To Ban Air-con

Lol you going to tell that to all the countries who RELY on it, the middle east for a start? Good luck with that.

In which way?

I’m so miserable today and the spirit of this thread has really annoyed me.

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.

Not the Med, but we have a house in Portugal. Up to 10 or 15 years ago, airconditioning was not necessary: it was built with nice high ceilings, deep verandah, terracotta floors, external shutters etc. I can count on one hand the number of times the temperature got over 40C prior to 2016 and even in July and August the shade temperature rarely hit even 30C in Faro. It always cooled down enough on an evening that life was manageable and on particularly hot nights one would just have a dip in the pool before bed.

The truth is that the climate now is very different and has changed rapidly in the last ten years. The current heat dome in Portugal marks the second year in a row the temperature has risen above 35C in May, which genuinely used to be unthinkable. We regularly see 40C for two weeks in a row in July and August, it's much more humid, and it doesn't cool down at night. We put AC in three years ago.

Back in the UK, our new build's internal temperature can hit 30C even with windows closed and curtains pulled tight. Because of the plot layout we cannot plant anything to shade windows, and to fit external shutters would require replacing all of the outward-opening windows too. We'd happily do it, but it's a leasehold property and the freeholder won't let us. Being Manchester, if we leave windows open at night then nefarious dudes climb in through them and take things that belong to us, not them.

We've had a couple of portable AC units for a while, but bit the bullet last year and installed a complete system. It's an absolute game changer. As PPs have said, no would would seriously question heating a British home in winter to make it tolerable and healthy; why all the coy pussyfooting around about cooling it in the summer?

I grew up in Australia where it would hit 40c in summer and we had no aircon. Sure, it's not pleasant but people weren't dropping like flies. My great-gran lived to 94 despite these conditions. I went to and from school where there was also no aircon and sat outside eating my sandwiches under the shade of a gum tree.

Remember, people do acclimatise to the heat (or cold) so what is unbearable here because we rarely experience it, isn't nearly so bad there where people are used to it and know how to deal with it.

There’s some stat floating around that more people die in Europe from heat waves than in America from gun violence. And it’s so simple, there are basic units that you can easily install yourself. After all it’s only going to get warmer …

One thing I think should be banned is shops and restaurants keeping their doors open while they are using air con (or heating).

People lived in Australia long before air conditioning was invented!

Of course, the indigenous people weren't big on wearing clothes. That probably helped. But the European colonists mostly survived too.

Insulating homes well for conserving heat and preventing heat loss also usually means they are good at keeping heat out in extreme temperatures. Personally I think we have so few extremes of heat we should focus on heat insulation in all new builds and proper insulation in older properties rather than panicking about a week of heat which looks as though is all we are going to get ( rain forecast every day next week for London area).

No one needs air con in their house in the UK, but in crowded places with a lot of windows likes trains and buses it is sometimes needed. Supermarkets and offices often put it up too high. In other countries it is needed though and telling them they shouldn't have it would be like telling people here they can't heat their house in winter.

Sorry, but what planet are you on???

There is absolutely no way that countries like China and Russia would ever agree to a ban on AI.

So what do you think would happen to the economies and security of Europe if it introduced a ban on AI but China, Russia, North Korea etc. didn’t????!

I agree some shops and offices with Aircon are too cold, which is obviously wasteful.

I think we should have legal limits on the temperature when Aircon is used, to avoid overuse. And also ensure that Aircon shops keep their front doors closed.

It's been done elsewhere: https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/02/spain-tells-shops-to-save-energy-by-keeping-doors-shut-and-limiting-air-con

Edit to add: I realise this was a temporary energy-saving measure though and I don't know if there are permanent limits anyway.

If that AI diagnoses your cancer where a human would have missed it then it would have been very foolish indeed to ban AI.

This... And they will be lovely and cold because of my air conditioning unit. While I agree there should be a better way, currently this is what we have.

Nah, I'll give up my air-con (only got it last year and it's in our bedroom so used when we're in bed only) when someone builds me a quality house that stays cool in summer and warm in winter.

Until then I am stuck in a 1970s terraced house that has the sun on the back all morning, front all evening, is freezing in winter and boiling in summer despite all the insulation, has fuck all air flow and is just miserable.

I am curious to know how me being fat has made the inside of my house 30c today, that is an interesting leap from a PP.

Don't forget to open your loft hatch too, let the heat escape higher up. But only do it when it's cooler outside ie after 9pm.

There isn't enough money on the planet to pay me to get on the Northern or Jubilee lines this week! Like many of my colleagues, I have arranged to work from home. Many, many people cannot, and I feel for them.

My house just outside London is old, thick walls, and there are a lot of trees around. I am just about managing, but I wonder about all the elderly people in the city. I don't have AC.

OP, It is a noble sentiment, and, yes, in an ideal world we could ban AC, but most housing in Britain is just not suitable for this heat. I do understand why people put it in. It's a short term solution to a huge problem, but many people simply couldn't live without it. We would have to tear down half the housing stock built in the last 60 years and rebuild.

100%

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

We keep talking about building houses that cope with hot temperatures, but that's not what's being built. Brick - warms up and stays warm. If you get a prolonged hot spell you're basically living in a kiln. Then the flats that seem to pop up these days are all glass and no openable windows - how can you vent hot air outside?
No amount of through breeze is going to change the fact that it was 26 degrees at 9pm last night though.
As someone said above the issue is actually the nightly temperatures staying high. People can't cool off to sleep and that has health impacts.
We are also very north - some areas see the sun from 4am to 10pm at night. The length of day is also an issue when getting very high temperatures that you cannot build your way out of.

So in short, I disagree. We need AC.

We own a house half an hour inland from the Med. I completely agree with this comment.

It’s routinely below 3 degrees for months at a time where I live - not all parts of the UK have the same weather.

My AC unit runs on solar energy, can I keep it?

We've got an 80s architect designed house with all sorts of quirky/weird design additions but it's boiling in summer and freezing in winter. We've added cavity wall and new loft insulation, got a Worcester boiler, new glazing... and we still hadn't cracked it. Then we got insulated blinds for inside all the window recesses and added blackout linings to all the roman blinds/curtains outside the recesses. They keep heat out in summer and heat in during winter. Absolute game changer. It was only 24c in the house at the peak of day yesterday.