6 ms·

The northern half of europe (anywhere north of the mediteranean) really sucks at handling heat. In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find ap

The northern half of europe (anywhere north of the mediteranean) really sucks at handling heat. In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find apartments with ceiling fans or air conditioning. There's also no concept of central air conditioning anywhere in europe for non-commercial buildings, which is a big opportunity for improvement (especially in Greece where air conditioning is everywhere, looks disgusting in the streets and is less efficient than a central unit in summer). Possibly the worst offence in Germany and especially in Belgium is that you can't ask restaurants/bars for tap water. They'll refuse to serve you, and will ask you to buy bottled water. (Tap water is 100% safe, they just don't want to do the kindness) It's an especially absurd custom given that, you go west a few kilometers and pass the French frontier, every bar and restaurant is legally obligated to serve tap water for free whenever customers ask. In most mediterranean countries, it's not even a question of asking: You sit down, a waiter will bring you water, before you've even ordered.

StavrosK 7y ago
I think the Greek custom of AC units everywhere is because traditionally houses have been pretty cool, so there hasn't been much of a need for central AC until now. We prefer to open our windows at night and shut them during the day, and we use fabric awnings to keep the sun out. Plus, most buildings are rather old so HVAC systems weren't popular. That said, yeah, it does look very ugly, and I wish new buildings had central AC units.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  It's like that in parts of the U.S. as well - the vast majority of Bay Area homes do not have central A/C or even a room air conditioning unit, because for 99% of the year, you don't need one. This is getting to be a problem with 100 degree days becoming more common. Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. (It's ubiquitous in the American South, though, since many of those areas were quite unpleasant to live in before air conditioning was invented.)
  - qball 7y ago
    >Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. A home in San Francisco doesn't need central heating at all, but a home in Toronto (where it remains frozen for a few months in the year) very much does. Once you have central heating, adding a central A/C unit (or a heat pump) is not a significant additional expense compared to how much a home usually costs, and failing that can be roughed in for later installation, so the decision to purchase one when the summers get too hot is an easy one, or when you have a family and want A/C so that small children or the elderly don't roast while living/visiting.
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    > Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. Toronto can get humid at times: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto#Climate * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate#Hot_summer_subtype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate#Hot_... Temperatures in July and August often go >30C, and adding >70% humidity to get the Humidex you're looking at ("feels like") >40C. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidex * https://toronto.weatherstats.ca/metrics/relative_humidity.html https://toronto.weatherstats.ca/metrics/relative_humidity.ht... Sweating starts become ineffective because the air is already saturated with moisture, the sweat just beads up on your skin and there's no evaporative cooling. If you have a "dry heat", what you mostly have to do is (a) be in a draft to cool down and (b) replenish liquids. With >80% humidity, it's like trying walk in and breathe soup.
martinald 7y ago
Yeah agreed regarding tap water. Most of the time a bottle of water is much more expensive than a beer or soda as well.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mrep 7y ago
> In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find apartments with ceiling fans or air conditioning. My girlfriend's grandparents are still in france and the 108 degrees fahrenheit temperature that it is supposed to be tomorrow sounds miserable. The grandparent says that people are looked down upon for having AC so they had to buy the grandparent a fan but that doesn't help when it gets above the 98.6 degree body temperature. > Possibly the worst offence in Germany and especially in Belgium is that you can't ask restaurants/bars for tap water. They'll refuse to serve you, and will ask you to buy bottled water. (Tap water is 100% safe, they just don't want to do the kindness) We got a lot of problems here in the US, but I love that I can get tap ice water from every restaurant for free and I've even gotten free ice water from starbucks without buying anything. So nice.
- charlesdm 7y ago
  I never got why people are so into free tap water everywhere. Who goes into a restaurant, does not order anything, and asks for free ice water? If I'm a restaurant owner and someone is taking up a seat while drinking free tap water, of course I'm not going to like that.
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    "Taking up a seat without ordering" is frowned upon. It's okay to dislike that as a restaurant owner. It's universally disliked, and barring exceptional circumstances, it's not a cool thing to do. That is what the problematic behaviour with your described case is. "Free tap water", however, absolutely should be the standard. In Belgium, you will generally be refused tap water even if you're a paying customer with a 100 EUR bill. Whereas in France, it's illegal to refuse serving tap water… think about that. If you're not allowed to drink tap water, you'll be drinking bottled water which creates plastic/glass waste and promotes a business that essentially repackages tap water.
    - charlesdm 7y ago
      I'm Belgian so I'm aware we don't really drink tap water. However, to say that tap water tastes exactly the same as bottled water is also a bit ridiculous in my mind. At the end of the day I guess it comes down to preference. Perhaps a silly question, but why do you go for tap water? Just because of the waste issue? And a second question, why would tap water have to be free and would you pay for it? PS: Cool business! Are you in Belgium?
llamathrowaway 7y ago
I looked it up and it seems that in England and Wales any place that serves alcohol must provide free drinking water, otherwise it doesn’t. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39881236 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39881236 Explanation of alcohol licensing on the government website. Search for the word water. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-licensing https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-licensing There is also a campaign about providing free drinking water for refilling bottles: https://refill.org.uk/ https://refill.org.uk/
- monk_e_boy 7y ago
  The UK is pretty far behind France in the water department. I talked to a French couple who had just got off the beach and were looking for showers and drinking water. There are none at our local beaches. When they asked where they could go for a shower and to fill up their water ... I couldn't think of anywhere they could go for free. Showers and drinking fountains are all over France, along with free camping.
