Aircon Abuse in Singapore

Places like Florida or South-East Asia are hot and humid. Without aircon or at least a fan you start sweating immediately. However my European friends often complain about how cold the air conditioning is. In a country where the outside temperature averages 30C any place indoors (office, taxi, mall) will blast cold air at 20C... is that really necessary?

I think air conditioning creates bad habits. It's not because you have a device that allows you to set the temperature that you should use it all the time. Cooling down to 20C sounds as over the top as heating up your house to 26C during a European winter.

The old-school way to cool down when it's too hot is to move air around. Before drying up air or making it colder just making it move helps. Everyone likes a nice summer breeze. And a fan can be less noisy than an aircon unit.

But if you really want to use your aircon, make it blow dry air. This way you take advantage of your natural body temperature regulation: as long as dry air moves around sweat evaporates from your skin and cools it down in the process.

I set my aircon unit to dehumidifier mode (see the small droplet icon in the photo below). This way it doesn't affect the temperature.

Even though temperature in my flat goes up to 27C it is still pleasant because humidity is relatively low (below 70%).

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