Honestly from someone that has a lot of trouble dealing with the heat I hope people become more aware of how dangerous heat can become. So tired of hearing people complain about the cold like the heat is aways good. I don’t have a heater, in fact I can sleep with the windows open in negative temperatures (celsius) but I NEED an air conditioner in the summer, but people always complain like is some sort of luxury, no is not, I don’t tell people during the winter that heating is a luxury despite the fact that I don’t have any heating
Same!
I also hate the term ‘lovely weather’ for such hot days. Lovely and people dieing from heat exhaustion is an awkward combo.
Exactly, wildfires everywhere, people dying, food spoiling and making people sick, UV radiation increasing your chances of skin cancer, everything and everyone smells bad from the sweat. Not “lovely” at all, specialy cause there’s not much you can do to protect yourself, unlike the cold, good clothes won’t save you
This guy has obviously never seen my hat with a built in fan.
S/ obviously we are all going to cook as these heatwaves get more common.
Cold is objectively better than heat. There are many cheap and easy ways to heat yourself up that can be applied in most situations, compared to cooling yourself down where you’re basically down to an AC or a fan.
Yeah, I live in the southern US where it gets proper hot, and I definitely prefer the cold. You can always put more layers on. Generating heat is extremely easy from an engineering standpoint. There are even ways to do it chemically for things like reusable hand warmers.
But holy hell, when it’s hot hot, there are only so many things you can do to avoid it. Unlike the cold, there is a limit to how many layers you can take off. And if you’re in the sun, taking off layers may actually make you hotter in the long term.
And SWEAT!!!
This means that safety from extreme heat is a privilege not a right.
Access to A/C for everyone is a progressive measure.
Sounds like “the plan” is working then. The poors die of heat stroke, dehydration, or other ill effects of climate change so the rich have a smaller population to subdue.
Ventilation shutdown - not just for chickens and pigs anymore
A/C for everyone is not a need. I live in a considerably warmer place than England, never had an A/C and never desired one. I live just fine and don’t feel the need for an extra appliance cluttering my home. Most people around here do just fine without A/C.
Houses are built according to the needs of the place where they are built.
This is indeed a problem happening right now, this is a good temporary solution. I do believe a better structural solution to this problem may be required, but I don’t think that would be to add A/C to all houses.
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As an Aussie visiting Europe that regularly deals with these temperatures… This is so much more uncomfortable than an Aussie summer. But it’s an easy fix: make AC a standard measure (the amount of shops and restaurants here that are high 30s INSIDE is something I’ve never seen before), make free drinking water a legal requirement, and make public toilets a thing too (so people don’t need to worry about hydrating!)
Most places where I lived in Europe do have drinking fountains spread around and public toilets. Regarding A/C… I have never seen it as something required, a bit of a luxury to me. And I did live in places over 50°C without A/C.
Always wonder what would have happened if the government put the energy it put into arresting people for demanding better insulation, into better insulation instead of arresting them.
That’s commie talk, son.
just wait until data centers 1. take all the electricity 2. cause heat islands 3. make utility bill go up 4x
American Southerner, here, and I feel for y’all. Be safe.
And people wonder why the birth rate is falling. You gotta spend extra money just to keep your children from overheating from global warming.
no one is wondering
it’s all corporate fud trying to keep the plates spinning
*Rich parents
You can book a cheap premier inn for about £45 a night in the UK.
Sure it’s still expensive, but the occasional splurge to get a comfortable nights sleep seems more cost effective than buying and running your own air con
A small window air conditioner is something like $200 here in the US.
hits Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Frigidaire-FHWC063TC1-Conditioner-Electronic-Controls/dp/B0CFYG2511
I mean, I’m not saying that a hotel room is unreasonable as a last minute thing — like, it’s a heatwave and I want to be in a cool environment within the hour — but in all seriousness, an air conditioner is gonna pay for itself pretty quickly if all you want is a cool room to sleep in and not the other things a hotel provides.
That style probably won’t fit in a window throughout much of Europe. Portable A/Cs can be used with a window adapter, but I think they’re usually more expensive. Also the efficiency tanks.
And when it’s your child’s well being in play, you may spend a bit more than you otherwise would
Stories like this make me wish I knew how to make people care as much about things that actually matter as they do about whatever mean thing a politician said the other day.
TBF the mean politicians are often climate change deniers as well.
Don’t worry everyone, this heatwave will scare people into walking more and eating less beef and the global temperatures will start falling. In a year or two it will be back to normal.
Big industry is what needs to change though.
Does the UK not even sell window unit acs? Or are they like super expensive over there? In the states you can buy a small one for like $200.
Window unit ACs work well when your windows open by sliding. Most US windows are that way, but UK windows are almost always hinged at the sides or tops which makes mounting a window unit effectively impossible.
So either you have to get an expensive fully plumbed-in unit, or a portable unit that stays inside the room and has vent hoses going out your window. Which are not ideal either.
