New York Times : Why don't Britain/UK homes have AC

hollydolly said:
That's true for most of the UK..especially North where you are Lavinia... but here in the South summers are usually a good 5 months long.. May to September easily.. and often hot into October ..
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A pity you can't replicate tone of voice on the internet.....I mean....did the question really have to be asked?
At the moment, Britain is experiencing extreme temperatures but it is unusual. Normally, during summer, it simply doesn't get hot enough to need air conditioning. We manage with fans.
 

Lavinia said:
A pity you can't replicate tone of voice on the internet.....I mean....did the question really have to be asked?
At the moment, Britain is experiencing extreme temperatures but it is unusual. Normally, during summer, it simply doesn't get hot enough to need air conditioning. We manage with fans.
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except it has been much hotter here in the last 4 years.. which prompted the discussion between estranged o/h and me about the need for AC to be installed.. ..
 
hollydolly said:
yes but I have no way of getting that heavy unit upstairs.. and even then it's hose has to be out of the window..
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Really? The ones I've seen in apartment buildings so not require the hose to be outside, Everything is inside. The units I've seen are smallish compared to conventional ac but better than suffering through extreme heat. Doesn't England have climate control devices to moderate room temperatures? We do in the U.S.
 

Why don't Britain/UK homes have AC​

That's something I've always wondered about. (that gives you an idea of the kind of exciting life I live.) Brits seem to have an aversion to AC. We, in the US, have areas with the same climate as the UK, with its summers and winters, and we're AC lovers. Brits love "aircon" in their cars, but not in their homes? And you can put a window AC in almost any window for summer.
 
PamfromTx said:
The hottest temperature ever in Texas was 120 degrees, recorded in Seymour in August 1936 and Monahans in June 1994.
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Lytton, BC had that last year. We weren’t far behind that in the interior. BTW, Lytton burned down. It’s a small town along the railway tracks and a spark ignited it.

Vancouver and many coastal cities don’t have A/C in their older homes. It wasn’t needed or at least rarely needed. It’s expensive and if rarely used may not be reliable when it is.

@hollydolly Your comment about interior courtyards in Spain was interesting. It’s a good idea but not one that builders now would entertain; they have to make money from every square inch.
 
Kika said:
I pasted this link using my NYT subscriber gift article allowance. No one should hit the paywall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/18/...H6lQ16jWiK0G724oTKEjDgcZ_oJDRQ&smid=url-share
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First statement on that link >>
"LONDON — Temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 37.7 Celsius) are difficult to endure anywhere, but it’s particularly dangerous in Britain, where few homes are equipped with air-conditioning".

Seems to be a faux-pas , in a way a misleading premise.

We didn't used to have ac. The first ac as far as I remember was to PROTECT COMPUTERS. (in businesses and airplanes)

People lived for 6000 years without ac. Even in super-hot deserts. They got along. They did not get used to soft living, pampered living, and did not expect such things - maybe even considered them as only for the shellfish.

Sadly, now, today, I 'like' ac. I hunt for shade when walking, driving or bicycling, and even on a bus (get on the shaded side if possible on a hot day).

But I still like/ prefer going outside and reveling in the yard, trees, grass even when it is over a hundred. I'm still healthy enough , not pampered so much, to endure the heat , humid or dry, with care (drink lots of distilled water). and so on....
I envy , almost or sometimes, the people I've met and seen and known who walk every day seven miles or twelve miles just because that's their daily life.
 
Portable air conditioners really only help if there is a way to exhaust hot air outside and bring outside air in. Heat doesn't disappear, it only moves.* If you are curious, here is a link to a video that does a good job of explaining this.

I have one in my garage hobby room. It works well, but that's because I cut holes in the wall for exhaust and intake. You probably wouldn't want to do that to your house.

* There are endothermic chemical reactions, but that's not going to cool your home.
 
fuzzybuddy said:

Why don't Britain/UK homes have AC​

That's something I've always wondered about. (that gives you an idea of the kind of exciting life I live.) Brits seem to have an aversion to AC. We, in the US, have areas with the same climate as the UK, with its summers and winters, and we're AC lovers. Brits love "aircon" in their cars, but not in their homes? And you can put a window AC in almost any window for summer.
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smile.... "comfort" lovers would you say ? I wish I was more disciplined daily to be like an athlete in training, but not too strenuous for any muscle gain or such; more like the 'famous' ? mennonites and amish and hutterites who don't even notice when there is an electric outage since they lived without it for generations, including doing laundry without a machine often.
 
