Why Germans don't have air conditioning

In France, it's 25% of the homes have air conditioning. But until these recent years, the heatwaves were an anomaly. From 1947 to 2010, 63 years, there were 25 heatwaves in France. But from 2011 to 2025, 14 years, there have been 26 heatwaves. They are now four times more prevalent and our balmy summers are a thing of the past. Gone is the June that I turned on the oven in my Paris kitchen, dressed in a trench coat and boots, so I could stay warm enough to grade papers. Just a couple of decades ago, I was looking to buy a sweater in June because I had forgotten one, and fifteen years ago, I turned on the furnace the evening of July 14th because it was cold. We always had hot days interspersed, but not continuous heatwaves rolling in out of Africa.

Even the ecologist in France are now in favor of air conditioning schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.

I read somewhere that something around 20% of US electricity generation is used to run air conditioning. Since most electricity in the US is generated by burning fossil fuel, that's just 20% more production of global warming emissions. Until we get to 100% renewable energy, AC is just going to contribute massively to global warming.

It's not only the emissions that contribute, it's the contribution to the overall heat in the environment from the energy used by air conditioners. Air conditioners move heat from inside your house to the outside air. (Go out and stand next to the outside unit of your AC system and feel the hot air coming from the condenser. That's heat from your house plus some heat from the electricity it takes to run your system.) Every kWh of electricity your unit uses (read your bill in the summer vs winter) adds ~3400 BTUs of heat to the environment. Actually, it worse than that, because, if you are using fossil fuel generated electricity, the power that's used to run you home unit adds twice as much heat energy at power plant as it does at your home. Notice the steam coming off of the cooling towers. That's waste heat being added to the world at the power plant.

Now, I have solar panels, and during the summer, no matter how hard I run my AC, I never have to pay for electricity. The best part of that is that the panels are on my roof. They shade the roof, reducing the amount of AC I need, and the solar energy they are keeping from heating my home is running the AC! Win-win.

I live in Colorado. Hot days feel less hot hear because of our low humidity. Right now it's 97°F outside, 80° F inside, and I don't feel at all hot.

I do kind of regret that my house has air conditioning. My neighbor has what they call here a "swamp cooler" (evaporative cooler) on his roof. Swamp coolers work well in Colorado, other than you have to winterize (drain) them in the fall. They not only cool the house for far less money, but they also add humidity, which is too low here. For some reason, they don't work as well in Florida.

Russ, that was interesting. When I bought my flat in Budapest 15 years ago and renovated it, I added air conditioning. To do that I had to bring new electrical service to the apartment building to have enough power for it. Mine was the first out of about 40 units to have air conditioning. Now maybe half have air conditioning. In Texas electricity is about 15 cents/kwh, here its about 30 cents so we try to not run it very often.

I posted a trick for passive/solar cooling a while back that was used (is still?) in Iran. Turns out there are many more tricks like that for passive cooling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

[snip]
A windcatcher, wind tower, or wind scoop (Persian: بادگیر, romanized: Badgir) is a traditional architectural element used to create cross ventilation and passive cooling in buildings.[1] Windcatchers come in various designs, depending on whether local prevailing winds are unidirectional, bidirectional, or multidirectional, on how they change with altitude, on the daily temperature cycle, on humidity, and on how much dust needs to be removed.[2] Despite the name, windcatchers can also function without wind.

Neglected by modern architects in the latter half of the 20th century, the early 21st century saw them used again to increase ventilation and cut power demand for air-conditioning.[3] Generally, the cost of construction for a windcatcher-ventilated building is less than that of a similar building with conventional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

When posting this, my thoughts were of course with Europeans but focused mostly on my fellow travelers to Germany (and to other places in northern Europe) where a/c installations have been largely avoided for many decades. Like Elizabeth, I remember summer months there as mostly comfortable in decades past. Yesterday, Berlin hit 95 degrees at 4 pm - with 98% humidity, and the rest of the country was similarly impacted. Visitors to big cities like Berlin of course can find indoor escapes during the day. And at night, a fair number of them will feel happy that they booked a modern hotel room with a/c. But those looking to enjoy places with an outdoors orientation like the Black Forest, the Odenwald, The Romantic Road villages, or the Rhine/Mosel Valleys - places with few if any a/c-equipped indoor venues - are pretty much stuck during the day. And at nighttime, the accommodations in these places, many of them in a/c-free older buildings like you'll find in Bacharach or in Cochem, will be sweltering too; many of my favorite accommodations - and probably those of bigtyke and Lee, who also tend to use private accommodations and Ferienwohnungen in these areas - are probably unbearable right now.

Three years ago, as I planned a Budapest stay in late May, I came across quite a few private apartments with a/c, booked one of them, and was really glad I did. I hope - and suspect - that there will be more and more private German homeowners and hosts doing as "Mr É 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇭🇺" has done, but right now, as the article points out, only 6% of private homes have a/c.

I think Rick still suggests staying north of the Alps in summer. But I usually avoid summer travel in northern Europe now. I get crabby when it's too hot, whether day or night. After a couple of really unpleasant (just ask my wife) summer nights a few years ago, I decided that any future summer travel would forego the more local/homespun/mom & pop lodgings in favor of an impersonal chain hotel - or the occasional private operation that has geared up with a/c.

By the way, Lee, I LOVE swamp coolers! They work great here too. But in Germany they'd be as useful as a screwdriver on nails, I'm afraid.

Here in Budapest I read where about 35% of homes have a/c The numbers might be that good because over 85% of the locals live in a house owned by one of the occupants of the house and because in some neighborhoods the short term rental market made a/c economically feasible.

But we arent talking American style central air. I have never seen that here. Either portable units with exhausts through holes in windows or single and multi-zone mini splits. Usually nothing larger than 1 ton and usually marginal compared to US standards.

My 1 ton unit costs about $5 a day to keep the flat under 80F. That doubles my electric bill on my tiny flat.

Air movement helps to a point but air movement doesnt cool the air it just causes the human body swamp cooler (sweat) to be more effective. You might get a 100F degree day to feel like 90F. At 85F it's very effective which is why i suggest people go to the river on hot days. The "sea breeze" and the cooling effect of the water evaporation makes the river front real nice on a hot day. Works on any river so good general travel advice.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/frances-heat-this-week-was-worse-than-a-dire-scenario-imagined-for-2050/ar-AA26wuoB

"France's Heat This Week Was Worse Than a Dire Scenario Imagined For 2050"

[snip]
The forecast was recorded in 2014 as part of a campaign coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that invited about 60 presenters worldwide to imagine a weather report from the year 2050. In one clip, Ãvelyne Dhéliat from French television network TF1 presented a hypothetical scenario of high temperatures 36 years into the future — during a heat wave in a warmer climate in 2050... One of the maps that Dhéliat shared was lit up in shades of orange, filled with temperature predictions of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), reaching as high as 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

But it turns out, it didn't take 36 years for those imagined temperatures to be reached — and even exceeded. The heat on Wednesday alone, when the temperature soared as high as 112.3 degrees Fahrenheit (44.3 degrees Celsius), exceeded the 2050 projections in 19 out of 34 locations across mainland France — far sooner than some may have expected. Some places surpassed those hypothetical future temperatures by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

It was hotter in France on Wednesday than in Las Vegas and Phoenix and just two degrees Fahrenheit shy of what was observed in Death Valley, California...

Climate scientist Robert Rohde said in a post explaining the heat wave's causes that France and Western Europe should expect many more heat waves like this over the coming decades. "This isn't a fluke, but simply part of the new normal," he said.