It’s been the case to now that extreme heat has been rare enough and short enough in duration that everyone has simply dealt with it. When it’s 5 days in a year then you suffer a bit but quickly forget about it afterwards.
But times are changing, and we will have to soon change the way our homes are designed too.
I know homes were built to hold in heat over there. I never thought about their being a different style of window.
Sounds like it’s simply an engineering issue that nobody has bothered to solve. You could 100% design a window unit that would fit a hinged window. But no company has bothered to do so.
You could always do a heat pump mini-split system instead. Those only require a single hole drilled to the exterior, which then gets used to run hoses into the house from the head unit. The whole thing can usually be installed in a few hours, because it’s basically “drill hole, bolt everything down where it needs to go, run hoses and power, seal hole with expanding foam”
At this point just buy a portable AC if you want it so badly. Yes they are mostly single hose units which are less efficient. But so what? The extra power bill is nothing to hotel tickets.
I don’t know how it is in the UK currently, but here in the NL there aren’t any ACs in stock anywhere. They’re all sold out.
True to a degree that is an issue too. I really need to get a window net so I can open the windows without letting the cat out. A powerful fan might also be useful as my current fan is getting old and a bit shit, bearings are probably a bit fucked.
I recommend getting some window restrictors rather than messing about with netting. There is a company called Beego that makes them, they are meant for kids but are perfect for cats too. I use them and recommended them to my friends with house cats, they use them now and it’s so much more convenient than using netting.
They look like this:
That seems like more enough space for a cat to get out. And if you make the opening even smaller you might as well keep the window closed.
It may seem that way from a picture that it’s enough space for a cat to get out, but I’m telling you from experience it isn’t! Purely a recommendation based on myself having two house cats and using these on 6 different windows in my house, and a variety of friends having used them with their cats too.
Not sure about the UK but in mainland Europe our windows can already be put into “tilt”, though usually horizontally. But it’s still not save for cats.
PSA: If they tilt from the bottom (such that the top opens up), this is actually very dangerous for cats.
https://animalaxy.co.uk/the-silent-killer-in-your-home-how-tilted-windows-suffocate-cats-in-minutes/
Ah that’s fair! Yeah in the UK a lot of homes have casement windows where these things work great.
don’t you need nets for mosquitos anyway?
They’re not really a thing where I’ve lived in the UK, at least I’ve not seen them in the 35+ years I’ve lived in the country! I wonder if climate change will affect that eventually?
We have them, they just don’t carry lethal diseases so people aren’t vigilant. You probably don’t notice them.
We have mosquitoes, but have eradicated malaria so it’s not a standard thing to have nets.
in eastern europe we take measures to keep them out. they don’t spread malaria here but they cause small mosquito bites, which are itching and if you scratch them the itch becomes worse. I thought mosquitos do that everywhere.
Best time to buy ac is in winter.
I bought mine in February for the purpose of heating my apartment without gas. It was installed by March.
Now I can count myself lucky that I have at least some relief from the heatwave in my office. (I’m only cooling the office during the day and the bedroom at night in order to save on electricity at the moment. There is no need to cool rooms which I’m not using)
I suppose if you haven’t planned for the heat, and then ac units are all sold out everywhere, a hotel is an option
If you have nobody in your community with AC who will help. Holy shit this is bleak.
AC hasn’t been a thing here.
Sure, if you’re somewhere like the US which has heavily subsidised energy bills, but electricity is twice the cost in Britain. Then you’d need to replace your windows to accommodate the AC. You’d have to find somewhere that sells them too.
Sure AC units are largely out of stock, this week. Buy one when they are available again over the following months. If you are only cooling a single room instead of an entire house (similar applies to heating tbh) the costs are not that high either.
SUBSIDIZE HEATPUMPS!
You don’t need to. In Spain you can buy air source heat pumps split units that cost less than the installation, and that will heat in the winter for 1/3-1/4 the cost of any other heating method.
What’s Spain got to do with it though?
Costs should be in the same range. Also, in the UK, heat pumps have an immense advantage in the UK. They can double as a dehumidifier.
Well sleeping babies have a dramatically higher chance of sudden death above a certain temperature. So yeah, keep your newborns cool.
The WHO regional director for Europe stated that over 200000 people died from heat (and mostly preventably) in the last four years.
The world is cooking, and we are doing what?
Running away
EDIT: oh my God, did the people misunderstand me
I was speaking generally, as this being the consequence, not saying smtn else
well, you still have to deal with the emergency here, I don’t know what you’re supposed to do against heat, punch it in the face?
Otherwise yeah, there’s a lot of things in general to do, but it’s depressing when you see around you that a big proportion of people don’t care and a lot of them are the one that could change things faster
EDIT: oh my God, did the people misunderstand me
I was speaking generally, as this being the consequence, not saying smtn else
But yeah people dont care enough to do some change, but they do complain… im one of them, for now
True, those babies should really work on climate change instead.
EDIT: oh my God, did the people misunderstand me
I was speaking generally, as this being the consequence, not saying smtn else