Grampa Don said:
Portable air conditioners really only help if there is a way to exhaust hot air outside and bring outside air in. Heat doesn't disappear, it only moves.* If you are curious, here is a link to a video that does a good job of explaining this.

I have one in my garage hobby room. It works well, but that's because I cut holes in the wall for exhaust and intake. You probably wouldn't want to do that to your house.

* There are endothermic chemical reactions, but that's not going to cool your home.
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Evaporative cooling works in most cases, and it's best to leave some windows and doors open for air / humidity to circulate out and not build up. It can and often does drop the temperature 20 degrees, and feels better and costs less than freon.

Even a fan blowing across a damp towel is refreshing for a time.
 
Just Jeff said:
Evaporative cooling works in most cases, and it's best to leave some windows and doors open for air / humidity to circulate out and not build up. It can and often does drop the temperature 20 degrees, and feels better and costs less than freon.

Even a fan blowing across a damp towel is refreshing for a time.
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My brother lives in Hesperia in the high desert. Evaporative cooling (swamp coolers) work really well there. But, if you have much humidity, they don't do much good. Unfortunately, humid heat is the most dangerous kind.
 
Grampa Don said:
My brother lives in Hesperia in the high desert. Evaporative cooling (swamp coolers) work really well there. But, if you have much humidity, they don't do much good. Unfortunately, humid heat is the most dangerous kind.
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Thankfully I was not told that before using a large swamp cooler/ evaporative cooler in the window. During high heat days, HIGH HUMIDITY DAYS, it brought the temperature down even more than 20 degrees (or felt like it ) , and made it actually comfortable relaxing inside for me and wife and baby.
Later, some 'officialdom' tale about them not working in hot humid areas was told to me, to try to get me to go along with the ac salesmen.
Sorry, first hand I learned otherwise.
Now the hardware stores locally sell portable evaporative coolers frequently, as they are so much less expensive, and work even in high aughest heat with high humidity. (at a FRACTION of the cost to buy, and less than a fourth of the electric bill for ac)
 
Aunt Bea said:
In the 1936 heatwave air conditioned theaters were popular havens.
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(opinion) Not for the amish, mennonites, hutterites, or desert dwellers -oh, wait, yes maybe the desert bedouins would like to cool off in an air conditioned tent :)

In any case, it was unheard of for thousands of years, and became extremely costly and profitable in the last century.
 
Back in the early 60s electricity was cheap and plentiful, we lived in the San Fernando valley in a "Gold Medallion" all electric home.
At that time PG & E, and SoCal Edision actually produced electricity, had two nuke reactors online. Lake Mead / Hoover Dam produced more electricity than Nevada-Arazona and So.Calif could use.
We had this massive air conditioning unit on a lab back of the house. It seemed huge, but I was smaller, being a child then. ;) Anyway, I remember days getting to 110 F. and seeing the thermostat in the house set to 60 F. The windows would actually frost up!
 
Grampa Don said:
My brother lives in Hesperia in the high desert. Evaporative cooling (swamp coolers) work really well there. But, if you have much humidity, they don't do much good. Unfortunately, humid heat is the most dangerous kind.
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I would take exception to the notion that humid heat is most dangerous. Having lived in the South and then working for a few years in Mexico... dry heat creeps up on you rather quickly, as there is a failure to realize the perspiration being evaporated so quickly, thus less attention to hydration. The UK is currently experiencing a dry heat, if those Met office numbers regarding humidity are correct. It also sucks the moisture out of vegetation.
 
fuzzybuddy said:

Why don't Britain/UK homes have AC​

That's something I've always wondered about. (that gives you an idea of the kind of exciting life I live.) Brits seem to have an aversion to AC. We, in the US, have areas with the same climate as the UK, with its summers and winters, and we're AC lovers. Brits love "aircon" in their cars, but not in their homes? And you can put a window AC in almost any window for summer.
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We don't have an aversion to A/C - it's just not usually necessary in British homes. Cars on the other hand being basically metal cans, heat up quickly and can become very uncomfortable. I suppose you could just open the windows, but that isn't always good.
 
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