i broke years ago. 100+ year old house with 60cm thick brick walls. my flat is on a south facing external wall, so once it heated up, it was like living inside a radiator. 28C inside even at 3am.
I feel a strong need to point out awnings and (outside) roller blinds to stop insolation before it heats up the inside in the first place.
Sure that helps, still not enough when it’s 35°C or more outside every day for a week and doesn’t cool down further than 25°C outside at dawn.
We will likely have AC installed at home before the next summer.
I don’t like it, particularly because of the impact on climate and energy consumption, but with the prolonged heat nowadays, it’s become nigh impossible to keep our home comfortable throughout most of the summer. :(
If you are getting a heat pump then your impact on the climate will probably be better than your current radiator configuration. Especially as more renewables are brought online.
I think the environmental impact can be limited:
- Highest demand peaks correlate with highest solar panel output, which would be hard to use or store otherwise. Especially nice when private, local panels are available.
- Some also work as a heat pump in reverse for highly efficient heating in winter.
You can maybe also use the produced heat for water heating so you get hot water for showers. Dont know if you can get heat pump units that does that all on one tho?
We would have solar panels installed beforehand, so that’s fair, does a little for lessening my guilt.
Buildings need to integrate centralized cooling and district cooling much more.
I’m in the hottest, sunniest part of Germany and I’m doing fine with the rolling blinds closed. It’s 36C outside and 24C inside. AC not required.
That said, my work absolutely needs AC, because the building sucks.
That is because your house is well insulated.
In Belgium, we are living in a small house with roof insulation while renovating the main house.
The small house gets up to 32 degrees inside when it is 34 outside as it has little thermal mass and is not sealed as it is an old stone atelier. We have to sleep in 30+ heat regularly during heat waves.
Main house is better insulated. We resorted to blankets over the southern windows and it is around 26 inside without us living in it at all (windows open at night and shut during the day). When we shift to moving there, it will be warmer. We would have to spend 45 000€ to insulate the walls + 10 000€ for roll shutters. Heat pump is the next best option coming in at a small fraction of that.
I’ve lived in two badly insulated houses and they stayed amazingly cool. Thick stone walls, baybee.
Thats nice for you, we also have highs of 36C, but I live on the top floor of an apartment and the temperature in my living room at its coldest today was 26C. Thats using shutters and awnings as early as it makes sense to, opening all windows and doors as soon as the outside temperature drops below inside, sleeping with everything open so we wake up at dawn, nobody’s home during the day, and by the time its cool enough to open the windows its 30C inside.
So I just ordered a new AC. Yes its bad for the environment, but not as bad as if I would drive even an electric car to work.
Roof apartments are the pits. There’s a reason people don’t want to rent them!
My apartment is under the roof. It’s well insulated but if the heat lasts longer than 3 days, it becomes unbearable. Heat soaked in, nothing we can do about it at this point.
I have one person living between me and the roof, i think she might also last 3 days. But also the colder parts slowly heat up. Not sure how many days i have myself, but the soaked in heat definitely get worse every day.
Can confirm we had it installed this year.
Already super happy with the 3 sets of summer we have had in no this year.
Air conditioning only makes people sick
Only if you don’t clean the filters.
