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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

#131

Post by iso1631 »

danek_szy wrote: post #80
ane wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't sound like "basically free" to me... It still uses electricity, which doesn't help with climate change (even if it mostly comes from renewables).

Install 8kWp of solar panel on your roof (£5k), add a battery (£3k) and AC (£3k)

Charge the battery from the solar and it powers the AC in the evening.

You'll generate more than enough during the day to run AC and fill the battery to run it overnight.

Still using grid sources in winter, but you aren't using the AC. Although you might find air-air AC in heat mode is better than your gas boiler.

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

#132

Post by petu »

elil17 wrote: post #73
roelschroeven wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of years ago that would have been correct, but circumstances have changed. We've had a series of heat waves this summer, and temperatures have gotten very high inside. Much depends on the location of course, and the type of building, and stuff like that, but the fact is that in Belgium alone thousands of people have died because of the heat. Thousands of people that would still be with us if they would have…

How is the inside of your home getting to 40 in Belgium? Our hottest recorded air temperature was 36 this year. There were many excess deaths, but there was also a shortage of fans here. Good fans could have also saved their lives.

Air temp is measured in the shade, sun hitting windows/interior floors would take you past that.

IR blocking film/tint on outside works great if you can't get windows shaded.

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

#133

Post by danielvaughn »

ricardobayes wrote: post #34

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.

To be fair, the article doesn't say that AC is banned - it mostly focuses on the HOA-style local ordinances and permits that discourage people from using AC.

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

#134

Post by xattt »

margor wrote: post #112
fnordsensei wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I hear you, I think AC is better centralized for the building, along with heat and water. Yes, there are numerous reasons why this is harder to do than just doing it ad-hoc per apartment, but if we’re to see it as infrastructure, it should receive the same level of consideration as other utilities.

For most of the buildings from communism era - all the utilities run through the apartments anyway and there is absolutely no place or way to retrofit these utilities without extensively either re-doing it from scratch, or trying to somehow retrofit it on the outside. All of these options are a non-starter considering basic AC starts from $500. Why should anyone invest more than that?

Many communist-era buildings had a service shaft the width of the back wall of the toilet closet (yes, bathroom and toilet are separate rooms). This was hidden from everyday view with large cabinet doors.

A national-scale project can likely package cooling for these shafts, possibly emanating from rooftop units.

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

#135

Post by kleiba2 »

ricardobayes wrote: post #34

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.

> But I have to say, AC is not "banned" anywhere in Europe

Exactly, the whole premise of the article is a bit of a strawman. In fact, where I live, the demand for AC installation is so high that you have to wait months for a company to install a unit for you.

These extreme heat waves are a fairly new phenomenon, summers in central Europe just didn't use to get so hot for such a long stretch of time even a few decades ago. Now that they've become the way they are, people are doing what? Correct, installing AC units. Imagine that.

But let's not forget that energy is also on average a lot more expensive in Europe than in the US. The cost plus environmental concerns, which seem to fair less high in the public conscience on the other side of the Atlantic, have also been reasons why people were not keen on AC units in the past.

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

#136

Post by matt-p »

ricardobayes wrote: post #34

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.

It’s not banned, but getting permission to install the outside unit is essentially “hard” in some parts of Europe.

In England, if you own a house, you generally have permitted development rights to install one, subject to some fairly common-sense rules. If you live in a flat, though, it’s a very different story: you will need planning permission *as well as* freeholder consent, and the process generally involves engineering/structural/architect drawings and freehold-consent paperwork. The freeholder can also charge you their legal and administration costs, even if they ultimately reject the application. Essentially it's >5K of paperwork which might be wasted if it's rejected even just to install a single 5KW split.

So in the hottest parts of London and other major cities, where a large proportion of people live in flats, installing AC can be very difficult in practice. In the cooler commuter towns, where houses are much more common, it’s considerably easier.

Why can't they build it into new flat blocks/houses? Nothing outright prevents it but everyone does their best to discourage it. The London Plan, for example, uses a “cooling hierarchy” which 'seeks to reduce any potential overheating and also the need to cool a building through active cooling measures' so good luck getting planning for it.

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

#137

Post by kwarcode »

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?

Flowers bad, planks good?

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

#138

Post by piskov »

rdedev wrote: post #106
ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #72

You might be surprised how far you can get with a simple fan. What your body needs is to evaporate heat. You sweat, it evaporates, skin cools down. Airflow helps that process a whole bunch. It's physics. It may not make hot weather feel perfect but it will cover the necessity pretty much anywhere. Same goes for tree shade and sensible city planning, also architecture (see all those textured dark grey or black condos…

The problem is when humidity rises it makes it harder forbthe body to expel hear via evaporation. This is what is happening in places like UK this time around. An AC helps get rid of the humidity as it cools the air. I don't know about necessity now but 20 years down the line, who knows

Cooling the air by definition raises the humidity :-)

Dehumidifier mode in AC works by cooling the air below the dew point, removing the condensation, then warming the air up (either by itself or literally heating it up)

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

#139

Post by jjgreen »

dguest wrote: post #71
ricardobayes wrote: post #34

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.

Brought to you by an American libertarian think tank [1], no less. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute

Today seems to be international AC shilling day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49463831

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

#140

Post by Moldoteck »

ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #72

You might be surprised how far you can get with a simple fan. What your body needs is to evaporate heat. You sweat, it evaporates, skin cools down. Airflow helps that process a whole bunch. It's physics. It may not make hot weather feel perfect but it will cover the necessity pretty much anywhere. Same goes for tree shade and sensible city planning, also architecture (see all those textured dark grey or black condos…

During heatwaves the fan is no longer sufficient. It can improve ac cold air spreading though. A fan alone will not help you when your walls are warm and when even at night outside temp is above 20dg and humidity is high
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