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Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

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Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#31

Post by 2III7 »

Arodex wrote: post #8

First words from the article: >Yet as heat waves kill tens of thousands of Europeans each year ...Each year? Was it the case every year twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago? What has changed, miss Follett? Last words from the article: >But forgoing air conditioning is a refusal to move on from a lethally hot past. Gee, I wonder if this global warming thing wasn't a mistake to let happen... If that author is right,…

> If that author is right, then we can and should punish the people responsible for global warming?

So every adult human and corporation?

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#32

Post by michelsedgh »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #23

A total ban is nonsensical. If you’re concerned about noise regulate the sound level. If you’re concerned about energy use, tax it and put the money raised into a solar subsidy. But the idea you can have a heat pump and can’t have an AC is absurd because a heat pump literally is an AC flipped around.

All these countries are pushing EV's so I don't understand how it could be about energy use lol?

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#34

Post by ricardobayes »

I tend to stay away from topics like this which generalize and basically tell a whole continent they are living their lives "wrongly".

But I have to say, AC is not "banned" anywhere in Europe, apart from certain cantons of Switzerland. In Germany you have a right to AC actually, if your community votes to "veto" the installation a court can overturn that.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#35

Post by post-it »

Ekaros wrote: post #20
margor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me started on how it works in my country. People who don't have a balcony are screwed and are entirely dependent on homeowners association which arbitrarily can agree or not, or they can stay indecisive about it and not let you do anything. Well, if you have a balcony? you just put it there and make the necessary holes for it, problem solved. The effect is exactly the same - you just have AC installed. In o…

It is not entirely that simple. Condensate water is potential problem if wrongly discharged. But adding sufficient drainage is not that expensive per balcony basis. So it is something that should be fixed.

Condensate is discharged from the inside unit, it should never make it to the balcony.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#36

Post by TrackerFF »

Here in Norway AC is not the standard in hotel rooms. For 80% of the year, that's OK - but it can become pretty uncomfortable if you're booking anytime between mid-June and mid-August.

The standard here are heat pumps, at least for residential housing. It is really only a problem if you live in blocks or apartment buildings that are housing associations, with strict rules regarding how such heat pumps should be installed.

With that said, for my travel to Europe - especially down south, AC in the hotel room is an absolute necessity. A couple of years ago we ended up in a completely booked hotel in Italy (mid July), where the AC in our room was busted - it was beyond miserable. Ended up changing hotels after one night.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#39

Post by imp0cat »

Ekaros wrote: post #20
margor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me started on how it works in my country. People who don't have a balcony are screwed and are entirely dependent on homeowners association which arbitrarily can agree or not, or they can stay indecisive about it and not let you do anything. Well, if you have a balcony? you just put it there and make the necessary holes for it, problem solved. The effect is exactly the same - you just have AC installed. In o…

It is not entirely that simple. Condensate water is potential problem if wrongly discharged. But adding sufficient drainage is not that expensive per balcony basis. So it is something that should be fixed.

You can have drain pipes installed, but you can also just collect the water in a bucket and empty it periodically. That requires no extra investment of money, just a tiny bit of your willpower and manpower, depending on the size of the bucket.

There are also systems that spray the water back at the AC unit to cool it down, this is supposed to both improve efficiency and evaporate the water so you don't have to deal with it. I am sure those have some downsides, too.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#40

Post by conradludgate »

In our London apartment leasehold, we have a water-sourced air conditioning unit. No external condenser required, it instead dumps the heat into the waste water. It has been incredibly helpful during this heat wave as someone who really struggles in the heat and works from home.

It's not ideal during a drought though to be using water like that, it would be nice if we had a grey water tank system so we didn't have to waste drinking water. It doesn't seem possible to install a grey water tank like that in our apartment though. Given our apartment already has district heating, there's not a super strong reason why it couldn't have district cooling as well, but the regulations are not in our favour here.

We installed it all without planning permission, although it still might require permission from the freeholder depending on the rules regarding Service Media alterations (as it requires new plumbing for our mains water).

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