If the recent warm weather you considering getting air conditioning installed in your home, you’re not alone.
In fact, it’s been a growing trend in the Northwoods in recent years.
President of Dahlquist Heating and Cooling Wally Dahlquist says his company has been installing a lot more air conditioners in recent years.
“In the last 20 years, it’s really ticked up a lot. When I started this industry in the early 80s very few people had air conditioning, even new homes very few people actually put it in, but today hardly anything goes in without an air conditioner,” said Dahlquist.
WXPR looked at temperatures in Rhinelander over the years to see if any changes there might be causing more people to install AC.
The mean for the number of days in a year where the temperature is at least 80 degrees is 46 in Rhinelander according to National Weather Service data.
In 2018, there were 77 days where the max temperature was 80 degrees or higher.
That’s the greatest number of days in a single year going back 100 years that National Weather Service has data for.
But after that, it’s fairly spread out between the 1930s to 1990s in terms of years with the greatest number of hot days.
Another factor could be the number of days per year where the temperature never dropped below 60. Those nights when it’s too hot to sleep without at least a fan on.
Again, there were a few years in the last two decades that had the most days of warmer minimum temperatures.
While recent years haven’t necessarily seen a higher number of warmer nights, we are seeing those warmer nights more often starting in May and lasting in September or even October.
Whether that’s been enough to convince people they want air conditioning in their house is hard to say.
Dahlquist thinks people have just had enough.
“People are not, I guess the word, willing to suffer the inconveniences we used to take for granted years ago. That’s how I would look at it,” he said.
If you want to install air conditioning, Dahlquist recommends going to a qualified contractor and making sure you get it serviced annually.
