there is significant resistance to air conditioning in Europe at many levels (all of which are invalid or solvable):
* "not technically feasible" - people talk about old buildings with oddly shaped windows
* "can't afford it" - as you see here. people talk about the units themselves and the electricity bills
* "our infrastructure can't handle it" - this has to do with things like grids overheating, failing
* "our infrastructure can't handle <the regulations>" - things like nuclear reactors in France not allowed to raise the temperature of rivers by another N degrees during a heat wave
* "it's bad for global warming" - a little late for that, probably should save lives first
literally hospitals in europe don't have AC throughout the entire building yet. global warming is really coming at them fast
I don't know how well it translates to the EU countries, but there seems to be this idea in the UK that air conditioning is a decadent frivolity, and really only for the weak.
And yes it does seem to get singled out as bad for global warming, which is odd as people in the UK most often use gas to heat their houses, where AC is very efficient and can use electricity from whatever source. It also works as very energy-efficient heating in winter.
In the past with harmful refrigerants and lack of renewable energy AC simply was not justifiable in most of Europe. Progress on both fronts plus global warming is changing that only recently.
As far as I know, a heat pump and an AC unit are essentially identical. Although some heat pumps can be reversed, and act as heaters in the winter. But one isn't more efficient than the other, they employ the exact same physical refrigeration cycle.
Oh, I had them filed in by brain under “more efficient temperature control” but it looks like they don’t have an advantage over ACs when cooling. (Just over typical heaters, when heating). Oops.
Does that take into account the efficiency of transforming the gas to electricity first? Ah, well we have other power sources as well. But if you were to use gas, it doesn't seem to make much difference (if the gas power plant doesn't utilize the extra heat for district heating etc.).
Well the Greens in Europe handed Russia leverage thanks to relying on natural gas instead of nuclear, which it opposed (thanks German Greens).
In France these ideologues oppose A/C becauase it's evil: it makes us comfortable when we should be uncomfortable - if we are comfortable in an era of climate change, we'll only make it worse. And it's all America's fault anyway because of their emissions.
When do we vote out ideologues and have logical people in power?
120GW of nameplate solar capacity is nothing to sneeze at even with the latitude challenge. That's more solar than almost all of California's energy generation combined, or most of the eastern United States.
Some of the discussion going online, has asserted that heat related deaths in Europe exceed gun related deaths in the USA by some margin. If true, it has been ignored as a problem for too long.
Yeah, annual heat deaths in Europe (about 70k) exceed annual gun deaths in the US (about 44k) in absolute numbers. They're slightly under US gun deaths if you adjust for population (about 13 per 100k gun deaths in the US, and 12 heat deaths per 100k in Europe).
In comparison, fewer than 2k people die annually of heat in the US, well under 1 per 100k. And for symmetry, there are about 7k gun deaths annually in the EU, which is just slightly under 1 per 100k.
> Most ordinary working people can't afford the cost of installing a system. Even a portable one.
I just watched a video where a person bought a £200 portable unit. He was using it in the UK and said he spent about £0.89 / day. And I'm assuming they won't use it for that many days a year.
Seems affordable enough for "most ordinary working people"
As a side note, it's nearly impossible to buy a dual-hose portable AC in the UK and Europe. For whatever reason, the market has converged on inefficient single-hose portable ACs.
As an oblivious Europian I was breaking my head on how the design with a single hose could be considered good enough.
Other funny stuff:
- I haven't seen a single portable AC with a hose long enough to reach the window. Some come with tents and plastic things to seal the open window. The machine blows hot air out of the tube and air from outside is inevitable sucked in. If you could only hang the tube a few feet out of the window it wouldn't be sucking in the exhaust hot air back in.
- I've seen dozens with barely readable labels on the buttons in poorly contrasting colors. Some also have bright glowing leds next to the illegible text. Even if I switch on the lights (in the middle of the night) I cant read it because the leds are to bright. The buttons are spread out in some artistic arc with a nearly invisible fine line and lack a bump in the sticker they are made from.
- People here seem to love swamp chillers, some wet sponge or fabric with a fan pointed at it. Not sure what the ratio is, I think they roughly increase humidity by 10% for each 1C in temperature reduction with some favorable sweet spot above 90% humidity.
Then I see a video from an Amish dude hanging soaked bed sheets in front of the window explaining they don't have AC, they don't even have electricity, the wet sheets cut the temperature by 10 degrees apparently.
It's not that expensive. There are other reasons why people can't install one in Europe than money. Mostly for people living in apartments. In an apartment building you need the approval of other apartment owners to "modify the building facade". And some people have terrible neighbors. Another thing that happens in Europe is that if the building is 100+ years old, it's facade may be protected as a "historic building" and then you need another approval from some bureaucrats which are responsible for protecting historic buildings. And of course if you're renting, you need to convince your landlord if you want a proper AC not a portable one.
If the bottom of the window is 80cm or less from the floor you need safety glass. Therefore most windows are much further from the floor than that tube can reach. We also have very few sliding windows that allow such neat finish. A lot open at the top. Many turn left or right and are half the size of a door (because there is no AC) Running a crappy tiny portable single hose AC with the window open doesn't do much. Extra fun if you have roller shutters (for shade) with windows that open outwards.
