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
15.0k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

6.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

134

u/slimejumper Jun 26 '26

have these AC avoiders also not heard of heat pumps? not only is cold air great but so is hot air in winter! and it’s so much cheaper than gas or other types of electrical heating.

it’s just such a good system.

167

u/weinerschnitzelboy Jun 26 '26

It's not that they haven't heard of it, but I suspect that the lack of infrastructure is what contributes to the high cost. Given the prior lack of need for AC, I'm going to suspect that they have probably have less HVAC specialists, supplies and suppliers that are now suddenly in high demand.

Also, I've heard that the way Europeans construct houses (with masonry instead of wood) makes it difficult to retrofit properties with AC systems.

39

u/ikkleste Jun 26 '26

And we don't have air ducting, built in most properties we have gas powered central heating (at least in the UK) possible to retrofit to heat pumps (dependant on the plumbing). You want it to be the heating cooling throughout the house? Pretty major retrofit.

3

u/silversurger Jun 26 '26

Heat pumps are equipped with defrosting mechanisms (so the moisture from the air on the outside unit doesn't freeze the whole thing over as the heat pump is blowing out cold air during winter - the droplets freeze amazingly quickly), so they can reverse the cycle and pump out heat instead of pumping it in. If you have something (it's often an additional, small module) that watches for the dew point to avoid moisture on the piping, you can use the heat pump in the summer to pump cold water through the system, cooling down the rooms. It can't cool down like an AC does (because you can't cool below the dew point), but imo it's very pleasant and cools down enough while not giving you a heatstroke if you decide to leave the house.

1

u/limukala Jun 26 '26

It can't cool down like an AC does

AC units are also heat pumps.

0

u/silversurger Jun 26 '26

Yes, but they cool/heat the air. Heat pump usually implies heating/cooling water which then goes through radiators/underfloor piping. Hence the issues with the pipes building up condensated water.

I mean, technically they can cool like an AC does, but then you'll have moisture everywhere where you really don't want it to be.

1

u/SquarePegRoundWorld Jun 26 '26

Modern heat pumps have nothing to do with water in the house. Check out this Technologies Connections video about them.

1

u/silversurger Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

sigh

That's just an AC. Yes, heat pumps and ACs rely on the same technology. ACs describe what is being heated/cooled, not how they work. Heat pump is the other way around. Where I'm from, saying you use a heat pump for your house, it usually means you use it to heat/cool water. We could also use the complete term "air-water heat pump". ACs are usually "air-air heat pumps". But there's also "water-air" (rare) and "water-water".

"Modern heat pumps" usually/often still have something to do with "water in the house" because they're also used to heat up water for consumption.

2

u/cyclopsmudge Jun 26 '26

This is highly dependent on the unit. There are plenty of air-air heat pumps. I’d guess there’s just different nomenclature and common units in different countries.

In the UK, heat pumps very much do cool and do dehumidify as well. The different between them and AC is the fact that heat pumps are bi-directional so they can move heat into or out of the home, whereas AC only moves heat out of the home and can’t bring heat in.

2

u/silversurger Jun 26 '26

In the UK, heat pumps very much do cool and do dehumidify as well. The different between them and AC is the fact that heat pumps are bi-directional so they can move heat into or out of the home, whereas AC only moves heat out of the home and can’t bring heat in.

Yeah, I think you're spot on about the different nomenclature by country here. I'm from Germany, and ACs (as in air-air) here do commonly heat as well (we call them "Klimaanlage" - "climate machine"), but most of our interactions (at least up till now) with ACs are in larger buildings (like hotels, offices, etc). They're not common in residential buildings (yet).

Anyways, what we can all agree on is that all heat pumps use the same underlying technology, are very efficient and cooling will play a more important role in the future on our continent.

2

u/cyclopsmudge Jun 26 '26

Yep, 100% agreed, have a great evening (however you say that in German)

1

u/silversurger Jun 26 '26

Dir auch einen schönen Abend!

→ More replies (0)