the swamp and DC
is in a swamp. RH in the summer is typically 80 or more. They don't
call that area near the river "foggy bottom" for nothing. They have
done quite a bit to drain it, mostly to build on the land but that was
not true at the turn of the last century.

Given it was the WH, I was expecting it to say they used blocks of ice.
Agree on the swamp cooler, I can't imagine it would work in DC.





Sounds like it works about as well as most things have in DC.

I live in the middle of NC and many years ago the city high school which
is a large brick 3 story building tried the ice type of AC. They blew
air over ice and sent it to many of the rooms. Did not work very well
then either from the stories of the older students. Whatever, it was
not in use in 1964 when I started there. Just large open windows when it
got too hot and steam radiators in each room for the cold weather.
Back then maybe the richer 10% of the students had AC in their house so
most of the students were used to the warm weather. My parents first
car with AC was bought in 1966 and the first car I had with AC was 1974.

We didn't have AC in my high school, a block from the White House and
it was brutal in the summer. Steam radiator heat in the winter.