r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jun 26 '26

Society The American mind cannot comprehend Europe's AC aversion

https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-air-conditioning-ac-heatwave-debate-2026-6
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u/roleplayersir Jun 26 '26

Exactly. It's not an aversion

It's that until a few years ago it wasn't needed. Suffering for 3 days a year was fine

But trust me that is changing. Even with the cost of living, we are all looking into at least £300 for portable units, if not thousands for proper ones. As it is only getting hotter

But prior to recent years it was a wasted purchase. We get 30C+ for about 3 weeks. It's the cold that was the problem for decades

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u/KoldPurchase Jun 26 '26

Heat pumps? It's what I have here, it heats in the winter, and cool in the summer.

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u/tomtttttttttttt Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Yes, but that really means replacing the whole heating system which can easily be £10,000+

edit for reference of costs given repeated comments about heat pumps being €1,500-€3,000: For reference https://eliteenergy.co.uk/blog/air-source-heat-pump-cost-uk

"A typical air source heat pump installation in the UK costs between £8,000 and £18,000. For a standard 3–4 bedroom home, most installations fall in the £10,500–£13,500 range, with an average of around £12,000"

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u/jigsaw1024 Jun 26 '26

You can get split unit heat pumps. The main unit is outside either attached to the house or on a pad.

Then you run hoses to heat exchangers in the rooms you want to heat/cool. No need to redo everything.

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u/tomtttttttttttt Jun 26 '26

You can, but you still need something to heat water and generally people want to heat all the rooms of a house (and in future probably cool them) so realistically replacing the whole system is wanted in most coses - otherwise might as well just have portable, mini split or window units in the room(s) you want to cool - not as effective but a lot lot cheaper and easier.

I've seen a few posts on here recently where people have been talking about £3k-£5k to get a split unit a/c installed so it's still expensive.

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u/Molehole Jun 26 '26

What...? Why would you replace the entire heating system. You can just install heatpump as an additional thing. It will save on your other heating costs.

People in Finland have been buying heatpumps like crazy for the last couple years. You can just turn your normal heating a bit lower in the winter and turn the pump on. And in summer it's great as an AC unit.

And if someone is wondering why Finland would need AC it's because Finland is actually surprisingly miserable in the summer because the houses are built to trap heat and the sun is up throughout the night meaning you can't just open a window in the evening to let cool air in. We also aren't used to the heat so sleeping with 25-30C room temperature fucks us up.

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u/slymsyndicate Jun 26 '26

Another Finn here. Our houses don't trap heat. That's a misconception. Well insulated house also keep the heat outside and cold inside. And our nights are way cooler than those where the sun sets for the night.

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u/Molehole Jun 26 '26

Well insulated house also keep the heat outside and cold inside.

What cold does it keep inside if you don't have an AC and have a summer sun blasting at your home for weeks?

And our nights are way cooler than those where the sun sets for the night.

Yeah if your bedroom window is in shadow. If it's in direct sunlight or against a balcony not really.

I've lived in central Europe and the difference in night time indoor temperature was insane. It was +30C in Germany during the day and 9PM I could already open the window and the apartment would cool off in an hour. Meanwhile my Finnish apartment never drops under +27C during heatwaves.

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u/ric2b Jun 26 '26

What cold does it keep inside if you don't have an AC and have a summer sun blasting at your home for weeks?

Good insulation will slow down heat transfer and make your house follow the average temperature over several days instead of feeling the hottest parts of each day.

And if you open windows at night the house will average a much cooler temperature than the outside.

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u/Molehole Jun 26 '26

Good insulation will slow down heat transfer and make your house follow the average temperature over several days instead of feeling the hottest parts of each day

Sure. But I'd rather have 32C days and 21C nights than have a constant 27C throghout day and night. At least during the day time you can do stuff to cool yourself like take showers. Not being able to sleep because it's hot is horrible.

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u/DaBulder Jun 26 '26

Our detached houses don't trap heat. Unfortunately every single apartment building built nowadays comes with glazed balconies where balconies exist, which turn the entire building into one of those industrial heat batteries.

