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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To Ban Air-con

218 replies

chaosmaker · 26/05/2026 11:12

On a rapidly heating planet, shouldn't we be looking for ways to build/fit housing for all sorts of extreme weather?
Air-con just makes it hotter for everyone overall as it adds heat into the environment and makes it worse overall.

OP posts:
Tortoisel · 26/05/2026 23:38

Propagandalf · 26/05/2026 23:14

On my smart meter, a day when I have used my split a/c system for 12 hours is showing up as costing less £££ on the meter than on a day when I've had the heating on for 12 hours. You're talking about £5/day with a/c and £8/day with heating.

So both a/c and the boiler generate heat, but the a/c less so.

Greta, take note :-)

That’s worth knowing thankyou!

We are looking at it for our extension room. Also looking at external window film and a roof vent.

Propagandalf · 26/05/2026 23:14

On my smart meter, a day when I have used my split a/c system for 12 hours is showing up as costing less £££ on the meter than on a day when I've had the heating on for 12 hours. You're talking about £5/day with a/c and £8/day with heating.

So both a/c and the boiler generate heat, but the a/c less so.

Greta, take note :-)

MsGreying · 26/05/2026 22:14

MangoMilkWhip · 26/05/2026 11:27

No. Ban AI first. Why should we all boil while the super rich devastate the planet with AI

And crypto.

Bikenutz · 26/05/2026 22:08

OP, I take your point about air conditioning making global warming worse. Air con is like using a sticking plaster over a big wound. Massively inadequate. What should happen to fix the wound is

  1. change the building code so that new builds by law are built to be comfortable in hot conditions without excessive use of air conditioning.
  2. Invest in retrofitting homes that are currently uncomfortable. Shutters, insulation, etc. Initially prioritize people who are the most likely to be affected by heat.
  3. Educate everyone on how to keep a home as cool as possible.
  4. Use air conditioning as a second line of defence against heat only.
Fishinthesink · 26/05/2026 22:03

And yes to indigenous building techniques! Mud is incredible (and we used to build houses with it in the UK, we do actually know how to do this stuff, mud and thatch is brill). There's a desert town in the south of Libya made of mud and basically underground that the government relocated to a nearby 'new town'. The former residents all go back to the old town every day because it's so much more pleasant. Loads of beautiful mud built buildings all across the Sahara and sahel.

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/362/

IsthataNo · 26/05/2026 22:02

In places like Germany and Switzerland they have very poor air con though and they do restrict it so you cant change it.
I've been madly looking at reviews for air con specifically and people say the houses with the supposed in design air con are utterly crap !
One hotel apologetically said our building is designed to be cool.so we don't have air Don bit if still can get hot !

Spaghettioverload · 26/05/2026 21:55

Yeah while people are distracted by governments fighting over land, religion and so on, these massive tech giants are quietly taking over the world.

Huge amounts of resources are being diverted to these data centres for power and cooling. Resources like water that humans need in a planet that’s rapidly heating up.

Jobs are being lost. As usual the government has its blinkers on and thinks all this is somehow in our interest. Huge swathes of white collar roles are being lost each day. The only people benefitting are the mega rich.

Air con is seriously the least of your worries!

IsthataNo · 26/05/2026 21:53

smallglassbottle · 26/05/2026 18:59

Dear me. We're all fighting like rats in a sack whilst those huge data centres are using all that power and raising the temperature in their operating areas. One of them is the size of Manhattan apparently.

If course and ai uses water and energy.
I can't get upset about people wanting air con.
Many live in flats with poor insulation etc and are really suffering with no outside space.
I'm lucky my house is quite cool .

Fishinthesink · 26/05/2026 21:48

We lived in a country where temps regularly topped 45 in the summer, 50 once or twice. It was a less developed, desert country. Newer (badly) built buildings had Aircon, traditional buildings didn't really. People would say you would get sick if you slept under it. We had blinds, stone everywhere, and a cross breeze in the evening to ventilate the flat. I can count on one hand the times I had it set to cool rather than fan. It dries you out!

We need to start designing it in. The problem is we've been chucking up new builds and putting bloody glass everywhere for years. It is hard to retrofit, but for example our bog standard terrace is pretty cool (minimal outside walls, just normal windows, highish ceilings). We need trees everywhere, it should be illegal to pave your front garden and put down plastic grass and we can use air source heat pumps for cooling as well as heating, solar powered. You can design cities for heat, it just needs imagination and planning regs. In the meantime though we've got loads of tiny flats and new build houses that the freeholders won't sort out.

chaosmaker · 26/05/2026 21:45

JenniferBooth · 26/05/2026 15:41

My one bedroom top floor social housing flat

  1. Fire door and window restrictors. No gaps allowed for the former and windows only open a couple of inches Health and safety rules have turned flats into even worse sweat boxes.
  2. The fridge freezer. It cant cope in these temps and conks out Im damn sure the eco warriors dont like the idea of wasted food either.
  3. Bowel issues. Made a lot worse in this weather.
  4. Food stored in cupboards including the hall cupboard has to be kept an eye on too. It cant all be stored in the fridge and it isnt meant to be.

That sounds miserable and poxy and appalling design. I don't know what the answer is. You sound like you need a better place to live or something that will keep it cool. A family i work with use a bottle of frozen water behind a fan and that then blows icy air round the room until it melts and it works really well.

OP posts:
chaosmaker · 26/05/2026 21:31

Anewuser · 26/05/2026 14:11

Yes, you would be unreasonable to ban air con.

We have a severely disabled adult son, who can’t regulate his temperature. For the past ten years, we’ve used a mobile air con unit to cool his downstairs bedroom. We can’t leave it running all night because we have to put a hose out of his window.

