
Europe’s Cities Weren’t Built for This Kind of Heat - pseudolus
https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/07/europe-heat-wave-temperature-cities-climate-change-plan/594811/
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victornomad
I grew up in South Spain, in a European city that goes beyond 40° celsius for
1-2 months in a row during summer and we never had an aircon. How we did it?
Just white painted house, with thick walls. Open the windows during the night
and keep them closed during the day. It works perfectly.

One of the big problems is paper thin walls of modern buildings and using
materials and colors that absorb and retain heat. We have the technical
solutions since centuries but there is no willing to do things properly in
this crazy captalistic society that we live now.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you lived in the south of Spain it means
you had cool air currents from the sea always blowing and generating
ventilation when you opened the windows.

In central Europe, we have no sea, no coast and no winds to bring cool air in
summer.

I'm in Austria, and due to the lack of wind, at night the temperature doesn't
drop much and even with all the doors and windows of my apartment wide open
the air is literally sitting still and we're boiling.

~~~
mbroncano
In my experience, in towns like Merida or Córdoba, some 400km away for the
nearest coastal site, there’s not much of a sea breeze whatsoever. Also, most
of that part of Spain is in a Mesa well over 2k ft. ASL. Finally, 1st. hand
experience as of last summer, temperatures don’t drop at all at night, staying
in the low thirties (Celsius) for the night. This year seems nicer
surprisingly.

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Insanity
I just come from Mexico (Monterrey) where it was regularly 35+ degrees. And
now I'm in Belgium in this heat (40+ today) and it's unimaginable how bad it
is here.

Usually in Belgium things turn horrible when it's just 30+ because we have no
decent installation to deal with this heat. Almost no places have airco so the
best you can hope for is a fan. And that just doesn't help that much. Really
hard to concentrate on work in this heat. Plus biking to work (largely uphill)
makes me sweat more in a day than usually in a week. Not that pleasant to
arrive at work like that either.

At least in our home in Mexico there is airco in each room and most places you
visit have airco as well.

(Though we have the opposite problem in winter. No good heating in our home in
Mexico but great heating in Belgium).

EDIT: And tomorrow I have to use public transportation. Imagine that, a bus
without airco full of people sweating. Just want to rant about this, because
for all the promoting they do for public transportation, you'd at least except
to not melt.

~~~
imesh
I don't know how to fix the worlds problems, but I do know that everyone in
Europe getting AC isn't going to be the answer to rising temperatures.

In tropical places we deal with heat by having open houses that allow breeze.
But I don't know that will work in a place with winter. I offer no solutions
but increasing energy consumption across Europe isn't one.

~~~
briandear
Why not? Is the solution that everyone boils? We have technology to tame the
hot interior of buildings. To many people, it’s like Jehovah’s Witnesses and
blood transfusions though — irrational religious opposition to a modern tech
that solves a problem. Just suffering through the heat is becoming a martyr
for no good reason.

It’s hot. Get air conditioning. Build some nuclear plants to make more clean
electricity. Problem solved.

~~~
maze-le
You cannot cool down a building without making the exterior even warmer --
this is the second law of thermodynamics. The Problem is not "solved" by
producing even more energy and thus generating entropy (unusable heat).

Certain institutions need air conditioning though -- hospitals, elder care,
etc. so I wouldn't forbid it outright -- but using AC everywhere seems
excessive (written at 33°C at 20:23 in Germany).

~~~
hluska
Geez, 33 degrees at 20:23? That’s absolutely brutal. I hope you and yours are
doing okay.

~~~
maze-le
Thanks, I am fine, had a hard time concentrating at work today, but except for
that I am doing well. I worry about the people with heart or circulatory
conditions though -- not everyone is equipped to handle these temperatures.

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jurmous
Homes here in the Netherlands rarely have airco and many friends have no airco
at work either. (Luckily I have at work but not at home) Today for the first
time measured we had temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.

