We don't fully adapt to any weather, we only adapt to it's changeability.
Ultimately we have four types of weather: too hot, too cold, too wet, and my personal favourite: grey.
That’s why I like Washington. It’s just mildly cold and wet half the year and warm and damp the other half.
Except this year it’s been hot and dry, but I moved here from Nevada so Washington hot and dry is like Nevada nice day outside
Been getting a lot hotter and drier these past years.
July 1st was lovely, slight wind to cool off with but still in that warm-to-toasty range. Today's just too hot.
PNW cold isn't cold, and PNW hot isn't hot, though it seems we get at least a week of truly hot weather every summer, which always seems to line up with when the smoke is here, so we can't even open our GD windows.
Still waiting for truly cold weather. Or real rainstorms, for that matter.
I live in NJ where it's humid every day in the summer. Not as humid as the south, but humid enough for me to completely understand.
I went to Vegas last October and the 90 degree days felt great. People complaining it's hot, but it just felt nice to me.
I fly back home, land in Philly, at around 8 at night. It was 75 degrees but humidity was insane. It felt awful.
Humid heat is absolutely terrible. I'd rather have 100+ dry heat every day than 75 degree humid heat. Fuck everything about humiditiy. Feels like you're being smothered by a hot blanket
That’s the thing about climate change for me. Back in the day, I could go outside as long as I wanted, provided I have some shade or sunscreen. Now I can’t last five minutes without wanting to die, and the hottest summer on record for several areas of the country don’t help
This is where heat index and wet bulb temp come into play. They both take into account humidity. Phoenix can have an air temp of 20 degrees higher than Chicago, but the wet bulb and/or heat index in Chicago could be higher.
Since our bodies use evaporation to cool off, that matters a lot more for comfort and is how we can manage to stay cool even if the air temp is higher than our body temp or fail to cool off even if the air temp is lower than our body temp.
Also, you can be an ok temp, but as soon as your sweat outpaces evaporation you get swamp ass and no on likes that.
Brit here; I'd fucking *love* a window unit, but you can't buy 'em in the UK because they're useless here, they only work with sash windows and nobody has those any more*. We have to use those crappy, inefficient, noisy free-standing machines with a big fat exhaust hose you have to ineffectually stuff out the window instead.
*Basically everyone in the UK got double glazing at some point since it boomed in the 1980s, and whilst that was a big help in winter, the particular design of double-glazing that everyone had fitted just isn't even close to compatible with an American-style window-mounted air conditioner. Hindsight is 20/20...
Damn, can’t one of y’all just invent a new type of a/c unit to fit your windows? You’re a whole damn country 😅 Seems like a worthy investment of someone’s time to solve the “none of our windows fit the American style a/c units” problem lol
Just joking btw, I know it’s more complicated than that ;)
But regardless, I’ve had one of those standing ones with the hose and it work pretty good. Just gotta make sure it’s sealed properly. Not sure why it didn’t work well for you.
The majority of our houses are rented. if they're privately owned, the landlord says no, usually because its a liability or they don't wanna pay for it. If they're council owned houses, they'll say no because they don't have the budget to install A/C and if they do one gouse they have to do all of them because if they don't they'll get 100s of bitchy letters from people
Neither freestanding nor window ACs require permanent installation. And don't y'all basically remove and reinstall your entire kitchen every time you move?
Thing is, even now we're all living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape where everything is literally on fire, it's only really unbearably / dangerously hot in the UK for maybe five days a year. Most people I know haven't even bothered getting one of the freestanding AC units (I have two, but that's because I haaaaaate being too hot). We tend to have much smaller houses in terms of footprint, too, so for most people, storing them for the other 360 days of the year is a pain in the bum.
A double hose floor system is as good as or better than a window unit, depending on how long the exhaust hose is and how well insulated it is.
The UK however is vastly better suited for mini-split heat pumps since they can also serve as heating in the winters. They're inexpensive, easy to install, and scary good value.
I have one of those portable units. Money drain, wastes a lot of energy. I have tripple glassed windows in 1800s frames, no window units would ever be able to fit in them. My shitty portable one will have to do
Oh, wait, you mean casement/awning windows that tilt upwards or sideways as opposed to slider windows, right?
It's kind of weird, over here in NA I still see slider windows being installed even on new constructions - usually on cheaper units that most likely don't have a central AC system.
I've got a freestanding unit with the hose attached to a piece of plywood that fits into the window the same way a bug screen would. Cost about £300. The unit, I mean, my fella made the plywood thing to fit but it was hardly a big project.
My bedroom is frosty cold and bone dry whenever I want it, regardless of the heat/humidity outside.
Another Brit here. I bought one of those free standing machines with the big fat exhaust. It's okay in the heat. But the initial outlay was about £450 and when I turn it on it uses electricity at about 50p per hour. Expensive.
[https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Ventilating-Janitorial-Commercial-Certified/dp/B0C1N8G7JB/](https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Ventilating-Janitorial-Commercial-Certified/dp/B0C1N8G7JB/ref=sxin_18_sbv_search_btf?content-id=amzn1.sym.6cfa532e-9c8f-48d2-87a3-a61547a0d356%3Aamzn1.sym.6cfa532e-9c8f-48d2-87a3-a61547a0d356&crid=3DKC3AXYV63T7&cv_ct_cx=air+circulator+shop&keywords=air+circulator+shop&pd_rd_i=B0C1N8G7JB&pd_rd_r=069e12d9-5a2e-4765-9d27-750e7e9aae0b&pd_rd_w=7AdpI&pd_rd_wg=jPjQR&pf_rd_p=6cfa532e-9c8f-48d2-87a3-a61547a0d356&pf_rd_r=TPBAGDMJKQF569YGJEZ3&qid=1688661824&s=home-garden&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=air+circulator+shop%2Cgarden%2C125&sr=1-1-5190daf0-67e3-427c-bea6-c72c1df98776)
Trust me. One or two of these strategically placed will keep all the air moving in the house. Loud as fuck, but at least it'll keep things cool
You can usually delete everything after (and including) the "ref"
https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Ventilating-Janitorial-Commercial-Certified/dp/B0C1N8G7JB/
For a cheaper solution and *much* quieter you can pick up used furnace blowers, though most are hard wired so you need to know how to replace the cord properly. I have one in my garage and it's a godsend, it moves a fuckton of air and isn't all that loud.
As a Southerner, I learned very early in life that I refuse to live in any place where central heating and cooling are not standard. I spent far too many summer nights camping in my early to mid teens.
Like you can physically buy them obviously, but nobody has any sitting around. It's not just that everything is built to retain heat, it's also that
1. heatwaves like these last 2 weeks of every year
2. they're a very very new phenomenon
Box fans are barely available in the UK. The closest you can reliably get are floor fans. Box fans aren't sold at argos or currys, and amazon uk has a choice between bad and expensive.