  - orwin 7y ago
    Well, for free camping, not evrywhere, but municipalities in the south often provide it as an alternative to the forbidden wilderness camping.
Theodores 7y ago
In Germany nobody drinks tap water. Just the notion makes as much cultural sense to them as drinking water from the toilet cistern does to you. It is just not the done thing. Have you tried their beer? And why are you asking for water in the first place? They always serve beer with extra consideration and thought put into the bierdeckel. You just don't get bierdeckel everywhere, this is quite a German thing, a matter of pride, customer service and a job well done. However, walk into an American bar and ask for a bierdeckel and you will get a blank stare. Even though bierdeckel are 100% safe, American waiting staff just don't want to do the kindness. To them any insistence on a free bierdeckel is just weird. As for air-con in Europe. This is the last thing we need. There was a time before air conditioning when it was possible to heat and cool buildings. The trick to it was not difficult, you just needed a stone or other robust building that takes a while to heat up during the day. A breeze running through the building due to having attic windows open and the front door open did a better job than any 110v fan. This was convection, just normal heat rising, with no external breeze needed. This also worked well during winter albeit without the windows open for the cooling breeze. The physical mass of the building would keep it warm inside even if there were no fires in the hearths overnight. America is different in that buildings are made from a few bits of wood and some PVC decorative covers. The specific heat capacity isn't right for natural cooling and, with the more southern latitude, the only way to survive is with air-con. This applies to the clammier parts of the American South as well as the dryer desert areas. Living there needs air-con. This is probably why people didn't live there in such vast numbers in the days before air-con. But air-con is like a disease. People get used to it very easily and have to spend the rest of their lives with it. People are also vastly more spherical than they used to be and their lives are sedentary. As a consequence they can't regulate their own body heat. Their only option is to not enjoy the seasons and splendid weather, to be boxed in behind their noisy air-con machines with the windows closed and none of that natural temperature management that used to go on in former times. As soon as the fatties that need air-con completely take over then that is game over for buildings that have served us well over the centuries with well considered solutions for natural temperature control.
- jonwinstanley 7y ago
  Countries are getting hotter. Most of the hottest years ever have been since 2000. So countries, buildings, laws and customs need to change quickly.
srrr 7y ago
A modern insulated building can sustain < 30 degree celsius if the outside temperature is 40 degree celsius. (If you open the windows at night to let the building cool down or have other methods of air exchange.) I don't think building a/c everywere is the right solution if we suffer from climate change due to our energy consumption habbits... (And I was never refused free tap water in Germany. Puzzling.)
- scrollaway 7y ago
  I'm all for passive and natural cooling, but that involves new buildings. Central AC is still a lot more efficient than "every apartment gets individual AC", which is the norm in eg. Athens.
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    Ductless mini-split heat pumps would work well and are quite efficient. Each apartment can get a separately metered unit, with one compressor serving multiple indoor air units. The indoor units can be in different rooms, each set to different temperatures, with different schedules (why cool the bedroom during the day?). Typical units can heat the home to >20C even if the outside temperature outside is 5C, and there are even units that can extract heat from outside when it is -20C (originally designed for northern Japan).
    - scrollaway 7y ago
      Am I missing something or does this not help with air conditioning? Heating in europe is pretty high quality overall; the problem is with cooling.
      - throw0101a 7y ago
        Heat pumps transfer heat. In the summer they take heat from inside a building, and dump it outside. In the winter, they extract heat from the outside air and send it inside. The same unit does both heating and cooling. You also do not need to renovate a home as much to install them. Traditionally air ducts are often used for a lot of HVAC, and they can sometimes be a hassle to retrofit into older buildings. Heat pumps using ~1-2cm pipes between the external compressor and internal 'heads' to move the heat, so it's a lot easier to run that pipe (like plumbing) than a much larger air duct.
holri 7y ago
AC is not the solution, it is part of the problem
pgeorgi 7y ago
> In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find apartments with ceiling fans or air conditioning. I live in Germany, in a house that's nearly 500 years old. There's one room that's holding up well against the heat, but the rest of the house is getting uncomfortable. In the past there used to be days that were this hot, but now it's the second year where we get weeks and weeks of >30 degrees. Air conditioning was just not necessary so far, but I'm seriously considering adding some. > Possibly the worst offence in Germany and especially in Belgium is that you can't ask restaurants/bars for tap water. The discussion is a bit unclear what you mean here, if that's about tap water at the table, or tap water in general. When it's hot, I never had issues asking for a refill of a bottle I bring along or a glass of water "on the go". I'd stand near the counter, drink it, thank them, and go my merry way. Tap water at the table is a different matter, and yes, it's uncommon here and you might be considered a cheap-skate, as drinks are part of the calculation to make things work (food really is cheaper in Germany than in many other Western countries though).
holri 7y ago
At least in Vienna / Austria you can get excellent free tap water from the mountains on the street all over the town. (hydrants) https://www.wien.info/en/sightseeing/green-vienna/viennese-water https://www.wien.info/en/sightseeing/green-vienna/viennese-w...
dasKrokodil 7y ago
Air conditioning is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  The point is to make it part of the solution. It's like saying "electricity is part of the problem" well duh, that's why we're moving to green energy and more efficient power usage. We're not just gonna stop using electricity.
  - dasKrokodil 7y ago
    Sure. But unless we discover some truly green energy source which is able to reliably deliver an abundance of energy (hint: we haven't yet), we will always have the situation that the amount of available green energy is somewhat limited. Thus, we need to save energy.
Oletros 7y ago
> In most mediterranean countries, it's not even a question of asking: You sit down, a waiter will bring you water, before you've even ordered. Not in Spain