Last summer we had a drought that made all grass fields look yellow and many
trees losing branches and bark. They say with changing climate the current
types of trees won’t survive. We are again low on water as farmers cannot use
water from the canals.

This is becoming the new normal...

~~~
0xDEFC0DE
Time to buy some air conditioning stocks

~~~
aphextim
Or start a HVAC company that specialized in AC unit installation/maintenance.

~~~
jacquesm
Heatpumps are better.

~~~
aidenn0
I'm curious what you mean by this.

A typical AC in the US is a compressor based heat-pump, though the term "heat
pump" is colloquially used to describe a compressor based heat-pump used to
heat, rather than cool, a building.

Lastly the term HVAC is a catchall that includes heat pumps.

~~~
jacquesm
I don't live in the US and we don't use the term HVAC here.

I'm aware of the difference between the colloquial use of the word 'heat-pump'
and the technical one, on the off chance that you really did not understand me
I meant the ones where you use an in-ground heat source or sink to cool or
heat a building by the movement of a working fluid.

The basic idea is that such a device can save you money because it does not
need the same amount of energy that you would be using in a more traditional
heating and cooling setup.

~~~
aidenn0
> I'm aware of the difference between the colloquial use of the word 'heat-
> pump' and the technical one, on the off chance that you really did not
> understand me I meant the ones where you use an in-ground heat source or
> sink to cool or heat a building by the movement of a working fluid.

I really did not understand you, thanks for clarifying. I've heard of below-
ground heat-pumps but have yet to see one in real life. A friend of mine who
lives in a less temperate part of the US investigated it, but it was too long
of a payback time due to the much increased installation costs.

~~~
jacquesm
Here in NL we heat homes typically by burning natural gas. The natural gas
reserves are not nearly depleted but the reservoirs are collapsing causing
earth quakes that damage houses built on/near the gas fields. This has led to
a huge push for alternative ways to heat homes, and one of the few feasible
ones for many reasons is heat pumps. So there are quite a few of them deployed
and there is talk of subsidies or subsidized loans for people that want to
install one.

The goal is to stop building new houses connected to the gas infrastructure
soon.

~~~
aidenn0
My friend is not connected to the natural gas infrastructure (too remote), so
it was going to be either electric or liquefied petroleum gas with an on-site
tank that was periodically refilled.

On the time frame he was considering, a heat pump was chaper, the propane was
more reliable (when the electricity goes out, it's often winter), and the
below ground heat-pump was so expensive to install that it made no sense. Not
sure what winters are like in NL, but average low where he is would be -8C in
January with anything below about -15C being unusually cold.

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ben7799
I was in Paris earlier this month when it was very hot and it was really
amazing just how unprepared everyone is.

No Screens on the windows

No fans

No AC except in the museums

No insulation in any of the places we stayed (France, Germany, Switzerland)

Stuff like Gatorade, Electrolyte drinks, etc.. mostly missing in action

Everyone drinking lots of alcohol in the heat (dehydrating)

The lack of fans & screens was more surprising than the lack of A/C, which I
understood as not really needed since they are very far north. Lack of
insulation was really weird too since historically those areas get really
cold.

I'm from the Boston area we have had temps near 100F/38C since I was a kid,
basically every summer.

The weather in Paris was not particularly hot based on growing up in New
England, and it was less humid. But it was relentless since there was no way
to be prepared for it.

We noticed an awful lot of people seemed to be in denial about wearing
appropriate clothes in the heat too.. pants, long sleeve shirts, jackets,
etc.. when it was 90F/32C.

~~~
Asooka
Not sure what insulation you were expecting, but I've been around Germany and
I've always found the insulation good. I.e. no drafts, thick walls, double-
pane windows and both the windows and outside doors close properly. Fans were
all over though. I'm not sure what you mean by screens.

~~~
ben7799
I mean insect screens. If you've got biting/disease-spreading insects you
can't open your windows when it's hot if you have no AC.