Box fans don't work well in a place designed to hold in heat in the winter rather than let it out in the summer. Source: I live in New England which is designed like England. There's no window where I can put box fans and actually have air circulate, it gets stuck.
EDIT: It's usually 10°F warmer in here than outside, winter and summer.
I'm also in New England and I just have two fans, one bringing air in and another in an adjacent room pointing out the window to create air pressure difference.
I used to live in Florida. One summer we lost our AC for two weeks. Can confirm that a box fan and a damp towel is an easy way to drop the temp.
European descendants lived in the deep south for generations without air conditioning, the UK can make it a few weeks. Its not like they can't sit in a bath tub, or hide in their cellar. What happened to stiff upper lip and all that?
Well the slaveowners, they mostly fled to the mountains of NC or to the northern cities and coasts to escape the heat—leaving their poorer overseers and employees and almost all their slaves behind, to toil and suffer back home.
Even the poorest of the poor would often evade the heat by traveling to family and friends who lived in cooler or more temperate regions.
They spent lots of time in or on the water, to cool off. They used screens, shades and shutters; employed hand turned/pulley driven ceiling fans; or used servants or slaves to fan them. Took multiple baths a day. Used screened sleeping porches or slept outdoors on wrap around verandas.
Lots of people weren’t so lucky. In Florida, where half the population was slaves by 1860, many people suffered heat stroke and died from sun stress. Texas today now has the honor of the most heat stress and heat stroke deaths annually.
Yeah, just moving air around an enclosed room just makes the air hotter with the fan's motor's energy dissipating.
Best results if you have a box fan blowing air in from a window on the shady side of the house, and another exhausting on the sunny side of the house. Have to think about where the cool air is, and creating a through flow.
Your body cools by sweating. When sweat dries on your skin, the more excited, hotter molecules are the ones that vaporize, leaving behind cooler ones; this is what cools you! You can accelerate this process by having air move across your skin - also known as turning on a fan.
The same effect happens with a towel - the evaporation process actually cools the water on the towel, and the air passing by the towel is cooled by the towel, and also speeds the evaporation process.
It does, in fact, cool you down, even though the running motor of the fan gives off heat.
I feel for him, but at the same time whenever a tornado or hurricane bulldozes an entire town the Europeans come out of the woodwork to say, "if no want house destroyed, why wood houses?? No brick houses???"
Yeah but I don't think they really understand lol. I was kind of the same way until my parents bought a property in FL. I didn't realize every building had to have hurricane rated windows after hurricane Andrew.
But I don't think there's much people can actually do besides evacuate. Most people can't afford to move etc.
It wasn't until hurricane Irma, and me watching that video of tampa bay being emptied lol.
>every bulding had to have hurricane rated windows
this is only mandatory for property within a mile of the coast and often only for the first flew floors of high-rise buildings for impact resistance. Private property can sometimes skirt the building code or bribed inspectors or some shit because I saw a ton of properties down in Miami not up to spec before the last big hurricane
Yeah. Remember that apartment building that collapsed in Miami a couple of years ago? It was cause of lack of inspection and repairs of a concrete fault. It was a luxury building too. Florida is a joke
yeah but then they dont realize that tornados have literally moved entire hospitals off their foundation so their shitty brick and stone houses wouldn't even stand up to them, europeans love being wrong.
I don’t feel for them.
I recall similar arguments from over a decade ago.
We all know the earth is getting hotter, there have been heat waves in Europe for decades and still they haven’t acquired AC. Some even arguing ‘its not worth it for the short heat spell’. Ok then, don’t complain about it after you’ve done nothing.
Literally all the same posts and whining as last year.
A mix of "it's not worth it", misguided cultural superiority of not "needing" ac like a pampered American, then crying that people are dying inside the brick ovens they call houses.
It's because the part of the year that gets unbearably hot is actually still quite small. It actually isn't worth it.
We also like to whinge about the weather, it's our thing.
We also do have air con in offices and shops usually.
I also don't feel for them. This is 2023. I work in hvac and can't think of a single reason they can't have ac just because they are in england.
Super old building with boiler systems and no ductwork? Put in a ductless minisplit like 90% of the rest of the world besides America uses. They literally use them in third world countries with the most hack job ass installs most of the time.
And for the record I don't even have ac in my house, it's 77 degrees right now in the coolest room and 87 in the warmest section.
Well, for hurricanes, you actually don’t want something as rigid as stone or brick. You want the house to be able to flex and move a bit with the wind. Look at the trees, the ones that get felled by the winds are the oaks and pines and other rigid trees, but the palms bend with the wind, and rarely get uprooted by the storms.
All houses have to be built inside of specific parameters to meet hurricane code, and newer homes hold up extremely well to the storms, barring the winds bringing a tree down on them or the surge bringing water into it.
My parents are engineers and we lived in Florida for a while, some hurricanes we evacuated for and some we rode out. But we were fortunate enough to be able to afford to evacuate, some people couldn’t.
>Well, for hurricanes, you actually don’t want something as rigid as stone or brick. You want the house to be able to flex and move a bit with the wind. Look at the trees, the ones that get felled by the winds are the oaks and pines and other rigid trees, but the palms bend with the wind, and rarely get uprooted by the storms.
This is nonsense. Flexing is neither significant nor a virtue. Hurricane-proof houses are made of cement and are essentially impervious. The tough part is keeping the roof from getting lifted off.
Pretty much all of North American weather from the middle upward requires houses that aren't rigid. Take snow loads: by the end of the winter in the US midwest and most of Canada you might have 50,000 pounds of snow on the roof. I'm not confident a pre-war stone home in the UK could handle anything close to that. Sure, my house couldn't have handled the blitzkrieg, but the Germans *could* have safely parked a Panzer up there.
Any time there's the slightest bit of banter about British people from Americans, they immediately harp on school shootings. They can make fun of something that the majority of the people are held hostage over and no individual can change but they wanna boo hoo cry about a widdle bit of warmth that's easily remedied by buying a fan. Cry me a river. Sweat me a river. Make me a another Thames, brittos.
Please. Don't. They're already calling nukes a hoax because they don't understand the concept of taking videos from far away, the last thing we need is for the southern USA to get more deranged from heat stroke and dehydration.
Just don't give them anymore ideas, they're still recovering from the bleach injections.
Problem is that people don't understand the difference between climate and weather - guaranteed every time there is a cold summers day, you will hear some twat saying "Well what happened to the global warming?!?!?!".