StavrosK 7y ago

I think the Greek custom of AC units everywhere is because traditionally houses have been pretty cool, so there hasn't been much of a need for central AC until now. We prefer to open our windows at night and shut them during the day, and we use fabric awnings to keep the sun out. Plus, most buildings are rather old so HVAC systems weren't popular. That said, yeah, it does look very ugly, and I wish new buildings had central AC units.

nostrademons 7y ago
It's like that in parts of the U.S. as well - the vast majority of Bay Area homes do not have central A/C or even a room air conditioning unit, because for 99% of the year, you don't need one. This is getting to be a problem with 100 degree days becoming more common. Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. (It's ubiquitous in the American South, though, since many of those areas were quite unpleasant to live in before air conditioning was invented.)
- qball 7y ago
  >Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. A home in San Francisco doesn't need central heating at all, but a home in Toronto (where it remains frozen for a few months in the year) very much does. Once you have central heating, adding a central A/C unit (or a heat pump) is not a significant additional expense compared to how much a home usually costs, and failing that can be roughed in for later installation, so the decision to purchase one when the summers get too hot is an easy one, or when you have a family and want A/C so that small children or the elderly don't roast while living/visiting.
- throw0101a 7y ago
  > Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. Toronto can get humid at times: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto#Climate * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate#Hot_summer_subtype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate#Hot_... Temperatures in July and August often go >30C, and adding >70% humidity to get the Humidex you're looking at ("feels like") >40C. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidex * https://toronto.weatherstats.ca/metrics/relative_humidity.html https://toronto.weatherstats.ca/metrics/relative_humidity.ht... Sweating starts become ineffective because the air is already saturated with moisture, the sweat just beads up on your skin and there's no evaporative cooling. If you have a "dry heat", what you mostly have to do is (a) be in a draft to cool down and (b) replenish liquids. With >80% humidity, it's like trying walk in and breathe soup.

