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Household Cooling Equipment Statistics: Access, Systems, and Regional Differences

A source-based look at household cooling equipment across Italy, Canada, England, and the United States, including access, system types, and reported cooling problems.

November 12, 2026 6 min read discountelectrics.com Editorial Team

Contents

Household cooling equipment statistics: prevalence and change in Italy

In 2024, 56.0% of households resident in Italy had at least one space-cooling system in their main dwelling. That share was 48.8% in 2021 and 29.4% in 2013. The figures show a substantial long-term increase in reported equipment presence, with more than half of resident households equipped by 2024. They describe whether a system was present, not how often it ran or how much energy it used. (Istat, Household Energy Equipment)

The overall prevalence includes different kinds of equipment. Some households have systems serving multiple rooms, while others rely on single air-conditioning units or combined heating and cooling equipment. These categories can overlap, so their percentages should not be added to estimate a total.

Regional patterns in Italian household cooling

The national average masks wide regional differences. In 2024, space cooling was present in 71.2% of households in Italy’s Islands and 64.1% in the North-east. The share was 48.0% in the North-west, below the national figure. At the regional level, Sicily recorded 73.1% and Veneto 71.1%; Emilia-Romagna stood at 67.6%, Sardinia at 66.4%, and Puglia at 63.6%.

At the lower end, 30.7% of households in Molise had space cooling, compared with 20.0% in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. Valle d’Aosta/Vallée d’Aoste had the lowest regional share reported, at 11.8%. These differences are descriptive; the figures alone do not explain why equipment prevalence varies across places. (Istat, Household Energy Equipment)

Household cooling equipment statistics: system types and heat pumps

Equipment type is another important part of the picture. In 2024, 24.4% of Italian households had a central or individual space-cooling system serving multiple rooms, while 35.4% had single air-conditioning units. The share with single units was 40.9% in 2021, so it declined over that period as the overall share with any space cooling rose.

Combined space-heating and cooling systems, described in the Istat report as heat pumps, were present in 40.4% of Italian households in 2024, up from 32.6% in 2021. Their prevalence was 58.5% in the Islands and 46.9% in the North-east. In the North-west, it rose from 24.2% in 2021 to 34.0% in 2024. A separate 16.1% of households had a central or individual reverse-cycle system, while 25.9% used a single reverse-cycle air-conditioning unit. These figures distinguish equipment configurations and should not be treated as mutually exclusive household groups. (Istat, Household Energy Equipment)

Among Italian households that had space-cooling equipment, 39.6% primarily or solely relied on a central or individual system. That percentage uses equipped households as its denominator, rather than all Italian households, and therefore answers a different question from the prevalence figures above. (Istat, Household Energy Equipment)

Household cooling equipment statistics: Canadian access and differences

In Statistics Canada’s 2025 survey, 68% of Canadian households reported using air conditioning or similar cooling equipment, such as heat pumps. The release described this as a slight increase from 64% in 2021, measured by a previous survey. The 2025 collection ran from February 14 to April 6; its household estimates represent responses from people aged 15 or older in the non-institutionalized population living off-reserve in the ten provinces. The measure includes similar cooling equipment and is not identical to a measure of air-conditioner ownership alone. (Statistics Canada, “A heated discussion: Who uses air conditioning in Canada in 2025?”)

Reported air-conditioner prevalence varied by province, dwelling age, tenure, and income. Ontario had the highest provincial figure, at 83%, while British Columbia had the lowest, at 45%. Among homes originally built in 2001 or later, 80% had an air conditioner; the figure was 58% for homes built before 1960.

Tenure and income differences were also evident. Air-conditioner access was reported by 76% of homeowners and 52% of renters. Among households with pretax income above $150,000, 82% reported an air conditioner, compared with 55% among those below $50,000. These survey comparisons show different reported access across household groups; they do not, by themselves, establish what caused the differences. (Statistics Canada, “A heated discussion: Who uses air conditioning in Canada in 2025?”)

Cooling equipment use in English homes

An earlier English survey offers a different view: what cooling equipment households said they had and how often they used fans in a typical summer. In the Energy Follow Up Survey interviews conducted from December 2010 to April 2011, 43.3% of households reported portable fans, 8.8% reported other fixed fans, and 2.0% reported portable air-conditioning units. These were survey responses from all households in the interview sample, not current prevalence estimates. (Department of Energy and Climate Change, Energy Follow Up Survey 2011: Domestic appliances, cooking and cooling equipment)

Among households with portable fans, 17.2% said they used them every day during a typical summer (June to August); 4.8% used them five or six days a week, and 34.1% used them one to four days a week. Another 39.4% used them less than once a week. Among households with fixed fans, 20.6% reported daily use and 31.7% use one to four days a week. The fixed-fan estimate for use five or six days a week was 6.8%, marked by the report as subject to large sampling error because of a very small sample. Usage percentages apply only to households with the relevant fan type, not to all households. (Department of Energy and Climate Change, Energy Follow Up Survey 2011: Domestic appliances, cooking and cooling equipment)

U.S. household cooling equipment statistics: access and reliability

Air-conditioning use was already widespread in the United States in the 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey: 88% of U.S. households used air conditioning. A separate 2023 American Housing Survey-based Census Bureau report counted 9.2 million occupied housing units, or 6.9%, without any form of air conditioning. These are different measures from different survey years, so they should be read as separate snapshots rather than a direct trend comparison. (U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Nearly 90% of U.S. households used air conditioning in 2020”; U.S. Census Bureau, “13.2 Million Households Were ‘Uncomfortably Hot’ for 24 Hours or More in 2023”)

Equipment access did not guarantee comfortable indoor conditions. In the 2023 survey, 11.6 million respondents in occupied units with some form of air conditioning—9.4% of that group—reported being uncomfortably hot. Among units without air conditioning, 1.6 million households, or 17.1%, reported uncomfortable heat lasting at least 24 hours. The report also found that 32.7% of respondents said their home did not stay cool very well or at all without a cooling device. These are distinct survey measures and denominators, not one combined estimate. (U.S. Census Bureau, “13.2 Million Households Were ‘Uncomfortably Hot’ for 24 Hours or More in 2023”)

Among air-conditioned occupied units where respondents reported uncomfortable heat, 4.9 million, or 42.1%, cited a breakdown of the main cooling equipment. Nearly 3 million households reported one main-equipment breakdown lasting six hours or more, and 1.8 million reported multiple extended breakdowns. Other reported reasons included inadequate cooling capacity, cited by 2.6 million households, and utility interruptions or power outages, cited by 1.3 million. Together, the findings show that access, equipment performance, and continued operation are separate dimensions of household cooling. (U.S. Census Bureau, “13.2 Million Households Were ‘Uncomfortably Hot’ for 24 Hours or More in 2023”)

Sources

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