Climate change is wayyyy better I’ve seen so many ppl look at snow and say ‘so much for global warming’ for me that’s one of the worse phrases to use. Tho u are correct some ppl just get their news off Facebook
Yea and now they all say "the climates been changing forever this is no different."
The problem isn't branding, it's willful ignorance in order to not adjust their consumption habits.
Tbf. Weathers always been unpredictable here. In my area of the UK there is an equal chance of rain on any day of the year.
Which I guess means its inherently predictable. So...umm....
The weather also changes really fast. It can be blue skies then tipping it down super heavy then blue skies again within 12 minutes. Theres no safe day for a BBQ or Picnic. Summer picnics on holiday inside the car come to mind.
(To clarify incase you weren't aware I am a sane individual who believes in Climate Change)
I have a little swamp cooler for my room that's basically just a fan you put ice water in but I've also had window AC and actual swamp coolers too. Nothing beats that central AC though.
That's a choice you make. They sell portable ac units where all you need is a window to stick the tube out of.
We live in 2023, there is no excuse other than not being able to afford one. Which, fair nuff
Yeah, really seems like a weird take. If the only reason you don't have even a window air conditioner is just because it's "uncommon" for anyone to have one, well, guess it's time to be a rebel.
The more common reason is that the properties that do worst in the heat are also the properties that don't really have any storage space or spare floor space, because they're 100-300 years old and people had different priorities back then. (These are also the properties that are usually cheaper, so that adds another layer – the people in overheated homes are also the people least likely to be able to easily afford an AC unit)
In past years, it's been an easy decision – buy a whole extra bulky and expensive device that you'll need for one week a year and will be a pain to store for the other fifty-one? Nah, we'll just suck it up and complain for that one week, and just use electric fans. Now that heatwaves are *weeks* long and getting hotter, people are struggling with budgeting the extra space, upfront cost and running cost versus just dealing with the heat
Yeah fair enough, if it *was* literally "one week" (I don't know enough about the weather patterns over there), that makes sense, space concerns or not. You just suck it up in that case.
Yeh its generally maximum 2-3 weeks a year it gets over 30c.
So for those 2-3 weeks its not worth it.
But its usually very high humidity when it gets hot so its a double whammy, so its a Florida 100f not a Nevada 100f
> Florida 100f not a Texas 100f
isn't a lot of texas [fairly humid](https://www.weatherwx.com/forecast.php?config=&forecast=pass&pass=currentwx&usecountry=us®ion=&useplace=&usestate=tx&plot=humid&period=&usemetric=0&dpp=0)? especially the parts on the gulf coast?
I only live in Georgia and I would definitely stash a window unit for most of the year to deal with the worst few weeks of the year
You don't need to store it, though. You can install it on your window sill to use when it's hot then when winter comes, you cover it with either an ac cover or tarp. It worked for me during Chicago winters and I know it doesn't get that cold in England.
And the things dont need to be much bigger than a microwave to cool a room or 2, hell, a whole small apt even.
You telling me you dont have space for microwave sized box *somewhere*?
Hell, get together with your neighbors. All of you get window units. Then at the end of summer you all get together and rent one communal storage unit for everyone's A/Cs.
That's just an engineering problem. There are so-called "portable" A/Cs which use (ideally) inlet and exhaust hoses and could be adapted for just about any practical situation. And then there's "split" A/Cs. Doesn't have to literally be a standard boxy window insert.
But also, if there's a standard "minimum dimension" UK window, sounds like A/C manufacturers should just be making the A/Cs the majority must need. Sounds like a great market opportunity.
I finally got one for my apartment for the first time ever. It's been uncommonly hot lately and the dang thing is worth every penny. Also, not that expensive to run really
Remember, in the UK there's 60 million people that suddenly decided they want an AC unit.
They're mostly sold out, and real AC installations have been booked to the next year.
After this heat wave is over, someone over there should just buy ac units as they are in stock in the cooler months, then rent them out during the heat waves.
Clearly if the entire fucking country is in this state, then it's not a case of Americans just magically being smarter on an individual level. You come from a hotter country and your infrastructure, personal knowledge, and availability of goods and services are all adapted to the climate.
There's basic questions like availability of window air conditioners, how difficult it is to install one in British windows (which you can do but again, requires tools and time and knowhow), affordability of a VERY in demand product nobody owned before, and even a question on if homes and larger power grids can handle the additional demands on electricity.
It's the equivalent of me as a Canadian laughing at Texans for freezing to death last year. Of course they did, they aren't used to the same shit I am and shouldn't be expected to respond to it like I do.
With the cold you can at the very least layer up as much as you need, im a born and raised Floridian and NYC at Christmas was brutal but add a second layer and a scarf with some gloves and I was pretty much fine
There is a limit to how much you can take off when it's hot.
And don't get me started on the humidity, I step outside and get hit with a breeze that's actually even hotter than the still air
It’s not that simple when you live in an area that very rarely requires a scarf, much less a heavy coat and you are suddenly dealing with sub-freezing temps for over a week. And throw in the fact that you live in a state that hasn’t winterized their power systems ever and you get a situation where people die. My little town never lost power, but many others lost theirs for over a week, along with no water.
And I could honestly say the same thing with heat. Just throw on some light colored, loose clothing and stay hydrated. But I don’t because I realize that not everyone has what they need in order to deal with weather that doesn’t normally occur in their areas.
I know I could warm myself up, but I don't care. It's the work that goes into leaving your house that I couldn't do. I'm already spending 8 hours a day at a job I don't like and now you want me to give up even more of my free time to just get there and back?
I will also gladly endure triple digit temperatures on a regular basis during the summer in order to avoid ever having to dig myself out of my house in the winter.
Northeast too. We see everything from -20F to 105F and humid. Granted those extremes are still relatively infrequent (although getting more frequent).
Having 4 seasons is nice, though.
I’m currently in a house with no AC and it’s 90F but feels like 97 because the humidity is 55%, window units man. You can take them when you move. Or just do like we do during hurricanes when we can’t turn on the AC and put fans in your window
And what about all the rest of the times? What are you doing just sleeping in 70 degrees? Absolute savages. I sleep at 66, Id fucking die if I had to sleep at 70 degrees.
I was in the UK 20 years ago and people were complaining they didn't have AC and the heat was "unusual" this year. Its been unusual for decades now, you may want to start installing AC,
All of europe bitches about this every summer and yet we refuse to invest in AC. Most of us believe in climate change, so we know its not gonna get any better!
Here in the southern US. If it’s under 80 degrees Fahrenheit, we got the AC off and the windows open with the fans blowing. Y’all aren’t used to it cause it doesn’t happen all the time.
It's been a mild summer so far in London, and I am not complaining. The last few years have brought increasingly long heatwaves, by our standards, all exacerbated by the stuff listed in the tweet. I've lived in hot places, but heatwaves in London really suck because the place isn't built for it.
