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> you heat the whole house with hot water As others have said, try cooling a house with rads. It's not like North America is oblivious to radiators; they were
by peeters 12y ago
> you heat the whole house with hot water
As others have said, try cooling a house with rads. It's not like North America is oblivious to radiators; they were very much a standard way of heating houses before the popularity of AC made forced air a much more logical choice.
> Then you use insulation. This especially is something that feels nobody in the US has heard of. At least in California.
If you only know about the completely unrepresentative California, why expose your ignorance by projecting to all of the U.S.? And further, why bother calling it "the European model"? Obviously the way houses are built, insulated, and heated in a country like England or Norway is going to differ wildly from how it's done in say, Greece.
Even within California the climate differs so much that there are 4-5 different building codes for insulation. But in general, the minimum code for insulation in California is around half that of states with colder climates (e.g. R30 for ceiling in California, R50 for Wisconsin).
- Swizec 12y ago> And further, why bother calling it "the European model"? Because I've seen radiators and decent insulation in literally every house I've ever been in anywhere in Europe. Warm places like Greece and Portugal included. Differences are mostly attributable to the age of a house rather than its location. But arguably old stone houses (200+ years) in hot places have the best insulation in that they are simply built with 1m+ thick walls and super tiny windows. Insulation. It works. For both hot and cold. Granted, the moderner your building and the thinner walls and more cement it uses, the likelier you are to need AC in summer. In old buildings you get enough cooling by just airing the house overnight and keeping everything closed during the day ... unless of course you have a big computer in your room. Then you're screwed.
- carlob 12y ago> As others have said, try cooling a house with rads. It's not like North America is oblivious to radiators; they were very much a standard way of heating houses before the popularity of AC made forced air a much more logical choice. I've always found the popularity of AC in the US bizarre, every single European who've traveled to the US in the summer and had to spend extensive time inside complained about the cold and quickly switched to long sleeves and trousers.