Air conditioning in hotels/Airbnbs in Paris

I would not stay in Paris from the middle of June to the beginning of August without air conditioning and I am a person who is usually cold. You can find historical temperatures in Paris in June online but I think that it feels hotter than the reported averages. It is tougher to find apartments with air conditioning than it is to find a hotel room with it but if you use booking.com, one of the filters is air conditioning.

You shouldn't have trouble finding an air conditioned hôtel unless you're looking under three stars.
Airbnbs are a crapshoot and I don't understand the appeal when on vacation.

It can get hot in June. Especially for American standards. Last summer the first heat wave was in June

I wouldn't stay anywhere in Paris from June 1 to mid September without AC. I'm surprised you're not finding hotels with AC. Apartments are a different story. Good luck in your search!

If you stay in 3 or 4 star hotels , you can pretty much count on the availability of AC. I stay only in 2 star hotels in Paris and will there next summer. Airb&b is not an option in Paris.

Yes, in recent years the summer months as early as beginning of June have been very hot. We were in Paris the second week of June this year. The coolest temp was 85 F, and several days reached mid-90s F. Air conditioning isn't common in France, as it is viewed as unhealthy and bad for the planet. Since Paris is a city of stone and concrete these temps can feel even hotter.

We were there in April before ac was turned on in our hotel. Temps were in the 80s and it was uncomfortably warm. I would definitely get ac in June. Use a booking site with ac as a filter. I can recommend Citadines St. Germain. Perfect location, large rooms with kitchenettes, laundry machines in the basement, and ac (just not in April!).

It would be rare to find AC in an apartment and when it is offered it is often one of those worthless portable 'penquino' type units not a properly installed unit. Many buildings ban them or don't allow them to be run at night because of the noise. It is rare to find an AirBNB with effective AC.

Hotels may have it but it may not be what you are used to in the US -- We have had hotel rooms with central AC that barely takes the edge off. This is an area where the cost and rating of the hotel matter.

We were in an apartment in the 20th during the notorious heat wave of August 2003. We normally avoid travel in summer but my husband had a sabbatical and this was a time I could also take off without impacting my income -- it reminded us of why we don't travel in summer in Europe.

I just picked 15 June randomly. You can click on the years for the temps each year and you can see the average. Kind of interesting as the temps are all over the mapy year to year. https://weatherspark.com/h/d/47913/2024/6/16/Historical-Weather-on-Sunday-June-16-2024-in-Paris-France#Figures-Temperature

If you are staying in a period building AirBnb in Paris I am surprised about some of the comments. I am surprised because I live in one; but not in Paris. I have airconditionng as do most of my neighbors and compared to Paris I live in a very poor city so I am surprised that they dont have AC in Paris. As for how well the AC works, first the old period buildings have walls so thick that the inside temperature rarely reaches the daily high or the daily low temperature. Something called thermal mass moderates things a bit. So we dont have to run the AC more than a few hours a day, even on a hot day.

The small portable air conditioning units sold these days do a pretty fair job. They sit in a corner with a pipe out the window. They arent noisy. The mini-split units are the ones with the thing hanging outside the building or sitting on the balcony. Unsightly they are often banned in historic areas (thankfully) but where they do exist, they work as good as anything in the US and I dont see them as being noisy. Then there are the few apartments and hotel rooms that have a thru the wall AC unit. Again, they work well enough for a 500 sf apartment and arent noisy.

I used to design buildings, so I know the deal with the AC in hotels. Especially hotels in cities like Paris where electricity is so expensive. That knob on the thermostat if you turn it 360 degrees it is probably only 1C in variation. So maybe 25C to 26C.

Apartments rarely have air conditioning. It was determined long ago to be overly costly (a waste of precious energy resources) and not particularly healthy. The thick limestone walls of most buildings take several days to really heat up and by then, the temperature has often receded a bit. During extended periods of heat (canicule), many roll out the portable coolers and exhaust them using the chimney. No chimney and you´ll need to use a window, very unsightly. These units tend to cool sufficiently for sleeping.

The chambres de bonne were typically placed in the attic, under the zinc roofs. If your airbnb happens to be in one of these rooms, in the heat you´ll bake like a pan of muffins.

Tourists should stay in hotels, most of which now have central cooling.

Since Paris is a city of stone and concrete these temps can feel even hotter.

You can eliminate the word "can" from that sentence.

"Since Paris is a city of stone and concrete these temps feel even hotter."

100%

I stayed in an upstairs room of Hotel Des Grande Ecoles on a June day that was not all that hot -- maybe 80 F -- the room which had no cross ventilation measured in the high 90s during the day and didn't cool down below 80 at night although the outside was cooler.

Re the portable 'Penquinos' that hang a pipe out the window -- we have had those twice - once in Rome and once in Paris. Both times the units were musty and we couldn't use them without being inundated with mold. Never again.

The other issue in Paris is the zinc roofs, which are great to look at but hell to live under. It gets very very toasty, esp. since you're already on the top floor of the building. Back in the day only the "help" lived up there so no one cared.

Above post by Travel by Zen sent in for review. Both his posts promote the same company.