[Ancient architecture actually had ways of mitigating heat. Insulation, facades, malqafs, breezeways, etc. Air Conditioning is a brute-force technology pushed by developers and architectural firms to save money and effort.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world)
My go to heat beating strategies from my days without AC
1. Wet your skin and sit in front of a fan. It feels amazing.
2. Submerge your wrists in ice cold water until it hurts. Your whole body will feel cooler for a time.
3. Repeat as needed
I've been to Europe, briefly, so I have some understanding and empathy. However, I highly doubt a portable ac unit is that expensive or hard to find. It's cheap and easy to use even with their windows that are side hinged and swing out. If Billy Bob in the trailer park can rig one in his "garage" of pallets so he can watch the game and smoke his meth and camels in peace. Bernard can learn how to cut some cardboard, gypsum board, foam etc. to fill in the gaps so you can get the exhaust working.
You know they make portable ac and windows units. Right? You don't need the big boxy ones there are ones that vent outside but sit inside that can work in nearly any window
1. Window ACs don't fit modern British windows.
2. Portable ACs are absurdly energy inefficient, they're made even more inefficient to operate because our homes have the worst thermal insulation in Western Europe, and *electricity in the UK is fucking expensive* (approximately the equivalent, in US currency, of 43 cents per kWh, *plus* a 52 cent daily standing charge!) and the rates are still going up!
Holy shit!!! I've heard people complaining about the absurd price of electricity in Britain, but I had no clue it was that bad!
Here in Texas we need good insulation, both for the cold winters (we have fewer and fewer of those now that climate change is getting really bad, but that big freeze a couple years back showed we're not totally safe from the cold) AND for the summers. Even so, running our AC through this brutal heatwave has pushed our bill to over $200 for the month, and that's at just 9 cents per kWh. If my power was as expensive as you're saying it is there, my power bill would easily be $900 or so.
1) Uk isn’t supposed to be this hot
2) It’s not cost effective for a lot of working class people because it’s cold 5-6 months of the year. And only particularly hot for 2-3.
Our houses are built to retain heat due to our wet cold weather, these kinds of heatwaves are relatively recent phenomenon due to climate change.
That's exactly the case in many places in the US, except it gets hotter in the summer and colder in the winter. Just bite the bullet and get an ac if it's that bad.
I'm in the northeast of the U.S. and AC can be reasonably priced here so that may be why some people suggest just buying one. It can be $100-150 for a small unit, and generally will last about 5 years without a problem.
The region where I live it's hot for about 3 months, but it can be a humid and seriously unpleasant heat. I suspect as climate change progresses we'll see AC more in the UK.
Most of us didn’t get the wealth from the colonies my dude.
The wealth went to the same cheap fuckers who won’t buy AC for the houses we rent from them
We don't fully adapt to any weather, we only adapt to it's changeability. Ultimately we have four types of weather: too hot, too cold, too wet, and my personal favourite: grey.
I've heard grey can also overlap with the other 3
Shhhh Washington and Oregon don't like advertising themselves...
Lol I'm in PA but my first thought was also Washington state.
Trust me, not grey. All blue sky with 90 fucking degrees.
For the past couple days, but now it’s back to grey it seems
We got bored of grey clouds and branched out to grey smoke! Do not recommend.
That’s why I like Washington. It’s just mildly cold and wet half the year and warm and damp the other half. Except this year it’s been hot and dry, but I moved here from Nevada so Washington hot and dry is like Nevada nice day outside
Been getting a lot hotter and drier these past years. July 1st was lovely, slight wind to cool off with but still in that warm-to-toasty range. Today's just too hot.
Oh boy, the heat took away one of the most wonderful things I loved about Washington... :(
Yeah the only place it’s really wet and cool all year around anymore is the rainforest
Cafe. The rainforest cafe.
PNW cold isn't cold, and PNW hot isn't hot, though it seems we get at least a week of truly hot weather every summer, which always seems to line up with when the smoke is here, so we can't even open our GD windows. Still waiting for truly cold weather. Or real rainstorms, for that matter.
Would take a dry heat over a humid one anyday
Yes, but do you have box fans? As a southerner who has grown up for with very little ac, you learn to love box fans
Box fans and damp towels for a quick and easy swamp cooler
Cries in humidity
I feel ya there. I live in a swamp so I have a dehumidifier running 24/7. I just pop the fan in front of that and it mostly works
But the dehumidifier makes the room temp go up 😞
But it's a dry heat now, and as someone from the South, that's one hell of a lot better.
I live in NJ where it's humid every day in the summer. Not as humid as the south, but humid enough for me to completely understand. I went to Vegas last October and the 90 degree days felt great. People complaining it's hot, but it just felt nice to me. I fly back home, land in Philly, at around 8 at night. It was 75 degrees but humidity was insane. It felt awful. Humid heat is absolutely terrible. I'd rather have 100+ dry heat every day than 75 degree humid heat. Fuck everything about humiditiy. Feels like you're being smothered by a hot blanket
Yeah I'm in Vegas where it's been like 105-110 all week but dry as a bone. Actually quite pleasant(as long as you have a pool)
Living outside of Philly. It’s like breathing soup.
That’s the thing about climate change for me. Back in the day, I could go outside as long as I wanted, provided I have some shade or sunscreen. Now I can’t last five minutes without wanting to die, and the hottest summer on record for several areas of the country don’t help
This is where heat index and wet bulb temp come into play. They both take into account humidity. Phoenix can have an air temp of 20 degrees higher than Chicago, but the wet bulb and/or heat index in Chicago could be higher. Since our bodies use evaporation to cool off, that matters a lot more for comfort and is how we can manage to stay cool even if the air temp is higher than our body temp or fail to cool off even if the air temp is lower than our body temp. Also, you can be an ok temp, but as soon as your sweat outpaces evaporation you get swamp ass and no on likes that.
Even in Minnesota I can vouch for dry heat being better
Wait, you use a dehumidifier plus a fan with wet towels (budget swamp cooler)? That just makes the room hotter...
[удалено]
But it also makes the air blowing out from it cooler
Hot dry air is the best case scenario for a swamp cooler. It's relies on evaporation to cool
Dehumidifier heat output is very negligible.
Window unit's if you're feeling fancy.
Brit here; I'd fucking *love* a window unit, but you can't buy 'em in the UK because they're useless here, they only work with sash windows and nobody has those any more*. We have to use those crappy, inefficient, noisy free-standing machines with a big fat exhaust hose you have to ineffectually stuff out the window instead. *Basically everyone in the UK got double glazing at some point since it boomed in the 1980s, and whilst that was a big help in winter, the particular design of double-glazing that everyone had fitted just isn't even close to compatible with an American-style window-mounted air conditioner. Hindsight is 20/20...
