Southern English attitude to air con - curious to me

[Bletchleyite]

I'm not suggesting building it by default, but it's not very efficient to build a house then start poking holes in it to add aircon, when you could do it from the start if that's what the person wants.

That's how it would be done anyway. You wouldn't leave gaps to fit aircon piping, a TV aerial or whatever. You build the house then you install it by drilling holes in the required locations.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm led to believe that current planning regulations make it almost impossible to build aircon into new housing as the presumption is that passive cooling methods should be used and you have to show they would be insufficient.

As the majority of people don't want aircon this is fine. Anyone buying a house who wants it can have it installed. Providing it by default just increases the cost of new housing unnecessarily unless they are using it to circumvent the above which would absolutely be the wrong approach.

I'm not suggesting building it by default, but it's not very efficient to build a house then start poking holes in it to add aircon, when you could do it from the start if that's what the person wants.

However, new houses really ought to have heat pumps, and if these were split systems with air blowers rather than radiators in each room then they would have about 95% of the hardware needed for a full aircon system. Rather like the local operator boasts of their new electric buses having air conditioning, because they needed heat pumps for heating.

There is some concern about the energy and CO2 implications of mass adoption of aircon, but that may be overblown (no pun intended) as the times it is needed in a UK domestic setting are often also the times when there is a lot of solar generation.

 

[bluenoxid]

Installed Air Conditioning in the living room and main bedroom last year on a south east facing 60’s house with as built dormer for the upstairs. Couldn’t cool the house effectively last summer and lost several of my weekend days to being knackered. Split systems.

No regrets. If you’ve got an electrician in drilling a hole in your house, get yourself some outdoor sockets at the same time if you don’t have them.

 

[35B]

As the majority of people don't want aircon this is fine. Anyone buying a house who wants it can have it installed. Providing it by default just increases the cost of new housing unnecessarily unless they are using it to circumvent the above which would absolutely be the wrong approach.

As the energy efficiency rules in building regs have been known to be responsible for features that make cooling very difficult, I'm not sure the argument about circumventing rules is that strong. And, like others, I'm a tad wary of building in obsolescence - if anything, I'd suggest it better to require new building to both meet decent passive standards and be built to allow heat pumps to be used for heating and cooling.

 

[Egg Centric]

It sits alongside the way the UK can't really handle snow - for the few days a year

Well there's an example where as a northerner I do something you don't need to do - I do have winter tyres. I agree you don't need them in Milton Keynes. Living on the edge of the Pennines I could personally just about get away with it I think if I stuck to the main roads, but to penetrate even a couple of miles inland such as to family I would and I prefer having the safety margin anyway (them being useful below 7 degrees).

Yeah, mainly because full AC costs thousands of pounds to provide relief for maybe 1-2 weeks a year here.

It's not summer.

Fair enough. Buy aircon for your house then. It's widely available in the UK. Let us know when you've done it and how much it cost.

A lot of these are actually not great.

Super! Let us know when you've fitted it in your house and how much it cost

And per above I'm not suggesting that I get air con fully fitted, at least not yet (who knows where climate change takes us). I don't need it because it truely is a rare event up here that I do (I left mid 30s in London this morning and came to mid 20s up here via a free Red Bull from Pitstop App and a speeding ticket from a nice officer working for North Yorks Police) and the portable units I have are fine for said incredibly rare occasion and this isn't my forever home. And you live somewhere Fife-ish right? Even less likely to need any. It's very much the southerners I don't get.

These temperatures are unexpected for this time of year

My house being an early Victorian terrace is pleasantly cool in the heat. No need for aircon. If very warm a fan is enough.

PLUS we are English. We don't lower ourselves to this continental/Yankee obsession with air-conditioning. We didn't make an empire spanning half the globe by giving into things like heat! We simply take our sleeveless cricket sweater out of the cupboard and wear that for a few days!

I'm not sure that the empire is a valid comparison. The empire builders were a special crazy lot. The empire administrators ensured that they had all the creature comforts in the world and if you have some kid constantly fluffing a fan at you I'm sure it's far more pleasant. Anyway in India they moved the capital to Shimla for half the year!

 

[thenorthern]

I currently live in North West England and yes I have an air conditioning unit. I am the only person I know in my town who has one, however.

It normally costs around 25p an hour to run but given I have solar panels under the feed-in tariff scheme most the time it's running it does not cost me anything to run.

The climate in the United Kingdom means air conditioning is not really needed for most. At most my AC is on 60 days in a year which in the grand scheme of things isn't that much.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well there's an example where as a northerner I do something you don't need to do - I do have winter tyres. I agree you don't need them in Milton Keynes. Living on the edge of the Pennines I could personally just about get away with it I think if I stuck to the main roads, but to penetrate even a couple of miles inland such as to family I would and I prefer having the safety margin anyway (them being useful below 7 degrees).

Most people in the north don't have them either, you probably won't find a single car based in Liverpool that does, say. If you're on the edge of the Pennines and drive on roads that wouldn't be gritted you're probably a niche case where they do make sense for you.