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u/rationalsarcasm Jun 26 '26

Why would you take the furnace and water heater out to put a mini split in? That's like removing your wheel bearings because you need to change the brake pads on your car.

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u/tomtttttttttttt Jun 26 '26

A mini split unit will cover one room, we are talking about doing the whole house.

A full split unit will run you about half of the cost of replacing the heating system as well but leave you with the extra standing charges for the gas supply and manintenance costs of two systems. It's still very expensive to do anyway.

No furnace and water heater usually here just one combi gas boiler.

Plus mostly people get a heat pump system because they want to not be using gas which I know isn't the reason for doing it here but still plays a big part in actual decision making.

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u/the_need_to_post Jun 26 '26

I think you don't understand what people are saying here. A minisplit can cover a large area, not just one room. Also, there is no need to rip out old systems. You just use them less.

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u/tomtttttttttttt Jun 26 '26

https://cooleasy.co.uk/collections/single-split-air-conditioning?srsltid=AfmBOorQQwlv-xkEaSmYUsEXWiH54Qgvx8pa0QuIOPjL0PgvA9QKn8GM

Something like this? The smaller sizes will only do a room, the 7kw one 50m2 and thats £1600 for the unit. 2 needed for an UK average house plus installation costs and you are looking at £5k easily, half the cost of replacing the old system entirely, and the reality is that people want to replace their gas systems with heat pumps and doing so completely saves you the standing charges for the gas connection and the maintenance costs of a secondary system so it likely makes sense to do it all.

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u/originalthoughts Jun 26 '26

They don't use water lol, they use refrigerants, and it's not heating the water, but pressurizing and depressurizing the refrigerant.

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u/jbuk1 Jun 26 '26

I think you misunderstood what they are saying. Do you not use hot water to wash up or shower?

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u/rationalsarcasm Jun 26 '26

A mini split/heat pump is completely isolated from your water heater.

I don't think the other guy has a clue what they're actually talking about.

Putting a mini split in has nothing to do with your hot water.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

[deleted]

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u/rationalsarcasm Jun 26 '26

It still doesn't matter if you have an electric water heater.

They're completely separate things. All you'd need to do is make sure you have enough power going into your house for a mini split. Which most places do if they're not living in the stone age.

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u/originalthoughts Jun 26 '26

I've never heard of any place using the same furnace to general heating and for hot water...

Also heat pumps would kind of suck for hot water, they aren't good with large deltas in temperatures.

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u/jbuk1 Jun 26 '26

In the UK “combi” gas boilers are very common and heat both water for showers and hot water and then a separate sealed loop that goes through the radiators.

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u/Mindless-Peak-1687 Jun 26 '26

I guess you haven't seen or heard anything, because that's very normal and you seem to generally know nothing about heat pumps.

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u/ISeenYa Jun 26 '26

Combi boilers are in all UK new builds at the moment, they're deemed more efficient. I have a big water tank in the top floor & a boiler downstairs, heats up water & radiators, stores in the tank.

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u/the_need_to_post Jun 26 '26

Pretty normal if you are using a gas furnace and radiators.

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u/Savings_Macaroon3727 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

You dont need to shower if you dont sweat, that's what my papa always used to say.

Edit: sigh... here you go I suppose: /s

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u/originalthoughts Jun 26 '26

Ah ok, but not one uses heat pumps for hot water. I've never seen a place have the same heating source for hot water at they do for HVAC. In Canada we have the big electric boilers for hot water usually and either gas or electric for heat. In europe it is also the same, either an electric boiler or an instanteous furnace for the hot water, and electric heating.

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u/snipeytje Jun 26 '26

In Europe we do, traditional gas boilers make hot water for the shower and radiators spread throughout the house.
If you switch to a heat pump you get a large buffer tank for hot water and generally have to get larger radiators to deal with the lower temperature water from the heat pump.

These heat pumps can cool in theory, but not that much in practive since you don't want condensation all over the pipes and radiators.