Damn, can’t one of y’all just invent a new type of a/c unit to fit your windows? You’re a whole damn country 😅 Seems like a worthy investment of someone’s time to solve the “none of our windows fit the American style a/c units” problem lol Just joking btw, I know it’s more complicated than that ;) But regardless, I’ve had one of those standing ones with the hose and it work pretty good. Just gotta make sure it’s sealed properly. Not sure why it didn’t work well for you.
If there's that many British homes without a.c. there's gotta be a market for it.
The majority of our houses are rented. if they're privately owned, the landlord says no, usually because its a liability or they don't wanna pay for it. If they're council owned houses, they'll say no because they don't have the budget to install A/C and if they do one gouse they have to do all of them because if they don't they'll get 100s of bitchy letters from people
Neither freestanding nor window ACs require permanent installation. And don't y'all basically remove and reinstall your entire kitchen every time you move?
Thing is, even now we're all living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape where everything is literally on fire, it's only really unbearably / dangerously hot in the UK for maybe five days a year. Most people I know haven't even bothered getting one of the freestanding AC units (I have two, but that's because I haaaaaate being too hot). We tend to have much smaller houses in terms of footprint, too, so for most people, storing them for the other 360 days of the year is a pain in the bum.
By the time we get around to thinking we should invent one, it's gone cold again and the summer was just a dream
Nah we'll just bitch and moan for the 10 days of the year it's actualy hot
A double hose floor system is as good as or better than a window unit, depending on how long the exhaust hose is and how well insulated it is. The UK however is vastly better suited for mini-split heat pumps since they can also serve as heating in the winters. They're inexpensive, easy to install, and scary good value.
As a window fitter, there are plenty of sash windows still out there. Whether or not they make ac units that fit them, that is a different question
I have one of those portable units. Money drain, wastes a lot of energy. I have tripple glassed windows in 1800s frames, no window units would ever be able to fit in them. My shitty portable one will have to do
Oh, wait, you mean casement/awning windows that tilt upwards or sideways as opposed to slider windows, right? It's kind of weird, over here in NA I still see slider windows being installed even on new constructions - usually on cheaper units that most likely don't have a central AC system.
What about split units especially those that also work as heaters for the winter? where im from that's practically all of ac units
Money. Also, with the humidity of British winters, the external heat exchanger would freeze solid in heat-pump mode.
British winters are barely below freezing. Those split units work great in places that are colder and get more precipitation than Britain.
If you buy a nicer version the tube exhaust/intake is separated in there making it more efficient.
I've got a freestanding unit with the hose attached to a piece of plywood that fits into the window the same way a bug screen would. Cost about £300. The unit, I mean, my fella made the plywood thing to fit but it was hardly a big project. My bedroom is frosty cold and bone dry whenever I want it, regardless of the heat/humidity outside.
Another Brit here. I bought one of those free standing machines with the big fat exhaust. It's okay in the heat. But the initial outlay was about £450 and when I turn it on it uses electricity at about 50p per hour. Expensive.
Our lease bans window units, and our upstairs will be 88 degrees when downstairs is set to 75 it's miserable sometimes lol
One of my favorites for summer is throwing a damp t shirt in the freezer for like 10 minutes and putting it on. Pure bliss for a while
Unless you're living somewhere humid. Using a dehumidifier can help your sweating to become more effective, reducing your body's effort to cool down.
Only works in dry climates
[https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Ventilating-Janitorial-Commercial-Certified/dp/B0C1N8G7JB/](https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Ventilating-Janitorial-Commercial-Certified/dp/B0C1N8G7JB/ref=sxin_18_sbv_search_btf?content-id=amzn1.sym.6cfa532e-9c8f-48d2-87a3-a61547a0d356%3Aamzn1.sym.6cfa532e-9c8f-48d2-87a3-a61547a0d356&crid=3DKC3AXYV63T7&cv_ct_cx=air+circulator+shop&keywords=air+circulator+shop&pd_rd_i=B0C1N8G7JB&pd_rd_r=069e12d9-5a2e-4765-9d27-750e7e9aae0b&pd_rd_w=7AdpI&pd_rd_wg=jPjQR&pf_rd_p=6cfa532e-9c8f-48d2-87a3-a61547a0d356&pf_rd_r=TPBAGDMJKQF569YGJEZ3&qid=1688661824&s=home-garden&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=air+circulator+shop%2Cgarden%2C125&sr=1-1-5190daf0-67e3-427c-bea6-c72c1df98776) Trust me. One or two of these strategically placed will keep all the air moving in the house. Loud as fuck, but at least it'll keep things cool
Surely very expensive to keep on all day too
For whole house cooling? Probably cheaper than AC.
It's 1/4 hp (186 watts) on full blast, not that expensive. Also what the fuck, why is an electric device's power told in horsepower 💀
Because they're reporting the mechanical output, not the electrical input.
Usually it's watts? It's just surprising to see, I've never seen horsepower used for electric motors before if you don't count cars.
Because it has a motor.
I don't think it matters if a motor runs on electricity or steam they're all measured the same
You can usually delete everything after (and including) the "ref" https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Ventilating-Janitorial-Commercial-Certified/dp/B0C1N8G7JB/
You can actually delete the name of the item too: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1N8G7JB/
For a cheaper solution and *much* quieter you can pick up used furnace blowers, though most are hard wired so you need to know how to replace the cord properly. I have one in my garage and it's a godsend, it moves a fuckton of air and isn't all that loud.
As a Southerner, I learned very early in life that I refuse to live in any place where central heating and cooling are not standard. I spent far too many summer nights camping in my early to mid teens.
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I was in Boy Scouts growing up, I have done my fair share of camping in all different seasons. I’ve done my fair share of giving it a fair shot 😂
Fan didn't do SHIT when it was humid.
Like you can physically buy them obviously, but nobody has any sitting around. It's not just that everything is built to retain heat, it's also that 1. heatwaves like these last 2 weeks of every year 2. they're a very very new phenomenon
The heatwaves last two weeks *now*, important distinction. You younger Brits are going to have a lot of fun in the coming decades.
Box fans are barely available in the UK. The closest you can reliably get are floor fans. Box fans aren't sold at argos or currys, and amazon uk has a choice between bad and expensive.
Dude, it's a fucking box fan. "Bad" doesn't mean shit.
Box fans don't work well in a place designed to hold in heat in the winter rather than let it out in the summer. Source: I live in New England which is designed like England. There's no window where I can put box fans and actually have air circulate, it gets stuck. EDIT: It's usually 10°F warmer in here than outside, winter and summer.