Definitely not a north south thing, probably more of an urban v rural thing.

It's very much the southerners I don't get.

Why? It's only a few days a year down here too, and the climate is not wildly different. A bit warmer yes but not massively.

I'm not sure that the empire is a valid comparison. The empire builders were a special crazy lot. The empire administrators ensured that they had all the creature comforts in the world and if you have some kid constantly fluffing a fan at you I'm sure it's far more pleasant. Anyway in India they moved the capital to Shimla for half the year!

Himalayan Keswick - great little place!

 

[philosopher]

Yeah, mainly because full AC costs thousands of pounds to provide relief for maybe 1-2 weeks a year here.

In London and the southeast I think the climate is getting to the point where AC is required. Although average maximum summer temperatures are in the comfortable mid twenties, there usually are a few periods lasting around a week with temperatures in the thirties in the southeast. A flat will heat up rapidly during one of these heatwaves and then only cool down little once temperature return to average due to the building walls retaining all the heat.

I'm led to believe that current planning regulations make it almost impossible to build aircon into new housing as the presumption is that passive cooling methods should be used and you have to show they would be insufficient.

In leasehold flats it is difficult to install fixed AC systems as the lease typically forbids any external alternations. There are systems that use water rather than outside air to remove heat which do not require an external condenser, but these systems use a lot of water.

 

[Egg Centric]

Most people in the north don't have them either, you probably won't find a single car based in Liverpool that does, say. If you're on the edge of the Pennines and drive on roads that wouldn't be gritted you're probably a niche case where they do make sense for you.

I don't consider Liverpool the north! You're from round there right, would you think of it as such? But yes I do take your point. Still while even in Newcastle probably most people don't have winter tyres, they would benefit from them more than they recognise as they tend to be thought of as snow tyres rather than tyres with a compound better suited to colder climates.

Himalayan Keswick - great little place!

I'm going to steal this, thank you

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't consider Liverpool the north! You're from round there right, would you think of it as such? But yes I do take your point. Still while even in Newcastle probably most people don't have winter tyres, they would benefit from them more than they recognise as they tend to be thought of as snow tyres rather than tyres with a compound better suited to colder climates.

Yes, much as Geordies might disagree Scousers do consider themselves as from "up north"!

 

[Trackman]

I don't consider Liverpool the north!

Yes, much as Geordies might disagree Scousers do consider themselves as from "up north"!

I would say Liverpool is North West.

My dad used to say, and many others, the north starts after the Watford Gap services.

- Back to air cons:

I think Hotels in the UK have improved their air-con systems, compared to about 25 years ago when they were dire.

 

[Egg Centric]

Yes, much as Geordies might disagree Scousers do consider themselves as from "up north"!

Fine, well even though you're all wrong I will accept it on a population weighted basis, almost like religion or sex in a way that if people consider themselves northern they are.

Regardless of south/north it's not Liverpool I had in mind though. I did make the mistake before the above hotel stay of staying in the Holiday Inn Express in Nuneaton on Saturday night who I would very much recommend as a budget hotel - they were lovely - but don't have aircon despite what google claims and that's just not a way I'm prepared to sleep long term (obvious disclaimers apply, I'm in Africa quite a bit for example, usually in decent hotels but not always and I'm stuffed but that is what it is).

I truly think south-easterners are partly deluding themselves about the reality of the climate crisis and its implications. It's not just a heat thing btw - I was speaking to a friend from Miami earlier and interestingly he gave the no 1 reason they all have air con there isn't heat, it's mould. That's exactly what's becoming a big problem especially in landlord-owned accommodation atm.

 

[Cdd89]

Why? It's only a few days a year down here too, and the climate is not wildly different. A bit warmer yes but not massively.

It doesn't need to be this hot to require air conditioning. I use my system for approx 120 days per year.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

It doesn't need to be this hot to require air conditioning. I use my system for approx 120 days per year.

Likewise, although my system runs for more like 360 days a year.

 

[Mogster]

Family friends live in Sydney. They have A/C but very little heating and insulation. It’s the reverse of the UK, they only have a few days where heating is truly necessary.

Surely new houses with solar panels make running A/C quite efficient? if I was building a new house now I’d have solar, batteries, and a ground or air source heat pump that covered both A/C and heating. Installing ducted A/C in older houses seems prohibitively expensive and disruptive. There are passive systems called whole house fans (basically a large fan in your roof space) that move air through your home. They can be effective if your house is hot from the day and the outer temperature is 5°C-10°C lower. They work like passive A/C.

You do get to a point where excessive heat and humidity are damaging to productivity. As warming continues it’s something Southern UK particularly will be forced to address.

 

[The exile]

You do get to a point where excessive heat and humidity are damaging to productivity.

Humidity being a significant factor there. One of the things that many continental Europeans (for example) don’t appreciate when scoffing at our reaction to what we think of as “extreme” temperatures. Humidity makes heat much more oppressive and cold much more chilling - a damp 0C with a wind is much more unpleasant than a calm dry -10C.

