Why don’t we just all get ac?

[JacketPotatoFoodOfTheGods]

Honestly, it’s what the rest of the world does…

It’s getting a bit late to worry about the effect on the environment - adaptation will be needed and it will include AC

yes it’s expensive and creates more climate risk - that’s true about all adaptations

i don’t see a mass move to vegetationism and a rash of flight cancellations and cars being sold

Canopies over windows and doors to help keep the sun off. But bear in mind they'll probably get blown away when it gets windy...

What would really help many people in the UK is planting more urban trees and greening gardens etc. New housing estates are block paving and concrete radiators with the occassional tiny dying sapling trying to get a foothold.
Decent urban planning can help mitigate weather extemes including heat and flooding. As a nation our identikit brick boxes are terrible in the heat. Add in the landscape of bare brick, concrete and tarmac, along with astro turfed and paved over gardens and you are living in a giant kiln.
Even growing climbing plants up your house walls helps, provides insualtion in winter and cooling in summer.
Add a pond to your garden for natural air con. Put some trees in your garden, rip up artificial grass, reduce the size of enormous grey patios and put in plants. Sponsor a street tree outside your house (and water it). Lobby planners to think properly about landscape and urban design.
All these things battle climate change, and help to mitigate extreme weather.

If our summers become more and more scorching then I’ll seriously consider it.

I’m getting quite tired of carrying the burden of climate change on British shoulders. Apparently we lead the way. Why can’t we encourage others to do so? Why is it ok for the rest of the world to run air conditioning all day and night, but if we did it well just accelerate the end of the world?

Obviously Jacks doesn’t realise that the South East props up the UK.

Why? I don’t they have it in many Scandinavian countries. The temps here do not justify the cost for the few days it maybe needed. That’s like saying why don’t they all have central heating and double glazing in Australia?

Mines not used a few days a year. It’s on almost every night from may-October.

If you want to pay for it and the running costs I’d love it

I can’t believe that in the current COL climate people think something like this would be an option for most people

no, RoW does not generally have AC. Most people in the "poor" countries don't have AC at home or at work and somehow carry on, in tropical, cyclone-prone, drought-prone, agricultural work heavy places. Their babies have to sleep, they have housework including cooking hot food, the kids don't have AC in schools, etc. I grew up in a place that gets occasional heat waves & remember AC was rare before 1990, even then in a rich country only some offices and some shops had it, and homes in Arizona... but homes in Arizona didn't have AC generally before about 1975. Yet people lived thru those summers anyway.

Its use can change architecture so that new buildings aren't habitable without AC.

My son installed a unit in his home, actually, and then leaves his doors & windows open, mostly doesn't have shades/blinds/curtains. I can only say he's paid well.

A nice thing about solar panels is they literally take some of the heat (converted from light) that hits your house, cooling the roof space itself.

I’m having it installed today in 2 bedrooms - I can cope downstairs but not at night. I’m very green, have a heat pump, batteries, had solar for > 10 yrs sbd and an electric car

It was costing us an additional £7-8 a day

Maybe it was the kind you had or it’s a bit dated now and not very efficient. I’ve been pleasantly surprised how cheap it is to both cool and heat. Even with the portable units on full blast it’s not doing much to our bills. I have switched off the heating to our room now (it’s on a separate system to the rest of house) so in winter we use the heater element. It’s partially why VAT isn’t charged on it as it’s considered ‘eco’ because it’s more efficient than other methods of heating.

This is a terrible reason.

Let’s say air con is £2.50/day for a few rooms in peak summer.

The health and productivity benefits massively outstrip that for most people.

Offsetting the carbon from it is 8p/day.

Are we really saying that £2.50 would be OK but £2.58 is the dealbreaker?

And you can get AC that is net negative carbon for £2.66 or £2.74 or £2.82 a day. Just double/triple/quadruple offset, or as much as you like.

The climate impact is a red herring and thousands of people die of heat in Europe each year because of it.

Well it’s expensive, and it will contribute to global warming

Why not get the type that is net negative carbon?

It’s £2.66 per day not £2.50 for the normal kind, but well worth it for the benefit of not being hot.

We bought a fairly sizeable but portable one a couple of years ago, it’s been amazing. Added a 10m exhaust hose and we can move it between the landing and bedrooms easy enough. Coming home to it from working on a building site yesterday was wonderful.

I’m really grateful to be living in a single brick house surrounded by big trees.

Not so grateful in the winter when we have ice inside.

I’d consider a removable window one but I can’t open my windows from the bottom. Of course there are high tech cooling fans that do more than just blow air around but they cost hundreds. And I suppose by the time people decide to go for it the heatwave has passed and the money gets spent elsewhere.

Not everyone in the rest of the world has it. I have family in Italy, where it has always got very hot in summer - no ac. I’ve also lived in South America. Hot all year round there, relied on ceiling fans. Some nights could be very unpleasant!

Personally, I don’t like being blasted with very cold air. I find it often hard to regulate ac units so that it’s pleasantly cool.

I mean longer term we may not need it because climate change will disrupt the Gulf Stream and the UK will become cooler, not hotter.

I feel like we're missing an adaptation stage which is ceiling fans. These are much more economical and likely effective enough for the number of nights you need them. They are also a good source of white noise if you live somewhere noisy.

The other issue with air con is that you don't really adapt to temperature so when you go outside it's worse and you start sweating immediately.

Here - the cost of purchasing and running. Also, we're conscious of the impact on the environment and stalling climate change for future generations.

Yeah and Rome is bloody insufferable in Summer, there’s a reason many businesses shut up shop for weeks and even months at a time. We don’t have AC nor the infrastructure or culture to deal with it, something will have to give. We are either going to have a massive overhaul in our planning and culture in the summer months, or we are going to need to install air con. We can’t do nothing, because it’s going to increase more than the supposed “couple of days” a year being spouted out on here.

It’s really interesting to look up the history of AC in the USA and how it opened up the southern states and allowed many of them to start thriving economically as business and productivity could flourish finally, see also the impact to space exploration. I’m not saying the answer is AC as I recognise the environmental impacts, but it’s very interesting to see what the wider economic and societal impacts can be when people can more comfortably live in their environment. We’re seeing the opposite with schools having to close as we don’t have the infrastructure. It might only be a few days this year; but what about next year? How productive are kids and teachers being in warm schools even if it’s not a heat wave. Especially as teachers are disproportionally female and the heat impacts women more, generally.

Yes I should probably look at ceiling fans but the issue we have being in a new build is that as many people know our ceilings aren’t very high so I worry how practical they are in terms of safety!

It’s not £2.50 a day when it’s over £1,000 to install. Where I live I’d have to get permission for the external unit, that’s another £500 gone.

If we ever do an extension I’d probably have it in there for hearing and cooling. But I’d have to pay for new heating in there anyway.

The thing that would really help is more affordable solar programs. A/C with solar panels would be really beneficial.

We are definitely getting it installed. We are doing solar panels and battery, buying an EV and getting air con.

It’s going to be expensive but, temperatures are rising, and power independence is becoming a priority too.

Government does need to pay to update schools and public spaces, but I doubt they will!