I read a shocking article yesterday in the Guardian about the impacts of extreme heat on families in the U.S. More people than ever are dying in their homes, unable to afford utility bills or repair their air conditioning. What’s happening is a perfect storm of economic inflation, rising electric costs, and greater need than ever for mechanical cooling. The result has been more tragic deaths. Adding $270 a year to utility costs might not seem significant to some homeowners, but for the 60 percent of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, it means the air conditioner stays broken.
The article spells it out well: “Amid soaring energy costs, shrinking federal aid, hotter summers and a ZIP Code lottery when it comes to utility disconnection rules, health experts warn that households on fixed incomes and those with medical issues such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and addictions will be most vulnerable.”
I chose this topic because at Green Builder, part of our mission is to make better building science accessible to everyone. New homes, by and large, can absorb the shock of hotter, longer summers. They tend to be better insulated, more efficiently cooled and less leaky than older shelters. But they represent just a small sliver of the overall housing stock. Fewer than 10 percent of U.S. homes have been built in the last 10 years.
Many of the deaths, I should add, occur in mobile homes or RVs, which are not built to the same standards as conventional housing. About 30 percent of them rely solely on window air conditioners. Among heat deaths in Maricopa County, Arizona, last year, most had window units, but the unit was broken in 70 percent of cases.
What this story highlights is the fact that many Americans are facing an existential crisis—at least part of which is manmade. For example, the New York Times reports that AI data centers will likely increase utility costs by an average of eight percent nationwide by 2030 and as much as 25 percent in places like Virginia because of massive power demands. Ironically, lower-skill workers are also the ones most likely to lose their jobs to AI. McKinsey Global estimates that up to 30 percent of tasks in 60 percent of occupations could be automated with current technologies, disproportionately affecting low-skill jobs.
That’s a lot of change and potential suffering to parse over the next few years. But I believe the housing industry has potential to mitigate some of this pain. If you agree that our quality of life begins with safe, comfortable shelter, then our path is clear.