 

[Magdalia]

There are two key points here:

• the climate of the south east of England has changed in recent years, summers are hotter and drier, winters are milder and wetter
• for many years buildings have been designed to minimise heat loss in winter, not to minimise heat gain in summer

This means that the south east of England is not well adapted to the climate that it has now.

Nevertheless, I don't use air conditioning in my apartment. I have never liked sleeping in air conditioned rooms as I get dehydration. But we do have some air conditioned communal spaces which I use those during the day, and we do have solar panels.

 

[dastocks]

I spent the best part of two years of the early 1990s living in New York, where heating was essentially free (mains gas wasn't metered) and running air conditioning was very expensive because electricity tariffs were raised during the summer.

I saw an article somewhere that encouraged the use of ceiling fans on the basis that you get up to 90% of the effect of full air conditioning at around 10% of the cost.

When I returned to live in southern England one of my first acts was to install some ceiling fans. They are still there over 30 years later, and I can honestly say I've never lost a nights sleep at home due to hot weather.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It doesn't need to be this hot to require air conditioning. I use my system for approx 120 days per year.

Likewise, although my system runs for more like 360 days a year.

Are you also using it as an air source heat pump or because you particularly like dry air? If not you're just wasting money.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Are you also using it as an air source heat pump or because you particularly like dry air? If not you're just wasting money.

Nope, it only cools. I like the cold (it's typically set between 16-18 degrees).

 

[Welly]

- Back to air cons:

I think Hotels in the UK have improved their air-con systems, compared to about 25 years ago when they were dire.

Back in September 2023 I stayed in the Village hotel in Dudley for 3 nights and only some of the rooms had air con (the newer ones) and I was very lucky to get one of those as the weather was very hot at the time!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Nope, it only cools. I like the cold (it's typically set between 16-18 degrees).

Wow, that's quite niche. And probably quite costly!

 

[styles]

Wow, that's quite niche. And probably quite costly!

I dunno, I've been thinking about AC recently because I also like it cool. I reckon I'd be using it from mid spring until mid autumn.

I get into our office and the thermostats are set to 22 and I'm there in shorts and t shirt too warm. The inevitable office temperature debate. But I'm outnumbered, so I sometimes just sit in a meeting room and put it down to 16 (the lowest it goes), which actually keeps the room at 19.

 

[JamesT]

I dunno, I've been thinking about AC recently because I also like it cool. I reckon I'd be using it from mid spring until mid autumn.

I get into our office and the thermostats are set to 22 and I'm there in shorts and t shirt too warm. The inevitable office temperature debate. But I'm outnumbered, so I sometimes just sit in a meeting room and put it down to 16 (the lowest it goes), which actually keeps the room at 19.

We had a staff email about only setting the thermostat to 26 to save energy. Though I never got any response to my comment about what to do if the temperature never gets down to 26. (Old building with portable air con out the window).

Still cooler than my house during the day.

 

[gg1]

Humidity being a significant factor there. One of the things that many continental Europeans (for example) don’t appreciate when scoffing at our reaction to what we think of as “extreme” temperatures. Humidity makes heat much more oppressive and cold much more chilling - a damp 0C with a wind is much more unpleasant than a calm dry -10C.

I can vouch for that. I visited Prague in January back in the later 90s, daytime temperature was around the -10 mark but it felt more comfortable than home where is was a couple of degrees above freezing but damp.

 

[styles]

We had a staff email about only setting the thermostat to 26 to save energy. Though I never got any response to my comment about what to do if the temperature never gets down to 26. (Old building with portable air con out the window).

Still cooler than my house during the day.

26 is a ridiculous office temperature!

 

[Cdd89]

Are you also using it as an air source heat pump or because you particularly like dry air? If not you're just wasting money.

I live in a heavily insulated flat on a high floor with floor-to-ceiling windows, the internal temperature is consistently about 8° above the external temperature, and my maximum acceptable indoor temperature is 23°.

(My minimum acceptable indoor temperature is about 16°, so I've almost never used the heating; my energy bills are lower than most people I know!)

 

[Sorcerer]

Does anyone else find it easier to deal with temperature outdoors than indoors? On two days I went out during the 30c peak and tolerated it pretty well. I've been outside in the UAE where it was consistently above that all week, even out in the desert away from the air conditioned buildings and found it quite easy to deal with. I like to think of myself as quite acclimatised to hot weather.

But when you apply similar or even lower temperatures indoors I find it more of a struggle, and when my room reached subtropical conditions with 35c and 65% humidity (a heat index of 47c) I knew then an air conditioner had to be a serious consideration for the future. UK summers aren't getting cooler, and I think people will thank themselves if they start getting it sooner rather than later.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Moving air is more tolerable than static air as it helps your body cool itself through sweating. That's why people saying to keep windows closed are talking nonsense (unless you have fans of course).

 

[JamesT]

Moving air is more tolerable than static air as it helps your body cool itself through sweating. That's why people saying to keep windows closed are talking nonsense (unless you have fans of course).

It’s not nonsense. Letting in hotter air from outside might help with the breeze, but that’s now even more heat to get rid of. Also you have those of us that suffer from hay fever.