martinald 7y ago

Yeah agreed regarding tap water. Most of the time a bottle of water is much more expensive than a beer or soda as well.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mrep 7y ago

> In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find apartments with ceiling fans or air conditioning. My girlfriend's grandparents are still in france and the 108 degrees fahrenheit temperature that it is supposed to be tomorrow sounds miserable. The grandparent says that people are looked down upon for having AC so they had to buy the grandparent a fan but that doesn't help when it gets above the 98.6 degree body temperature. > Possibly the worst offence in Germany and especially in Belgium is that you can't ask restaurants/bars for tap water. They'll refuse to serve you, and will ask you to buy bottled water. (Tap water is 100% safe, they just don't want to do the kindness) We got a lot of problems here in the US, but I love that I can get tap ice water from every restaurant for free and I've even gotten free ice water from starbucks without buying anything. So nice.

charlesdm 7y ago
I never got why people are so into free tap water everywhere. Who goes into a restaurant, does not order anything, and asks for free ice water? If I'm a restaurant owner and someone is taking up a seat while drinking free tap water, of course I'm not going to like that.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  "Taking up a seat without ordering" is frowned upon. It's okay to dislike that as a restaurant owner. It's universally disliked, and barring exceptional circumstances, it's not a cool thing to do. That is what the problematic behaviour with your described case is. "Free tap water", however, absolutely should be the standard. In Belgium, you will generally be refused tap water even if you're a paying customer with a 100 EUR bill. Whereas in France, it's illegal to refuse serving tap water… think about that. If you're not allowed to drink tap water, you'll be drinking bottled water which creates plastic/glass waste and promotes a business that essentially repackages tap water.
  - charlesdm 7y ago
    I'm Belgian so I'm aware we don't really drink tap water. However, to say that tap water tastes exactly the same as bottled water is also a bit ridiculous in my mind. At the end of the day I guess it comes down to preference. Perhaps a silly question, but why do you go for tap water? Just because of the waste issue? And a second question, why would tap water have to be free and would you pay for it? PS: Cool business! Are you in Belgium?

llamathrowaway 7y ago

I looked it up and it seems that in England and Wales any place that serves alcohol must provide free drinking water, otherwise it doesn’t. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39881236 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39881236 Explanation of alcohol licensing on the government website. Search for the word water. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-licensing https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-licensing There is also a campaign about providing free drinking water for refilling bottles: https://refill.org.uk/ https://refill.org.uk/

monk_e_boy 7y ago
The UK is pretty far behind France in the water department. I talked to a French couple who had just got off the beach and were looking for showers and drinking water. There are none at our local beaches. When they asked where they could go for a shower and to fill up their water ... I couldn't think of anywhere they could go for free. Showers and drinking fountains are all over France, along with free camping.
- orwin 7y ago
  Well, for free camping, not evrywhere, but municipalities in the south often provide it as an alternative to the forbidden wilderness camping.

Theodores 7y ago

In Germany nobody drinks tap water. Just the notion makes as much cultural sense to them as drinking water from the toilet cistern does to you. It is just not the done thing. Have you tried their beer? And why are you asking for water in the first place? They always serve beer with extra consideration and thought put into the bierdeckel. You just don't get bierdeckel everywhere, this is quite a German thing, a matter of pride, customer service and a job well done. However, walk into an American bar and ask for a bierdeckel and you will get a blank stare. Even though bierdeckel are 100% safe, American waiting staff just don't want to do the kindness. To them any insistence on a free bierdeckel is just weird. As for air-con in Europe. This is the last thing we need. There was a time before air conditioning when it was possible to heat and cool buildings. The trick to it was not difficult, you just needed a stone or other robust building that takes a while to heat up during the day. A breeze running through the building due to having attic windows open and the front door open did a better job than any 110v fan. This was convection, just normal heat rising, with no external breeze needed. This also worked well during winter albeit without the windows open for the cooling breeze. The physical mass of the building would keep it warm inside even if there were no fires in the hearths overnight. America is different in that buildings are made from a few bits of wood and some PVC decorative covers. The specific heat capacity isn't right for natural cooling and, with the more southern latitude, the only way to survive is with air-con. This applies to the clammier parts of the American South as well as the dryer desert areas. Living there needs air-con. This is probably why people didn't live there in such vast numbers in the days before air-con. But air-con is like a disease. People get used to it very easily and have to spend the rest of their lives with it. People are also vastly more spherical than they used to be and their lives are sedentary. As a consequence they can't regulate their own body heat. Their only option is to not enjoy the seasons and splendid weather, to be boxed in behind their noisy air-con machines with the windows closed and none of that natural temperature management that used to go on in former times. As soon as the fatties that need air-con completely take over then that is game over for buildings that have served us well over the centuries with well considered solutions for natural temperature control.