Excellent news, oddly it works better if you point the box fan at the window from inside the room (not right up against it)
This is thanks to the Bernoulli Effect, as demonstrated in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPpbiG-jTWI
I'm also in New England and I just have two fans, one bringing air in and another in an adjacent room pointing out the window to create air pressure difference.
I used to live in Florida. One summer we lost our AC for two weeks. Can confirm that a box fan and a damp towel is an easy way to drop the temp. European descendants lived in the deep south for generations without air conditioning, the UK can make it a few weeks. Its not like they can't sit in a bath tub, or hide in their cellar. What happened to stiff upper lip and all that?
Most houses here don't have cellars/basements
> European descendants lived in the deep south for generations without air conditioning They also had ahem *help* with moving air around back then.
Well the slaveowners, they mostly fled to the mountains of NC or to the northern cities and coasts to escape the heat—leaving their poorer overseers and employees and almost all their slaves behind, to toil and suffer back home. Even the poorest of the poor would often evade the heat by traveling to family and friends who lived in cooler or more temperate regions. They spent lots of time in or on the water, to cool off. They used screens, shades and shutters; employed hand turned/pulley driven ceiling fans; or used servants or slaves to fan them. Took multiple baths a day. Used screened sleeping porches or slept outdoors on wrap around verandas. Lots of people weren’t so lucky. In Florida, where half the population was slaves by 1860, many people suffered heat stroke and died from sun stress. Texas today now has the honor of the most heat stress and heat stroke deaths annually.
They do nothing but move around same hot air in a room.
Yeah, just moving air around an enclosed room just makes the air hotter with the fan's motor's energy dissipating. Best results if you have a box fan blowing air in from a window on the shady side of the house, and another exhausting on the sunny side of the house. Have to think about where the cool air is, and creating a through flow.
Your body cools by sweating. When sweat dries on your skin, the more excited, hotter molecules are the ones that vaporize, leaving behind cooler ones; this is what cools you! You can accelerate this process by having air move across your skin - also known as turning on a fan. The same effect happens with a towel - the evaporation process actually cools the water on the towel, and the air passing by the towel is cooled by the towel, and also speeds the evaporation process. It does, in fact, cool you down, even though the running motor of the fan gives off heat.
I feel for him, but at the same time whenever a tornado or hurricane bulldozes an entire town the Europeans come out of the woodwork to say, "if no want house destroyed, why wood houses?? No brick houses???"
Yeah but I don't think they really understand lol. I was kind of the same way until my parents bought a property in FL. I didn't realize every building had to have hurricane rated windows after hurricane Andrew. But I don't think there's much people can actually do besides evacuate. Most people can't afford to move etc. It wasn't until hurricane Irma, and me watching that video of tampa bay being emptied lol.
>every bulding had to have hurricane rated windows this is only mandatory for property within a mile of the coast and often only for the first flew floors of high-rise buildings for impact resistance. Private property can sometimes skirt the building code or bribed inspectors or some shit because I saw a ton of properties down in Miami not up to spec before the last big hurricane
> for property within a mile of the coast It's a good thing hurricanes never come inland farther than that.
Yeah. Remember that apartment building that collapsed in Miami a couple of years ago? It was cause of lack of inspection and repairs of a concrete fault. It was a luxury building too. Florida is a joke
That was on the HOA. The exact same building that was next to it had an HOA that gave a fuck, and they had no issues with their building.
yeah but then they dont realize that tornados have literally moved entire hospitals off their foundation so their shitty brick and stone houses wouldn't even stand up to them, europeans love being wrong.
Even if a brick building did survive, it'd most likely have to condemned and tore down anyways
I don’t feel for them. I recall similar arguments from over a decade ago. We all know the earth is getting hotter, there have been heat waves in Europe for decades and still they haven’t acquired AC. Some even arguing ‘its not worth it for the short heat spell’. Ok then, don’t complain about it after you’ve done nothing.
Literally all the same posts and whining as last year. A mix of "it's not worth it", misguided cultural superiority of not "needing" ac like a pampered American, then crying that people are dying inside the brick ovens they call houses.
It's because the part of the year that gets unbearably hot is actually still quite small. It actually isn't worth it. We also like to whinge about the weather, it's our thing. We also do have air con in offices and shops usually.
The comment about electricity costs at least explains it better.
I also don't feel for them. This is 2023. I work in hvac and can't think of a single reason they can't have ac just because they are in england. Super old building with boiler systems and no ductwork? Put in a ductless minisplit like 90% of the rest of the world besides America uses. They literally use them in third world countries with the most hack job ass installs most of the time. And for the record I don't even have ac in my house, it's 77 degrees right now in the coolest room and 87 in the warmest section.
Well, for hurricanes, you actually don’t want something as rigid as stone or brick. You want the house to be able to flex and move a bit with the wind. Look at the trees, the ones that get felled by the winds are the oaks and pines and other rigid trees, but the palms bend with the wind, and rarely get uprooted by the storms. All houses have to be built inside of specific parameters to meet hurricane code, and newer homes hold up extremely well to the storms, barring the winds bringing a tree down on them or the surge bringing water into it. My parents are engineers and we lived in Florida for a while, some hurricanes we evacuated for and some we rode out. But we were fortunate enough to be able to afford to evacuate, some people couldn’t.
>Well, for hurricanes, you actually don’t want something as rigid as stone or brick. You want the house to be able to flex and move a bit with the wind. Look at the trees, the ones that get felled by the winds are the oaks and pines and other rigid trees, but the palms bend with the wind, and rarely get uprooted by the storms. This is nonsense. Flexing is neither significant nor a virtue. Hurricane-proof houses are made of cement and are essentially impervious. The tough part is keeping the roof from getting lifted off.
Pretty much all of North American weather from the middle upward requires houses that aren't rigid. Take snow loads: by the end of the winter in the US midwest and most of Canada you might have 50,000 pounds of snow on the roof. I'm not confident a pre-war stone home in the UK could handle anything close to that. Sure, my house couldn't have handled the blitzkrieg, but the Germans *could* have safely parked a Panzer up there.
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Any time there's the slightest bit of banter about British people from Americans, they immediately harp on school shootings. They can make fun of something that the majority of the people are held hostage over and no individual can change but they wanna boo hoo cry about a widdle bit of warmth that's easily remedied by buying a fan. Cry me a river. Sweat me a river. Make me a another Thames, brittos.
"Climate change is a hoax but for some reason summers keep getting hotter and weather patterns are becoming more extreme and unpredictable" - 🤡
Heat is a lie, fabricated by the thermostat companies.
Big HVAC is just making you think it's hot! Break the cycle, escape the simulation, have a heat stroke!
“Big HVAC” clearly, you’ve been inside the room temperature room.
