Air conditioners are not the best for the planet long term, but Europeans may need to care a bit more about themselves in the short term and start installing more of them.
These numbers will drastically change the coming decades
which will only make things worse, since AC just moves all the heat from indoors, out, and uses energy to work of course.
What we really need is builders to start taking the extra heat in to account and designing accordingly (there are loads of different ways to physically control the temperature of a space instead of mechanically).
Shame that’ll never actually happen…
European housing is built with a lot of focus on insulation and heat control
It’s more about also keeping heat out, as well as heat in. Which have overlap but are not necessarily the same thing. See this conversation for some more details.
Buildings with all glass façades are an insulation nightmare. Cities need more water, plants and trees. Houses need can be built to favour shadow and fressness. You can even go anciant design that were naturally cooled and winded, like roman or African houses.
I don’t know about other European countries, but France housing is a disaster the last 40 years. It’s only been a decade at best that insulation is a consideration, but the quality is quite bad.
The big change that needs to happen soon is passive heat blocking for personal residences.
Most HOAs don’t allow a big extra wooden structure over the roof to block the sun; but they’re going to need to start to keep home prices up.
But HOAs are designed to make rule changes almost impossible. So I predict we’re going to see a lot of expensive neighborhoods become cheap ones in the next 15 years, due to their HOA not fkexing to support necessary heat control structures.
This is a hairbrained idea. Nobody is seriously considering building massive wooden structures over entire home just for shade. Just focus on cool roofs, solar panels, trees, and usual weatherization.
Overall it’s still going to be a net saving as people switch from electric/gas heat to heat pumps and AC is just those but running in reverse.
And, of course, insulation. The reason we got away without AC is due to generally very large thermal mass of the exterior, you shutter everything in the morning to keep the heat out and when the temperatures drop again you open everything and let the air cool everything down. Thing is: In those recent waves there were plenty of nights where the temperature didn’t really drop.
which will only make things worse, since AC just moves all the heat from indoors, out, and uses energy to work of course.
What we really need is builders to start taking the extra heat in to account and designing accordingly (there are loads of different ways to physically control the temperature of a space instead of mechanically).
Shame that’ll never actually happen…
Can you elaborate on that? European housing is built with a lot of focus on insulation and heat control, what are you referring to?
It’s more about also keeping heat out, as well as heat in. Which have overlap but are not necessarily the same thing. See this conversation for some more details.
Buildings with all glass façades are an insulation nightmare. Cities need more water, plants and trees. Houses need can be built to favour shadow and fressness. You can even go anciant design that were naturally cooled and winded, like roman or African houses.
I don’t know about other European countries, but France housing is a disaster the last 40 years. It’s only been a decade at best that insulation is a consideration, but the quality is quite bad.
The big change that needs to happen soon is passive heat blocking for personal residences.
Most HOAs don’t allow a big extra wooden structure over the roof to block the sun; but they’re going to need to start to keep home prices up.
But HOAs are designed to make rule changes almost impossible. So I predict we’re going to see a lot of expensive neighborhoods become cheap ones in the next 15 years, due to their HOA not fkexing to support necessary heat control structures.
This is a hairbrained idea. Nobody is seriously considering building massive wooden structures over entire home just for shade. Just focus on cool roofs, solar panels, trees, and usual weatherization.
If the temperature stops going up every year, you’re absolutely right.
Big if, right now
Overall it’s still going to be a net saving as people switch from electric/gas heat to heat pumps and AC is just those but running in reverse.
And, of course, insulation. The reason we got away without AC is due to generally very large thermal mass of the exterior, you shutter everything in the morning to keep the heat out and when the temperatures drop again you open everything and let the air cool everything down. Thing is: In those recent waves there were plenty of nights where the temperature didn’t really drop.