jonwinstanley 7y ago
Countries are getting hotter. Most of the hottest years ever have been since 2000. So countries, buildings, laws and customs need to change quickly.

srrr 7y ago

A modern insulated building can sustain < 30 degree celsius if the outside temperature is 40 degree celsius. (If you open the windows at night to let the building cool down or have other methods of air exchange.) I don't think building a/c everywere is the right solution if we suffer from climate change due to our energy consumption habbits... (And I was never refused free tap water in Germany. Puzzling.)

scrollaway 7y ago
I'm all for passive and natural cooling, but that involves new buildings. Central AC is still a lot more efficient than "every apartment gets individual AC", which is the norm in eg. Athens.
- throw0101a 7y ago
  Ductless mini-split heat pumps would work well and are quite efficient. Each apartment can get a separately metered unit, with one compressor serving multiple indoor air units. The indoor units can be in different rooms, each set to different temperatures, with different schedules (why cool the bedroom during the day?). Typical units can heat the home to >20C even if the outside temperature outside is 5C, and there are even units that can extract heat from outside when it is -20C (originally designed for northern Japan).
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    Am I missing something or does this not help with air conditioning? Heating in europe is pretty high quality overall; the problem is with cooling.
    - throw0101a 7y ago
      Heat pumps transfer heat. In the summer they take heat from inside a building, and dump it outside. In the winter, they extract heat from the outside air and send it inside. The same unit does both heating and cooling. You also do not need to renovate a home as much to install them. Traditionally air ducts are often used for a lot of HVAC, and they can sometimes be a hassle to retrofit into older buildings. Heat pumps using ~1-2cm pipes between the external compressor and internal 'heads' to move the heat, so it's a lot easier to run that pipe (like plumbing) than a much larger air duct.

holri 7y ago

AC is not the solution, it is part of the problem

pgeorgi 7y ago

> In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find apartments with ceiling fans or air conditioning. I live in Germany, in a house that's nearly 500 years old. There's one room that's holding up well against the heat, but the rest of the house is getting uncomfortable. In the past there used to be days that were this hot, but now it's the second year where we get weeks and weeks of >30 degrees. Air conditioning was just not necessary so far, but I'm seriously considering adding some. > Possibly the worst offence in Germany and especially in Belgium is that you can't ask restaurants/bars for tap water. The discussion is a bit unclear what you mean here, if that's about tap water at the table, or tap water in general. When it's hot, I never had issues asking for a refill of a bottle I bring along or a glass of water "on the go". I'd stand near the counter, drink it, thank them, and go my merry way. Tap water at the table is a different matter, and yes, it's uncommon here and you might be considered a cheap-skate, as drinks are part of the calculation to make things work (food really is cheaper in Germany than in many other Western countries though).

holri 7y ago

At least in Vienna / Austria you can get excellent free tap water from the mountains on the street all over the town. (hydrants) https://www.wien.info/en/sightseeing/green-vienna/viennese-water https://www.wien.info/en/sightseeing/green-vienna/viennese-w...

dasKrokodil 7y ago

Air conditioning is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

scrollaway 7y ago
The point is to make it part of the solution. It's like saying "electricity is part of the problem" well duh, that's why we're moving to green energy and more efficient power usage. We're not just gonna stop using electricity.
- dasKrokodil 7y ago
  Sure. But unless we discover some truly green energy source which is able to reliably deliver an abundance of energy (hint: we haven't yet), we will always have the situation that the amount of available green energy is somewhat limited. Thus, we need to save energy.

Oletros 7y ago

> In most mediterranean countries, it's not even a question of asking: You sit down, a waiter will bring you water, before you've even ordered. Not in Spain