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by reichstein 26 days ago
> https://www.build.aau.dk/report-from-aau-warns-danish-homes-...

The Danish Building code has requirements for retaining heat in the house, which is great in the cold winters, but devastating in the heart of modern summers. Combined with rules that practically require large south-facing windows to satisfy the total energy requirement limits, it gets very, very hot. And air conditioning subtracts significantly from your energy rating, making it almost impossible to include AC in a new building and satisfy the emission rating that any new building must satisfy.

The code allows only 25 hours a year where indoor temperature exceeds 28 degrees, but the validation of a building uses old temperature data, so on practice it's more hours of higher temperatures, and for houses that, even if you want to add AC later, wasnt designed for that.

Abs to add insult to injury, if you renovate an older building, you _can_ be required to bring it up to modern specs. That can be so expensive that it's cheaper to tear it down and build a new building. Because you can't do something half-good?

The building code _is_ a real problem, and changes ... well, haven't happened yet, so the buildings built today will be unlivable for as long as they stand in the new hotter summers.

1 comments

Practices that retain heat usually also retain cold, or?
Yes. I don't get that hang up. I bought new apartment in 2024. It has triple pane windows, and 20cm of styrofoam on the external walls.

I can cool down entire 70 square meters apartment with single 3.5kw split; that has worked well in the recent 40 degree heatwave. It does not even use "higher gears" to maintain the 24-25 degrees inside.

Not to mention it's usage overwhelmingly correlates with sunshine availability.

Only if you have cold to retain...