Related and a little ironic: houses in northern Europe nowadays typically have "AC" in the form of air-to-air heat pumps that both can heat and cool. Houses in southern and central Europe dramatically lag behind in terms of adoption.
And all of those Europeans that had comments about the Texas ERCOT warnings of heavy loads during extreme weather. Although, it's been a while since I've received notices/requests to adjust the use even if they were bump it up a few degrees vs turn it off.
Imagine offices- who have temperatures of 30+ directly beneath the roof. AC where the heat-exchangers are built inside the buildings and other nonsense on top. Europe is so not ready, while preaching to the world about getting ready.
Oh, we definitely hate them A LOT in Belgium, for what they did to the historic district. The revamped EU district is an ugly, inefficient, traffic-heavy abomination. It’s crazy that we destroyed all the Art Deco and Art Nouveau townhouses to make space for the EU’s steel-and-glass nonsense.
"even with working AC, the temperature inside was still 25.7 degrees."
So 78F. I wonder what temp the lower/non-AC floors are at. It's reasonable if they want to prevent the upper floors from becoming insanely hot, since hot air rises.
Just adding some context on the AC and the building as well which was explained by journalist David Carretta (who follows EU politics, written in Italian) here https://x.com/davcarretta/status/2071592636260012175.
To summarise, AC was turned off floor by floor, with the switch off starting from 16:00 over a Friday, a time when most administrative personnel is getting off work for the weekend. The entire building had AC switched off by the end of the day, including the upper floors. Note that AC was working fine this Monday.
If the people in the lower decks were allowed to go home, I don't see the issue.
If they were forced to work without air conditioning and it was me, I would go to a doctor, tell them I am suffering from heat exhaustion, and get a voucher for not returning to work until the situation gets fixed.
What really appalls me is that they have now started to blame Americans for the heatwave that the hot air from AC units are to blame and doubling down on their insistence that AC are harmful to the climate and telling people to not use AC.
I really think that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back moment for EU. Right now people are learning that EU = unbearable heat and other things.
Air conditioning weirdness around the EU: I live in the EU and everyone I know, including not too well off people on benefits and pensions, have aircon. I have multiple houses and dozens of aircons, but many friends in small apartments have them too, mostly since covid. In one house I have them running summer and winter 247 and the electric bill is still below 100E, way lower than people with swimming pools.
This is Daily Mail (or Fox News for fellow Americans) level tripe, and you can be almost sure of this just based on the title. Designed for dopamine maximization.
don't wanna sound like shill but for all people claiming you need some permit when installing one they should look into something like Midea PortaSplit - it's portable, but at same time it's like your regular multisplit unit, much more efficient
personally I have at home Toshiba, father has Mitsubishi, but when living in China had experiences with all major Chinese brands like Gree, Midea, Haier, etc. and would have zero worries about their quality, they produce shitton of them for CN market
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 62.0 ms ] threadIt's like satire. What is AC for if not extreme heat?
Discussion, common sense requires discussion. All you need to know about them in one sentence.
Nothing specific to the European commission though, we just don't hate mainstream architects enough
Ground level and basement floors have been known as the coolest places in skyscrapers for centuries.
Kinda weird though even for Europe that a high profile 10+ floor commercial building doesn’t have suitable climate control
So 78F. I wonder what temp the lower/non-AC floors are at. It's reasonable if they want to prevent the upper floors from becoming insanely hot, since hot air rises.
To summarise, AC was turned off floor by floor, with the switch off starting from 16:00 over a Friday, a time when most administrative personnel is getting off work for the weekend. The entire building had AC switched off by the end of the day, including the upper floors. Note that AC was working fine this Monday.
If they were forced to work without air conditioning and it was me, I would go to a doctor, tell them I am suffering from heat exhaustion, and get a voucher for not returning to work until the situation gets fixed.
I really think that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back moment for EU. Right now people are learning that EU = unbearable heat and other things.
I set my AC to 26 degrees. Otherwise it feels too cold.
https://youtu.be/x-HBsT6GmMs?t=69
personally I have at home Toshiba, father has Mitsubishi, but when living in China had experiences with all major Chinese brands like Gree, Midea, Haier, etc. and would have zero worries about their quality, they produce shitton of them for CN market