It's the first product his Southwest Center City industrial-design firm, Likuma Labs, is seeking to bring directly to consumers, by way of a Kickstarter campaign launching Tuesday.The Noria air conditioner, priced at $295 for early supporters, will ship in time for summer 2017 - if the company can raise $250,000 in 45 days to make that cool fantasy a reality.Swanson, 32, said he'd been thinking about tackling a project in thermodynamics since launching Likuma four years ago."I thought, 'How can I leverage what I know about heat transfer into a better product?' The air-conditioning unit was the obvious choice. "This is a big industry, and people buy these things and universally hate them."Over the last year, he and the Likuma team - including industrial designer Devin Sidell, 30, and electrical engineer Don Pancoe, 48 - began focusing on the problem in earnest. Swanson's father, Will, 61, a 25-year Boeing employee with expertise in ergonomics, took a yearlong sabbatical to help out.Swanson said rethinking the air conditioner was a project that required engineers and designers to work closely together in a way they might not at established appliance manufacturers.

Likuma is well-equipped for that kind of collaboration - the entire staff shares a single small office inside NextFab, the fabrication and maker space on Washington Avenue.Their innovation was in rethinking how the air conditioner components fit together, reconfiguring the fans and heat-exchanging coils."We want to pack as much cooling power in as small a space as we can," Will Swanson said.life of window air conditionerThe result is 40 percent smaller than a comparable standard air conditioner, he said, and 25 percent lighter. air conditioning units that heat and coolIt comes with a handle, and it slides into a frame that's positioned in the window first for easier installation.ac unit air filterTucked under desks in their office are prototypes: a working version in unglamorous sheet-metal housing, and an example of what the finished body will look like, made with NextFab's 3D printer, laser cutter, and water-jet cutter.

The design part of the job was in Likuma's wheelhouse. The company has crafted everything from a dog-food dispenser that doubles as a toy for a Manayunk company called Paw 5 to the housing for an iPhone-powered DNA analysis device for Old City's Biomeme. Tacked to the wall of their office are new ideas for an air filter for Camfil, a large New Jersey air-filter manufacturer, and a laparoscopic tool handle for a medical-device company."Anything you buy really should get design consideration," Swanson said.But actually taking a product into production is new for them.That's why they're allowing for a long lead time, to test and debug the air conditioner over the summer and find a manufacturer that can begin production in the fall.Sidell said their priority was making deliveries on time. "That's a big thing with Kickstarter. Some campaigns are able to raise thousands and thousands of dollars, but the real test is: Are they able to deliver? Most of them are late."And a three-month delay that stretches through the summer would be disastrous.

So, Swanson said, he's hoping customers will be willing to plan."Now that it's warming up, people are still dealing with their big, boxy air conditioner," he said. "The pain is still fresh in their mind. We're hoping that will be the impetus for people to say: 'OK, this is the last year I use this stupid thing! I want to upgrade next year.' For Baltimore resident Katie Myers, living in a home without central air conditioning, even in the mid-Atlantic’s notoriously humid summers, is no reason to lose your cool. “It’s really not an issue,” said the 43-year-old private school teacher. “People have lived without central AC for a very long time, so it’s doable,” she said. To that end, Myers has a set routine since she’s lived in her four-bedroom, one-bathroom single-family house for the last several summers. “We keep the shades and windows shut during the day, and open everything after dark when it cools down,” she said. Myers runs floor fans as they use less electricity than air conditioning and doesn’t cook indoors on the hottest days, only outside on the barbecue grill.

She’s also pulled up all her floor coverings in the house. “The hardwood feels cooler than the carpet,” she said. She has a Plan B for her AC: Myers’ still has just one creaky window AC unit, but she uses it only when she has to. “The house has old wiring so even if I run a window unit I can only run one at a time and the house is so big so it doesn’t help much,” she said. Scott Harris, a 43 year-old public school teacher makes do with much the same in his four-bedroom three-bathroom home, built in 1913 in the Montclair neighborhood of Denver. “We have window units for the two hottest rooms, but we open up everything in the early morning so the house cools off, then shut it all down, close the windows and draw the shades then head to work,” he said. Harris said his electric bill in the summer typically isn’t more than $70 a month, compared with the average electric bill in summer in Denver of $106. To be sure, new construction is making homes without AC a rarity. (Modern AC was developed by Willis Carrier who designed the first AC system in 1902 after observing a misty Pittsburgh train platform that humidity could be controlled by passing air through water to create fog.

