[rescbr]

Solar panels + cooling + heating heat pump is the most logical combination as we are past the point of no return on global warming.

And there's no need to be like the Americans that cool down to 18°C when the outside is > 35°C: simply decreasing the indoor temperature to saner numbers like 26°C is enough, it's summer after all. Less energy usage and it is enough for the body to be happy.

[bigstrat2003]

Americans aren't cooling their homes to 64F in the summer, I have no idea where you get that idea. Generally people will cool their homes to somewhere around 72-78F, which is 22.22-25.56C.

[topgrain2]

I do at night, just for the bedroom. Need it to sleep well. I Keep it around 75-78 in the house in the daytime, on hot days, and just dress for it, no problem then.

I've lived in a house with no AC and even slept outside on a hammock on the hottest days (luckily that was a house built in the 19-teens so it could cope with AC-less heat better than modern houses, but still, on nights when your nighttime lows were still in the high 70s and the air wasn't moving, outdoors was cooler than indoors) and I didn't acclimate, I just only got like 3 hours of sleep a night when it was hot, every single time it was hot.

Need the cold for sleep. I'd have to move farther north for my own sanity if not for AC (and I'm already far enough north I only need AC to achieve low-60s nighttime temps for 60-70 nights per year). I could lay off it a little if work didn't still expect me to function when it's hot, but they do.

[krunck]

In my experience very few Americans set their A/C to anything above 75F.

[bigstrat2003]

It's hard to accurately generalize an entire country, of course. But in my experience people generally are in the range I stated. I'm sure that there exist people who turn their AC down below 70F, but I've never personally encountered one. And even the low end of my range, 72F, is uncommon in my experience.

[antonyt]

In my experience they absolutely do. The houses by and large aren't very well designed or insulated, and electricity isn't that cheap. In the southeast I rarely see home thermostats set to the 60s or low 70s. Office settings are a different question, though.

[Lwerewolf]

+ it lowers humidity and moves air.

[jurgenburgen]

> Solar panels + cooling + heating heat pump is the most logical combination as we are past the point of no return on global warming.

I’ve been feeling confused lately about the news that the far-right parties in UK & France want more AC and the left-wing complain it’s not solving the root problems.

Are people just not aware that heat pumps are a great solution for both heating and cooling, saving energy on heating during winter?

[ragazzina]

> Are people just not aware that heat pumps are a great solution

In my European country, people struggle to buy houses, nobody is rushing to do a full house renovation.

Furthermore, the consensus is: heat pumps are great for a new home or a full renovation. Installing a heat pump with old-style radiators makes no sense, because the heat pump heats to a low temperature.

[ZeroGravitas]

That's mostly outdated info, modern heat pumps can heat to high temps. They are more efficient if run at lower temps but so are condensing gas boilers, which are the most directly competing technology.

[rescbr]

You can keep the radiators in place when using mini-split heat pumps..

[ZeroGravitas]

Tech to combine radiator based heat pump heating with cooling is relatively new to the market.

I would have assumed air-con was standard in new built homes in southern Europe and less so once you get to more northern places where the load is mostly heating.

Then there are refits, which add another dimension of cost and difficulty.

[subscribed]

Far right parties want more fossil fuels burning for cooling and heating (more coal, more gas, more oil, more water pollution).

And I think that parties saying burning more fossil fuels doesn't fix the problem, like, at all, aren't particularly wrong? And they're also the ones trying to push for more solar/wind energy generation and more heat pumps (that can heat in the winter and cool in the summer).

Not sure what you're trying to convey or where you're taking your data from?

[petre]

The leftists are free to sweat or freeze to the point of exhaustion then. Modern AC units with heat pumps are just great. I'm going to install one myself soon.