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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

#41

Post by morsch »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #12

I mean it's mostly about energy efficiency, a well insulated house is as easy to cool in summer as it is to heat in winter. Most heat pumps can also cool and new construction in most European countries like Germany is equipped with floor heating and central ventilation which in summer allows you to run around 18 degree Celsius hot water through the system to cool it, that yields around 20-40 Watt of cooling power per…

Spot on. You're doing heatpump based cooling without floor heating? I didn't realise that was an option.

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

#43

Post by fhackenberger »

danek_szy wrote: post #26
boxed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Sweden. You are incorrect. Having your home basically unlivable a few weeks every year is not ok, and ground heat exchange pumps that provide cooling are energetically basically free, so just do it.

What technology are these heat pumps using that make them "energetically basically free"?

Run on solar (sun usually shines when it's hot) and use geothermic energy. The ground below your house is significantly cooler than the surrounding air.

I'd still favour the fan, I've lived in India for longer periods with consistently around 32-36 C and a fan is perfectly enough after a little while of adapting.

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

#44

Post by michelsedgh »

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,…

How are u gonna punish china? do u have any logic? chatgpt 3.5 makes more sense than these types of comments...

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

#45

Post by the_real_cher »

deanc wrote: post #4

We have those stupid regulations in Finland about how the outside of our apartments buildings should look - meaning you cannot put the condenser visibly on the outside of the building. I've heard stories of residents being scalded for putting flowers on their balcony railings that face outwards as it ruins the "look". Given almost all apartment buildings are built consistently between every floor they could ensure co…

I could see this being a good policy for unsightly detrius or debris but they've taken it way too far.

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

#46

Post by imp0cat »

post-it wrote: post #35
Ekaros wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In a typical mini-split, the water flows to the outside unit and exits the system there, so you either have a pump or a sufficiently sloped pipe from the inside unit to the outside unit.

edit: I guess you could route the drain pipe anywhere if you wanted, so I retract my previous statement.

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

#47

Post by titzer »

deanc wrote: post #4

We have those stupid regulations in Finland about how the outside of our apartments buildings should look - meaning you cannot put the condenser visibly on the outside of the building. I've heard stories of residents being scalded for putting flowers on their balcony railings that face outwards as it ruins the "look". Given almost all apartment buildings are built consistently between every floor they could ensure co…

Is it really so hard to put a small fence around it to hide the ugly?

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

#48

Post by Arodex »

TrackerFF wrote: post #36

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 insta…

>Here in Norway AC is not the standard in hotel rooms.

Since when should there be AC in friggin' Norway?

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

#49

Post by danek_szy »

probably_wrong wrote: post #22

I'm not convinced by the author's point that ACs do not impose a burden on the electrical grid. They write that ACs have gotten more efficient, which may be true, but that's the same Windows developers have been saying over years and yet boot times and hardware requirements have gone way up. One million efficient units still require more energy than no units. And while I definitely believe that European hospitals and…

> I also have reservations about why an American libertarian think tank writes about what Europeans should do, but that's probably on me.

My thoughts exactly, except in my mind it's pretty clear that it's about influencing the climate change discourse... The less people are bothered by the rising temperatures, the more they will acquiesce to environmentally unfriendly policy.

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

#50

Post by elil17 »

boxed wrote: post #16
elil17 wrote: post #9

Cooling technologies are a necessity and air conditioning is one of many possible options. Europe north of France is substantially cooler than much of the US, even on the hottest days. Many homes could get by on ceiling fans, but they are very uncommon here.

I live in Sweden. You are incorrect. Having your home basically unlivable a few weeks every year is not ok, and ground heat exchange pumps that provide cooling are energetically basically free, so just do it.

I think you underestimate how powerful ceiling fans can be. The highest temperature in Sweden this year was only 36, you would be absolutely fine with a ceiling fan unless you wanted to exercise.

That said, if you are able to get a ground source heat pump, that's awesome, but it's something like 10x to 20x the price of even a really good ceiling fan.

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