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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

#61

Post by danek_szy »

flyingjoe wrote: post #25
huntertwo wrote: post #2

Oh no you’re gonna trigger the Germans.

For sure. I'm from Germany (but with an AC) as well and am always amazed when people tell me that AC makes you sick. Even young people sometimes replicate this "Oh you gotta be careful not to get sick" and would rather be in 30+°C indoors. How come Germans get sick while the rest of the world seems to be doing fine and is even productive during summer (it feels like Germany grinds to a halt during heatwaves).

AC dries the air out and your respiratory system basically depends on moisture to catch air particles and pathogens in your respiratory tract.

Nothing unique about Germans in this case, sorry. ;)

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

#63

Post by ane »

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"?

They have very good thermal coeffiency: ground source heat pumps will typically generate 3-6kWh of thermal energy from 1kWh of electricity. By reversing the flow you can also use ground source heat pumps for cooling as well.

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

#64

Post by slfnflctd »

I've been thinking for a while about whether it would be feasible to produce an affordable 'personal cooling chamber' for lower income people in places getting scorched in the summer that don't have A/C.

Basically an automotive air conditioning unit hooked up to a battery and solar panel, with a tanning bed type form factor (up to maybe capsule hotel size), painted or coated to reflect light & heat. Highly portable.

I'm not sure if it's remotely practical, but it would be interesting to run the numbers, and I'm certain there is at least someone out there who would buy it even if the cost turned out to be higher than I envision.

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

#65

Post by Arodex »

bewareofscams wrote: post #27
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.

>Many homes could get by on ceiling fans Tell me you're German without telling me you're German

Ceiling fans are extremely efficient, and they also improve enormously the efficiency of AC - by reducing by several degrees the amount of cooling to reach a comfortable level.

Ceiling fans should be installed before any AC.

If you are not convinced, there is a one-hour video by Technology Connections on YouTube that will argue the point more in-depth that anything I could write here.

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

#66

Post by deanc »

titzer wrote: post #47
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?

Of course not, there are numerous ways to make things look nicer.

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

#68

Post by Arodex »

conradludgate wrote: post #40

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…

Or use the calories extracted from the air to heat your water heater.

Technology Connections has a new video exactly about it.

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

#69

Post by Ekaros »

imp0cat wrote: post #39
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.

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 w…

Both are options. Still both also carry risks or don't solve entire issue. With buckets you don't want to them overflow on floors for example.

And with spraying it on ac you want complete evaporation or you are back to same problem.

As said it is not too hard problem but still something that most likely requires consideration.

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

#70

Post by spwa4 »

nextaccountic wrote: post #17
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #3

> Several countries require AC installation to be approved by the equivalent of a homeowners association or impose noise ordinances that increase compliance costs and paperwork. This is not unique to ACs. Anything on the outside of a building requires your co-owners to agree.

> co-owners HOAs don't make neighbors co-owners of your own property, do they? Anyway HOA is something that shouldn't even exist. Or at least not with power to prevent people from having air conditioning in their home.

HOAs are companies, with the owners as shareholders, who own the shared infrastructure of the owners. Things like hallways, maybe elevators, gardens, this can even include the roads in a community.

The point of HOAs is to force homeowners to CO-decide (in houses: to make things cheaper for local councils) on what happens to the shared infrastructure. What and how to spend of maintenance and what to change.

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