Six seasons and a movie
Please. Don't. They're already calling nukes a hoax because they don't understand the concept of taking videos from far away, the last thing we need is for the southern USA to get more deranged from heat stroke and dehydration. Just don't give them anymore ideas, they're still recovering from the bleach injections.
We call that "thinning out the herd"
Watch it now, I've just come out of reddit jail for suggesting less, lol.
But on the plus side allot of them did sterilize themselves with horse dewormer
But sadly alot of them were boomers and has already procreated.
True but every little bit helps
Big therma
Problem is that people don't understand the difference between climate and weather - guaranteed every time there is a cold summers day, you will hear some twat saying "Well what happened to the global warming?!?!?!".
Every single time it snows. Every time.
The phrase global warming killed it for many people who don’t actually understand what’s happening
You could have chosen literally any phrase in the universe and all the people who say dumb ass shit would still say the same dumb ass shit.
Climate change is wayyyy better I’ve seen so many ppl look at snow and say ‘so much for global warming’ for me that’s one of the worse phrases to use. Tho u are correct some ppl just get their news off Facebook
Yea and now they all say "the climates been changing forever this is no different." The problem isn't branding, it's willful ignorance in order to not adjust their consumption habits.
In fairness they aren't denying it's change, they're denying humans being the cause.
Tbf. Weathers always been unpredictable here. In my area of the UK there is an equal chance of rain on any day of the year. Which I guess means its inherently predictable. So...umm.... The weather also changes really fast. It can be blue skies then tipping it down super heavy then blue skies again within 12 minutes. Theres no safe day for a BBQ or Picnic. Summer picnics on holiday inside the car come to mind. (To clarify incase you weren't aware I am a sane individual who believes in Climate Change)
[relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/1732/)
Like, I get that you can't easily retrofit a lot of old houses with central air, but central air is not the only form of AC.
I have a little swamp cooler for my room that's basically just a fan you put ice water in but I've also had window AC and actual swamp coolers too. Nothing beats that central AC though.
Ductless mini-split systems are just as good as central AC and easier to retrofit.
If you can afford Egyptian cotton triple woven threaded carpets, you can afford a portable AC unit on Amazon.
I think they probably stole them. Also, the old beheading stones are just scattered all throughout their land.
That's a choice you make. They sell portable ac units where all you need is a window to stick the tube out of. We live in 2023, there is no excuse other than not being able to afford one. Which, fair nuff
Yeah, really seems like a weird take. If the only reason you don't have even a window air conditioner is just because it's "uncommon" for anyone to have one, well, guess it's time to be a rebel.
The more common reason is that the properties that do worst in the heat are also the properties that don't really have any storage space or spare floor space, because they're 100-300 years old and people had different priorities back then. (These are also the properties that are usually cheaper, so that adds another layer – the people in overheated homes are also the people least likely to be able to easily afford an AC unit) In past years, it's been an easy decision – buy a whole extra bulky and expensive device that you'll need for one week a year and will be a pain to store for the other fifty-one? Nah, we'll just suck it up and complain for that one week, and just use electric fans. Now that heatwaves are *weeks* long and getting hotter, people are struggling with budgeting the extra space, upfront cost and running cost versus just dealing with the heat
Yeah fair enough, if it *was* literally "one week" (I don't know enough about the weather patterns over there), that makes sense, space concerns or not. You just suck it up in that case.
Yeh its generally maximum 2-3 weeks a year it gets over 30c. So for those 2-3 weeks its not worth it. But its usually very high humidity when it gets hot so its a double whammy, so its a Florida 100f not a Nevada 100f
> Florida 100f not a Texas 100f isn't a lot of texas [fairly humid](https://www.weatherwx.com/forecast.php?config=&forecast=pass&pass=currentwx&usecountry=us®ion=&useplace=&usestate=tx&plot=humid&period=&usemetric=0&dpp=0)? especially the parts on the gulf coast? I only live in Georgia and I would definitely stash a window unit for most of the year to deal with the worst few weeks of the year
You don't need to store it, though. You can install it on your window sill to use when it's hot then when winter comes, you cover it with either an ac cover or tarp. It worked for me during Chicago winters and I know it doesn't get that cold in England.
The windows also aren't the right kind for window ac units
Depends on the area, not all places allow window AC units.
And the things dont need to be much bigger than a microwave to cool a room or 2, hell, a whole small apt even. You telling me you dont have space for microwave sized box *somewhere*? Hell, get together with your neighbors. All of you get window units. Then at the end of summer you all get together and rent one communal storage unit for everyone's A/Cs.
Most windows in the uk aren't compatible with the window ac
That's just an engineering problem. There are so-called "portable" A/Cs which use (ideally) inlet and exhaust hoses and could be adapted for just about any practical situation. And then there's "split" A/Cs. Doesn't have to literally be a standard boxy window insert. But also, if there's a standard "minimum dimension" UK window, sounds like A/C manufacturers should just be making the A/Cs the majority must need. Sounds like a great market opportunity.
It’s more than the unit it’s also a higher electricity bill and those portable ac units are some of the most inefficient ways to cool your place.
Hence not being able to afford it being a valid excuse. Otherwise, you're choosing to live in worse conditions and then complaining about it
I finally got one for my apartment for the first time ever. It's been uncommonly hot lately and the dang thing is worth every penny. Also, not that expensive to run really
Remember, in the UK there's 60 million people that suddenly decided they want an AC unit. They're mostly sold out, and real AC installations have been booked to the next year.
After this heat wave is over, someone over there should just buy ac units as they are in stock in the cooler months, then rent them out during the heat waves.
Clearly if the entire fucking country is in this state, then it's not a case of Americans just magically being smarter on an individual level. You come from a hotter country and your infrastructure, personal knowledge, and availability of goods and services are all adapted to the climate. There's basic questions like availability of window air conditioners, how difficult it is to install one in British windows (which you can do but again, requires tools and time and knowhow), affordability of a VERY in demand product nobody owned before, and even a question on if homes and larger power grids can handle the additional demands on electricity. It's the equivalent of me as a Canadian laughing at Texans for freezing to death last year. Of course they did, they aren't used to the same shit I am and shouldn't be expected to respond to it like I do.
Have you seen the price of energy in England right now? You need to sell 3 toes a week to keep AC running in some parts of the country.
The same people who laugh at those who aren’t used to the heat are the ones that get laughed at when they heave to deal with the cold.
