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> The heat wave has prompted a renewed discussion about the lack of air-conditioning systems in homes and offices across much of Europe Discussion, common sens
by Oras 3mo ago
> The heat wave has prompted a renewed discussion about the lack of air-conditioning systems in homes and offices across much of Europe
Discussion, common sense requires discussion. All you need to know about them in one sentence.
- basisword 3mo agoMost ordinary working people can't afford the cost of installing a system. Even a portable one. Edit: Downvoted because HN users don't understand living paycheque to paycheque. Talk about an echo chamber.
- christkv 3mo agoWhat are you on about. They are not expensive at all. What they can't afford is to pay the electrical bill of running one.
- caycep 3mo agounless they also come w/ rooftop solar? new mini splits are way more efficient than older systems as well. insulation in older homes/buildings might be an issue though
- cineticdaffodil 3mo agoIronically- while often having solar on the roof.
- antonkochubey 3mo agoMy 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.
- basisword 3mo agoI 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.
- Oras 3mo agoMost people can’t afford private jets, let’s ban them for those officials then
- braingravy 3mo agoSounds good! It was a waste to begin with. They can handle first-class.
- ExoticPearTree 3mo agoA 12K BTU mini-split system is about 300EUR. How is this unaffordable for most people? Even an 18K unit is about 500-600EUR.
- antonkochubey 3mo agoRealistically 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.
- alistairSH 3mo agoRelative to buying the house/apartment in the first place, that's still not much money.
- boesboes 3mo agoWhere? The only mobile split unit i can find is 899
- wnevets 3mo agoSomething is very wrong with the EU if ordinary Europeans can't afford a $150 window unit.
- rapsey 3mo agoIt'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.
- mtoner23 3mo agoso yes something is very wrong
- wnevets 3mo agoThere 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.
- rapsey 3mo agoThey literally built a new hospital in germany without AC. 28C/82F degrees in surgery.
- Yossarrian22 3mo agoHow? I thought hospital AC had the dual role of air filtration to reduce spread of bacteria and viruses
- joe_mamba 3mo agoBecause when it's "free" healthcare you get what you pay for.
- basisword 3mo agoYes, something very wrong in the EU compared to the land of HOA's...
- black3r 3mo agoIt'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.
- hparadiz 3mo agoPeople on here will literally write walls of text over the most mundane nonsense. Get a free standing unit like this: https://i.imgur.com/giewYeK.png https://i.imgur.com/giewYeK.png Shove the plastic tube outlet out of a window. End of installation. You're welcome. Seriously why is this so difficult and what is this learned helplessness? You would rather be miserable than do literally anything?
- black3r 3mo agoI 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).
- hparadiz 3mo agoThat'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.
- 6510 3mo agoPeople 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.
- graton 3mo ago> 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" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOmzVWTH3xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOmzVWTH3xo
- scrlk 3mo agoAs 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.
- 6510 3mo agoAs 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.
- Markoff 3mo agofunny take 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)
- vldx 3mo agoMore 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.
- joe_mamba 3mo ago>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.
- tpm 3mo agoBut 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.
- zzzeek 3mo agothere 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
- Nursie 3mo agoI 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.
- Tarq0n 3mo agoIn 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.
- bee_rider 3mo agoOn the bright side they’ve probably waited long enough to roll out heat pumps instead of window ACs, right?
- quantummagic 3mo agoAs 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.
- coryrc 3mo agoI think GP's point is that winter heating can shift to nuclear- and wind-powered instead of mostly burning fossil fuels.
- bee_rider 3mo agoOh, 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.
- wil421 3mo agoThat’s true however moving heat in the winter is much better than burning things. Gas furnaces are 80%-98% efficient, heat pumps are 300-400%.
- nikonyrh 3mo agoDoes 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.).
- quantummagic 3mo agoSome 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.
- delecti 3mo agoYeah, 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.
- snehk 3mo agoYou can't trust those numbers, though. If you get drunk and jump into a river and drown it's counted as a heat related death.
- quantummagic 3mo agoYou can't really trust any numbers. The gun death numbers in the United States include suicide, which account for as much as 62% of the totals.
- mancerayder 3mo agoWell 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?
- redserk 3mo agoThis nuclear argument is getting quite stale. Germany seems to be investing quite a bit in other energies just fine. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min... 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.
- mancerayder 3mo agoDid I misread? I hover over the Nuclear and it literally says 0% of electricity is nuclear" for Germany.
- ericfr11 3mo agoIts true everywhere: Lots of homes in New Jersey don't have AC: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/05/heatwave-deaths-weather https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/05/heatwave-dea...