The tube for my portable AC unit would quite easily reach the ~250cm to the tops of my windows and it is not unusually long. I'm not sure what makes you think that would be a problem.
I have one like that and so do my parents. But they're much less effective than classic split AC with an outside unit. A regular split can cool a bigger room to 24 even when it's 38 outside and is basically completely quiet. A portable AC cools down smaller rooms to ~27 when it's 38 outside and is noisy (50-60 dB).
That's cause you got the cheapest one and think all of them are like that. They come in different power levels and you can in fact find ones that are quiet.
People don't know which to buy. I got a really big one that doesn't make a lot of noise. I think on dehumidify it can suck 1.5 liters per hour out of the room. I think this because with 98% humidity the 0.5 liter tank is full in <20 minutes. The tank isn't removable, it has a lid 3 cm above the floor. Just low enough that one cant leave a large enough container under it.
Some of them use the waste heat to evaporate any accumulated water and have it come out of the heat exhaust as slightly humid air. The one I got when I lived in Hawaii had a hole where water would drip out of and you could attach a hose to it.
you don't need that on balcony, most of the apartments have balcony, stupid excuse, same applies for historical buildings with balcony
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If there is a balcony and you install it there, so nobody can see it from the street, is there an AC installed? Can you even use your balcony the way you want and place there big cardboard box if you need? Same thing. Facade is a one thing, balcony is something completely different, if you can't even use it, what's the point in having it.
Realistically a decent mini-split that won't break in a year and won't make too much noise starts at ~€600-800 + €400 installation in a low-labor-cost country (Latvia), in high-labor-cost countries such as Germany the installation bit might be twice-thrice as expensive.
From what I understand, windows in Europe are very different than in the US - they don't slide open but swing, like doors. So an American window unit, which seals the window opening, is not feasible. They have portable units with air hoses, but I am also not sure how you can get such a hose out of a swinging window without leaving a big gap for the hot air to come back.
I see, all I found is a piece of cloth you tape around window opening though. I don't think it's doing a great job of insulation, and, paired with an inefficient portable unit, what kind of temperature difference can you get inside vs outside?
It really makes no sense. Death from heat is caused by the absolute temperature, not a difference. If it's 30C outside and you can get get 10C difference then it's 20C inside, which is not going to cause death per se so it's "enough to prevent death" but if it's 40C and you are getting the same 10C difference it's 30C inside which is likely to kill frail people.
Well, yes. How does it make window units feasible though? I used to rent an old house in California, it had central air but also wrapped wooden windows with single pane glass. I ran A/C whole day in the summer and could only get 10F (80F inside with 90F outside), which was a relief but far from ideal. A window unit with an open window, covered in cloth is not going to save you from heat IMHO.
It's not the money. In many places you need to go through permitting to get it and they do not want to give it to you. Often you also need a signed approval from every person in the building.
There is something very wrong in the EU if installing a life saving window air conditioner requires a permit or signed approval from every person in the building.
This is true. In many places you can't install the outdoor unit on the street-facing side of the building without approval, and you won't get it in most cases, and this is indeed in addition to getting approval from your building's residents association if you live in a flat.
Bulgaria is one of the poorest EU countries and I have seen there way more ACs than in much richer Czechia or elsewhere, this is not about price at all
heck, even in Czechia I find much more ACs in some poor cities compared to the richest Prague, I've seen bigger AC ratio per apartment in my small poor ~40K hometown than in Prague, in our 40 units building in Prague I was the first one to have AC, after many years now followed by neighbor under me, 2 out of 40 units in relatively rich Prague, crazy (though it's true our top corner of the building is warmest from all apartments)
But in Bulgaria you need one during at least the whole summer and I suspect also a bit longer, while in Czechia you could have gone without one the whole year and really need one only for a week or two in the summer. So most people didn't think it was worth the expense. Now that's changed and the attitude will change too.
In my newish (25y old, well insulated) flat we really started to feel the need to get one only 2-3 years ago. Until then it was nice to have but not necesarry.
More precisely, it’s the poorest country in EU and ~80% of households (highest share in EU) have _at least_ one unit (mini splits). Most households use them for heating also during the cold season.
There are no subsidies and/or regulations around this at all. The downside is that it doesn’t look pretty most of the time (unless it’s a new build with infra for multi-split traces).
In that context, this whole “europoors” narrative feels like some weird psyop to me.
>The downside is that it doesn’t look pretty most of the time
Neither does Paris with all those white hoses coming out of the windows and windows with tin foil glued to them. At least the Bulgarians have the sanest and most energy efficient option.
My multisplit system costs <€60 a month to run even during the hottest months, which is way below heating costs during winter. And that's keeping entire apartment at constant 22ºC - people with higher "comfort temperature" can keep the bill significantly lower.
I got a 7000BTU one last week. One of cheapest I could find (I suspect some price gouging given the timing of my purchase). Very small, works in one small room. It was about £400. None of my family or friends have £400 sitting around that they can spend on a whim to save them a few weeks of suffering. A huge number of people live paycheque to paycheque and have no savings or credit lines available to them.
Discussion, common sense requires discussion. All you need to know about them in one sentence.