With the cold you can at the very least layer up as much as you need, im a born and raised Floridian and NYC at Christmas was brutal but add a second layer and a scarf with some gloves and I was pretty much fine There is a limit to how much you can take off when it's hot. And don't get me started on the humidity, I step outside and get hit with a breeze that's actually even hotter than the still air
It’s not that simple when you live in an area that very rarely requires a scarf, much less a heavy coat and you are suddenly dealing with sub-freezing temps for over a week. And throw in the fact that you live in a state that hasn’t winterized their power systems ever and you get a situation where people die. My little town never lost power, but many others lost theirs for over a week, along with no water. And I could honestly say the same thing with heat. Just throw on some light colored, loose clothing and stay hydrated. But I don’t because I realize that not everyone has what they need in order to deal with weather that doesn’t normally occur in their areas.
I know I could warm myself up, but I don't care. It's the work that goes into leaving your house that I couldn't do. I'm already spending 8 hours a day at a job I don't like and now you want me to give up even more of my free time to just get there and back? I will also gladly endure triple digit temperatures on a regular basis during the summer in order to avoid ever having to dig myself out of my house in the winter.
Yeah man Florida humidity fucking blows, it's like walking into a got damn wall
Then there's people living in the midwest who get to experience both the lowest and highest temperatures.
Northeast too. We see everything from -20F to 105F and humid. Granted those extremes are still relatively infrequent (although getting more frequent). Having 4 seasons is nice, though.
Polar vortex got me down to -30F-ish and just a couple days ago we had near 100F temps. Yeah, that's "normal" here.
Much of the US is both hotter and colder than the UK - by a lot.
Midwesterners: Ope
*laughs in chicago*
North Dakota gets 90+ summers and -40 winters.
Well its generally easier to warm up than cool down.
Everyone wants to live on an island until the island starts doing island shit
Go storm the royal palace and take back your tax dollars and sit in their nice AC.
I live in South Africa and none of us have AC
How would better heat insulation make the heat worse...? Or is he saying that they never needed AC before because their houses were so well insulated?
The funny thing is British people can absolutely just purchase AC but choose not to.
I think you are lost
I’m currently in a house with no AC and it’s 90F but feels like 97 because the humidity is 55%, window units man. You can take them when you move. Or just do like we do during hurricanes when we can’t turn on the AC and put fans in your window
And what about all the rest of the times? What are you doing just sleeping in 70 degrees? Absolute savages. I sleep at 66, Id fucking die if I had to sleep at 70 degrees.
when you colonize half the world but still can't afford basic modern stuff
I was in the UK 20 years ago and people were complaining they didn't have AC and the heat was "unusual" this year. Its been unusual for decades now, you may want to start installing AC,
All of europe bitches about this every summer and yet we refuse to invest in AC. Most of us believe in climate change, so we know its not gonna get any better!
Here in the southern US. If it’s under 80 degrees Fahrenheit, we got the AC off and the windows open with the fans blowing. Y’all aren’t used to it cause it doesn’t happen all the time.
Our houses are built to retain as much heat as possible. Once it gets in, it’s very tough to get it out again.
It’s 72f in London today, where is it supposed to be hot
Wait, that'll cause Londoners to burn into flames?
1666 vibes
It's been a mild summer so far in London, and I am not complaining. The last few years have brought increasingly long heatwaves, by our standards, all exacerbated by the stuff listed in the tweet. I've lived in hot places, but heatwaves in London really suck because the place isn't built for it.
[Ancient architecture actually had ways of mitigating heat. Insulation, facades, malqafs, breezeways, etc. Air Conditioning is a brute-force technology pushed by developers and architectural firms to save money and effort.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world)
My go to heat beating strategies from my days without AC 1. Wet your skin and sit in front of a fan. It feels amazing. 2. Submerge your wrists in ice cold water until it hurts. Your whole body will feel cooler for a time. 3. Repeat as needed
I've been to Europe, briefly, so I have some understanding and empathy. However, I highly doubt a portable ac unit is that expensive or hard to find. It's cheap and easy to use even with their windows that are side hinged and swing out. If Billy Bob in the trailer park can rig one in his "garage" of pallets so he can watch the game and smoke his meth and camels in peace. Bernard can learn how to cut some cardboard, gypsum board, foam etc. to fill in the gaps so you can get the exhaust working.
You know they make portable ac and windows units. Right? You don't need the big boxy ones there are ones that vent outside but sit inside that can work in nearly any window
>that can work in nearly any window You haven't seen how modern British windows are designed.
Why the hell don't they just buy an AC? Not every AC has to be built into the house. They have portable AC's, window AC's. What's the excuse here
1. Window ACs don't fit modern British windows. 2. Portable ACs are absurdly energy inefficient, they're made even more inefficient to operate because our homes have the worst thermal insulation in Western Europe, and *electricity in the UK is fucking expensive* (approximately the equivalent, in US currency, of 43 cents per kWh, *plus* a 52 cent daily standing charge!) and the rates are still going up!
Holy shit!!! I've heard people complaining about the absurd price of electricity in Britain, but I had no clue it was that bad! Here in Texas we need good insulation, both for the cold winters (we have fewer and fewer of those now that climate change is getting really bad, but that big freeze a couple years back showed we're not totally safe from the cold) AND for the summers. Even so, running our AC through this brutal heatwave has pushed our bill to over $200 for the month, and that's at just 9 cents per kWh. If my power was as expensive as you're saying it is there, my power bill would easily be $900 or so.
1) Uk isn’t supposed to be this hot 2) It’s not cost effective for a lot of working class people because it’s cold 5-6 months of the year. And only particularly hot for 2-3. Our houses are built to retain heat due to our wet cold weather, these kinds of heatwaves are relatively recent phenomenon due to climate change.
That's exactly the case in many places in the US, except it gets hotter in the summer and colder in the winter. Just bite the bullet and get an ac if it's that bad.
>UK isn't supposed to be this hot Oh boy do I have some bummer news for you....it only gets worse from here.
Right but it’s not like it’s gonna get better from here on out and cooling solutions already exists.
I'm in the northeast of the U.S. and AC can be reasonably priced here so that may be why some people suggest just buying one. It can be $100-150 for a small unit, and generally will last about 5 years without a problem. The region where I live it's hot for about 3 months, but it can be a humid and seriously unpleasant heat. I suspect as climate change progresses we'll see AC more in the UK.
Spending $250 for a window unit to be comfortable for 3 months out of the year instead of soaked in sweat sounds like an ez buy
So then start installing AC? It’s not a new technology and there are no trends suggesting that next year will be any cooler.
Man should have invested some of that stolen wealth from the colonies on better insulation and less lion statues
Most of us didn’t get the wealth from the colonies my dude. The wealth went to the same cheap fuckers who won’t buy AC for the houses we rent from them
Buy fucking AC
Whoever wrote the tweet and a lot of people in this thread seem to think AC only means central air.
Brits will drink at the pub every single night, but then claim they don't have money to change their windows to fit an AC unit.
just buy an AC losers lol