Beating the Heat: Why Can't New Builds Have Air Con?

My place is tiny. You can't have the unit plugged in without losing a chunk of space sadly. But it works well, is cheap to run. Noisy though.

That sounds a bit like my sister's place. But that's very economical. She refers to it as air cooling or air heating. Is that the same as central air?

YANBU our 7 yr old house becomes a sauna in a heatwave. Even though it cooled down outside today upstairs rooms in our house were still 29 degrees! We want air con but it's so expensive! Portable air conditioners are too big for our small new build rooms with no storage...

I lived in a flat with central air rather than central heating, central air is very very expensive to run, in winter we would easily spend an additional £300 a month on electricity, in the summer using it to cool would cost a similar amount. Servicing was expensive, they’re not good systems for allergies the actual unit is very large too, much larger than a boiler or a hot water tank.

New Builds that fall under Part O 2021 (2022 in Wales) do have to consider overheating but Aircon is the last item to be allowed after passive measures (glazing, shading, extra mechanical ventilation such as continuously running fans that are low energy to remove hot air) have been considered. It's a big deal now in the building regs world.

Also, new builds under Part L 2021 (2022 in Wales) have to have renewables, either solar panels or air source heat pumps. There's a consultation out at the moment for the next regs change which would be a massive jump in carbon emissions reduction (and possibly bills, depending on the option settled on) but who knows what the next government will actually do.

Air source heat pumps can cool as well as heat as long as you get the right one, they don't all do it.

I also have a black out blind in the bedroom, it's down 100% of the time now.

On the balcony I bought a large parasol in a half moon shape. It does nothing to shade the balcony, it more stops the sun from getting into the lounge.

I also have a turbo floor fan and a small desk fan. Think I've pretty much covered it over time!

In the north east England it’s only hot for about two weeks maximum. Not worth the expensive.
As a country it’s going to rain more but slightly warmer. So probably a dehumidifier would be better.

I live in a South facing new build and I bought Meaco air con from John Lewis. The tube goes out a window and I bought a window kit to seal the window. It was on for about four hours today and I would not be without it when working from home.

I was thinking today gosh when I come to sell My flat I must not do it in summer as no one will buy it.

AC was one of my least favourite things about the US. In summer, buildings would be so cold you needed a jumper, while in winter it would be hot enough for just a t-shirt. And no one else seemed to think this was at all problematic.

Because aircon is terrible for the environment.

New build flats are usually warm all year round though, so for me, May to November was very hot in an average summer. Men walk in and wonder if they're going through the change.

From what I read, even my previous place wasn't as bad as most new builds.

Av winter temp in previous new build, with no heating on, was 22.

Come and live in my 70s detached. Bloody freezing most of the year but lovely and cool in the few hot days we have. No air con needed.

I’m a big fan of AC since moving to the US, and it’s much cheaper and more energy efficient than heating. My summer bills are not bad at all compared to the winter, and I live in a region that gets both much hotter and much colder than the UK.

Well we are a tiny island compared to a continent…

@voiceofastar - no I know the uk usually builds flats and houses not like this. I’m just saying the solution is not air con in new builds, it’s build new builds better with low cost ways of sustainably keeping heat out.

I have a very weird house as it costs a lot to keep in warm in winter, but in the summer it retains heat like a bugger!

We have 9 air conditioning units in my office that provide both heat and air con. Last year our electric bill was £9,500, so £88 per month, per unit. I know I cook at home, but that's a darn sight cheaper than my combined gas and electric bill at home and they'd have been on longer in the office too!

I've got low ceilings and ceiling fans, they're great!

Air con units are rubbish at heating which is what we need more. I live in the hottest part of England but find a fan does the job.

@PeloMom is that the PIV system?

We had a ceiling fan and shutters before we got aircon, made next to no difference, our house was still 28-30 degrees on average.

However shutters have been good for keeping the rooms warmer in winter, you can really tell the difference even though they're just basic MDF and we have new double glazed windows.

Yes - Germany and Austria are full of them (houses and engineers!).

But new houses in the UK are built by property developers solely with profit in mind - profit that is used to lobby MPs into making regulations that do little to improve the housing stock or to improve the environmental impact of new builds.

Ours worked fine in our large log cabin, no problem with them in shops and offices either

I don't live in a new build but had aircon fitted a couple of years ago. Our house is always hot so I've used it a lot more than I thought, even in random snap hot spells in October and March.

Absolutely worth it because I work from home, I'm just so much more productive. Plus I sleep straight through as normal (even with windows open would be kept awake all night by neighbour's dog etc). The other day when everyone was complaining about the heat we had a nice roast dinner 😂

What was stopping you installing aircon when you bought the house?