There were very few biting insects that I saw in France/Germany/Switzerland
but with climate change they will probably arrive and compound the heat
problems.

I have been told northern Europe (Scandinavia) has plenty of biting insects
like the US.

The walls were thick everywhere I saw but they just looked like concrete
walls, not walls with modern insulation. Someone mentioned above modern
insulation is significantly more effective than concrete.

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RaceWon
So have we started to do the easiest most obvious things to save energy?
Commercial building rooftops that are black in Winter and white in Summer--
this would require little more than a special tarp. Food stores that do Not
have wide open refrigerator aisles. Hot water piping insulation--both on
domestic HW and heating lines. Use of shades to difuse or block sunlight in
Summer and alow it in during Winter. The answer is Nope we have Not... so
until we get serious and consider the easy things that will add up to a huge
cumulative gain--how can we hope to convince Joe 6 pack that he should plan
his trips out to the store for beer in an economical fashion?

I known everyone is swinging for the fences here in terms of getting off
fossil fuels--but hey lots of times a single is what is needed to win the
game. Just sayin.

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40acres
We require state level (think of war) mobilization to properly combat all
aspects of climate change. Streets in city centers should be lined with trees,
research is required to find a suitable alternative to asphalt -- or perhaps a
way to simply make our streets less black. I'd even support research into ways
to artificially construct wind tunnels using tall buildings.

~~~
smallbigfish
In my city they cut down 10 meters of gardens around blocks of flats to make
room for parking cars. Nobody bats an eye because parking is a bigger problem
for them.

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toss1
Good thread on how railroads in the northern latitudes were designed & built
under different climate assumptions, and are now failing in this unprecedented
heat

[https://twitter.com/alexwlchan/status/1154122791958040581](https://twitter.com/alexwlchan/status/1154122791958040581)

~~~
x86_64Ubuntu
Never thought I would be so enthralled with railway construction.

~~~
toss1
same here - that guy is excellent!

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edf13
Live in an old 19th century cottage in the UK... usually the thick stone walls
work well - keep the heat in during the winter months and keep it cool during
summer.

It’s bloody boiling in here today!

~~~
stirfrykitty
My cousin lives up in East Anglia in a house built in the mid 1300s. They have
bought box fans for every room otherwise they cannot even sleep. No aircon,
obviously. The local council will not allow the house to be retrofitted since
it's historical.

~~~
somethingnot
There are mobile aircons, no drilling holes required.

~~~
jtr_47
Please make sure your wiring and electric box can support an air conditioner
(mobile or not). You don't want to cause a blow out or fire...

A separate circuit for the A/C (window unit, mobile or central) is ideal, if
possible.

Peace

~~~
post_break
A mobile AC draws hardly any amps. I tested mine that is rated for 700sqft to
pull 6 amps at 110v.

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frnkng
Passive house owner here. Outside we had 38 degree today. Inside it’s still 25
degree without air conditioning. The house has blinds outside, massive
concrete walls and ~25cm of thermal insulation.

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0-_-0
Sitting on a bus right now in London, trying to get home. The trains are just
completely f __*ed and I 'm melting.

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Izkata
> Not only are temperatures exceeding pretty much everywhere in the United
> States right now

This is a bit misleading. Our big heat wave was last week, temperatures about
the same as in this article (and the heat index around 10 F higher).

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amfsn
Thank the Lord it's just a matter of buying air conditioners.

I'm sure next year we'll read the same news: "people are boiling!". Okay, why
didn't you buy an air conditioner last year, eh?

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PasserBy2021
Is it smart to buy property in Scotland/Sweden? Yeah I know "real smart thing
would be fighting climate change together" bla-bla-bla.

~~~
linuxftw
No, those places are quite socialized, they're not far off from nationalizing
private real estate when it suites them.

~~~
diesign
I am afraid that characterization is simply not accurate. Scandinavian model
countries are not regularly nationalizing individuals property.

Furthermore, they regularly have the highest international rankings in
happiness, education, and health.