Last night, despite having cooled his room before bed, his room got up to 30 degrees and he had two seizures, I had bugger all sleep.

Thankfully, during the day the unit runs and he’s fine. We never go on holiday so I feel we balance out our carbon footprint. He would die during the summer without air con.

I work with people that have heat affected disabilities. my post was more about air con making the problem worse by heating everything up more because of the way it works. I also have a condition affected by the heat.

The post was a question, not an attack.

OP posts:
MrsKateColumbo · 26/05/2026 21:25

Air con dries my sinuses out terribly so I am one person who will never have it! DH complains i wont use it in the car but there's something about the air that gives me a headache

DrJump · 26/05/2026 21:22

FluentRuby · 26/05/2026 11:17

Try living in Australia, where it's regularly over 40C in the summer, without Air Con. It would be thoroughly miserable and people would die.

I do. We just have ceiling fans.

MangoMilkWhip · 26/05/2026 21:21

tiptoethrutulips · 26/05/2026 13:33

100%

While they accumulate air miles in their private jets shuffling between air conditioned properties around the world.

They won’t care what happens to us at all. They are replacing their workforces with AI so they will just have more profit. They get richer we will get hotter as the climate crisis deepens. It will become a fight literally for water between humans at the lowest level and the AI of the super rich. We are absolutely ruined.

FruAashild · 26/05/2026 19:18

Auburngal · 26/05/2026 18:35

Some medications, including several antidepressants they tell you don’t expose to too much heat.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62496985

That generally means keep them on a fridge. I work in the pharmaceutical industry and we measure stability at -70C, 4C, 25C and 40C. Tablets will be fine at most temperatures, anthing liquid will be fine stored in a fridge. You do not need to keep your entire house at 19C to store your medicines.

smallglassbottle · 26/05/2026 18:59

Dear me. We're all fighting like rats in a sack whilst those huge data centres are using all that power and raising the temperature in their operating areas. One of them is the size of Manhattan apparently.

Auburngal · 26/05/2026 18:35

Some medications, including several antidepressants they tell you don’t expose to too much heat.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62496985

whirlyhead · 26/05/2026 16:32

I live in Mallorca (currently mid to late 30s temperature) and I have air con but I never use it. We installed ceiling fans everywhere and use them all year round (they push heat down in winter). However, I have a stone house built for warm weather. Even when the temperature hits the 40s it’s bearable.

my partner works in a wooden home office which is like a sauna so he use air con in there!

I hate air con so try never to use it - I feel like it’s sucking all the moisture out of my body.

pinck · 26/05/2026 16:13

chaosmaker · 26/05/2026 11:12

On a rapidly heating planet, shouldn't we be looking for ways to build/fit housing for all sorts of extreme weather?
Air-con just makes it hotter for everyone overall as it adds heat into the environment and makes it worse overall.

I’m American, not British, and no, absolutely the fuck not. If your climate solution is “ban AC” before redesigning infrastructure, housing, and power grids for extreme heat, then you’re basically volunteering the elderly, disabled, and chronically ill as tribute. In huge parts of the US people would literally die without AC. This isn’t one dramatic week of 82-degree weather where you buy a desk fan and open a window, it’s sustained extreme heat for months and I’m not noble enough to die sweaty in my living room so some idiot online can feel environmentally enlightened.

LaurenciaLamb · 26/05/2026 16:00

imnotgoinghomeyet · 26/05/2026 11:22

But in the Mediterranean most places have air con?

I don’t know about the rest of the Med but I’ve lived in NE Spain and SE France and I didn’t know anyone with air con.

JenniferBooth · 26/05/2026 15:57

JenniferBooth · 26/05/2026 15:41

My one bedroom top floor social housing flat

  1. Fire door and window restrictors. No gaps allowed for the former and windows only open a couple of inches Health and safety rules have turned flats into even worse sweat boxes.
  2. The fridge freezer. It cant cope in these temps and conks out Im damn sure the eco warriors dont like the idea of wasted food either.
  3. Bowel issues. Made a lot worse in this weather.
  4. Food stored in cupboards including the hall cupboard has to be kept an eye on too. It cant all be stored in the fridge and it isnt meant to be.

Oh and medication Do not store below 5c or over 25c

gindrop · 26/05/2026 15:55

FourSevenThree · 26/05/2026 15:54

No, English isn't my first language and
I said that It's absurd comparing the UK (being) up north with Spain or Italy, but even in Spain and Italy there are many homes without air-con.

Meaning, it is absurd to compare even the most southern point of the UK with Spain or Italy, as the whole UK is quite northern from them.

That's exactly how I understood your post.

FourSevenThree · 26/05/2026 15:54

JenniferBooth · 26/05/2026 15:48

Nah You used up north and purposely wanted to assume that is where i am because the south east where i ACTUALLY am wouldnt have suited your side of the debate because its hotter

No, English isn't my first language and
I said that It's absurd comparing the UK (being) up north with Spain or Italy, but even in Spain and Italy there are many homes without air-con.

Meaning, it is absurd to compare even the most southern point of the UK with Spain or Italy, as the whole UK is quite northern from them.

JenniferBooth · 26/05/2026 15:48

FourSevenThree · 26/05/2026 15:45

The whole UK is up north compared to Italy or Spain.

Nah You used up north and purposely wanted to assume that is where i am because the south east where i ACTUALLY am wouldnt have suited your side of the debate because its hotter

FourSevenThree · 26/05/2026 15:48

JenniferBooth · 26/05/2026 15:43

Im aware of that Im half Italian. My late uncle and my aunts house is concrete stone and marble.
I was just pointing out that its always us Brits who are told to go without and not only with air conditioning

And I'm asking WTF?

I've just gave you an example when it was decided that French people should "go without". So how on earth would you say it always only Brits?