Carrier went on to found his self-named company that was later bought by United Technologies ) In 1973, 49% of new homes had no air conditioning, while in 2015, just 7% of new houses have no AC , according to the U.S. Census. Multifamily homes built in 2015 without central AC were slightly higher at 10%. While a wall unit is far less expensive, on average about $300, they can be expensive to run, especially 24 hours a day during the summer months. Depending on your area, running a single 900-watt wall AC unit continuously during the summer months can add about $50 a month to your electricity bill, based on the national average of electricity costs of 12.8 cents a kilowatt/hour. So it’s never a bad idea to learn how to cope just in case your central AC goes out and how to keep your electric bill under control in the summer. To that end, sealing your house in the early morning with cool air is actually the best way to keep the temperature low throughout the day, said Jason Kliwinski, chair of the the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) for New Jersey.

As long as the house is properly sealed, insulated and shades and blinds drawn, the cool air will stay in the house the whole day, Kliwinski said. “It’s like the house taking a giant breath of cool air and holding it in,” he said. Even a 100-plus year-old farmhouse, like architect Jason Kliwinski’s home here in Flemington, N.J., can stay cool without central AC. Kliwinski has to practice what he preaches too. He lives in Flemington, N.J., north of Trenton, in a 106-year old farmhouse with one window AC unit and single-pane uninsulated windows. But with the shades drawn and all exterior openings closed or sealed, he said the temperature in his house never goes above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, even if it’s more than 100 degrees outside. “You need to know how to operate your house to get the best effect,” he said. Ironically, said Kliwinski, outside of double-pane insulating windows and blown insulation in the walls and attic, older homes built before central air conditioning are sometimes better than newer homes when it comes to keeping cool.

For example, many turn-of-the century homes had double-hung windows that allowed cool air to enter at the bottom and hot air to escape at the top, he said. Plaster walls that are often cool to the touch are often far better than drywall for keeping rooms cool, he added. “Drywall lets heat right through it while heat transfer through plaster is very slow,” said Kliwinski. Same too for masonry or brick walls compared to wood shingle or vinyl siding, Kliwinski said. “Using brick or other masonry materials can give a building passive solar qualities,” he said. “Thick enough masonry causes a thermal lag and it takes longer for temperature to transfer through masonry than other materials.” The best-designed houses are ones with the largest windows on the north-south orientation, which let in light, but not heat. Ceiling and attic fans too, which use far less electricity than air conditioners, also help move air, regardless of its temperature. “When you’re moving air, you’re creating an air current and removing sweat from your skin,” Kliwinski said.

Other designs that enhance cooling are those that have courtyards or long-narrow shapes that encourage cross-ventilation, as well as those with high ceilings so that the hot air rises above the living spaces, he said. In addition, the orientation of the house is critical for cooling, Kliwinski said. While being able to watch the sun rise and set from your home might be a plus, picking a house that has a north-south orientation, rather than an east-west orientation, will likely mean lower air conditioning bills. “The wrong orientation can add 20% to 25% to your cooling load,” he said. If your house does have an east-west orientation, ultraviolet (UV) tinting on windows that face the sun as well as well-designed landscaping and tree planting will help lower cooling costs. Kliwinski recommends planting lush trees for the southwest side of the houses allow for shade in the summer and sun in the winter while coniferous trees should be planted on the northeast side of the house to assist with insulating the home.

Scott Harris, the Denver school teacher, counts on one such large tree in his front yard, a 40-foot silver maple leaf, to help cut his cooling costs. “I call it our AC,” he said. In addition, here are some tips from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions of Arlington, Va. for cooling your home without AC: Use a radiant barrier: Shaped like the pitch of a tent covered in reflective foil, the insulation blocks the transfer of heat from the roof and attic into your house and vice versa. If your ductwork is in the attic and insulation is minimal, this barrier can reduce cooling costs by 8% to 12% according to the Florida Solar Energy Center. Add soffit vents or a roof ridge: Proper attic ventilation will also reduce the cost of cooling. Many houses have soffit vents located on the side of roofs that allow air to move and ventilate the space, while a roof ridge creates space at the top of your attic allowing natural air to flow in and out. Build a trellis: Horizontal trellises for east and west-facing windows and vertical trellises with climbing foliage can all block summer sun.