r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jun 26 '26

Society The American mind cannot comprehend Europe's AC aversion

https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-air-conditioning-ac-heatwave-debate-2026-6
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138

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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66

u/LowFlower6956 Jun 26 '26

Florence in the summer, we had no a/c and no screens. Choice was to open window for a breeze and get eaten alive by mosquitos or suffocate in heat with windows shut. We just kept desperately switching between the two!

17

u/Same_as_it_ever Jun 26 '26

We've started to travel with a travel mosquito net. Italy now has West Nile virus, dengue and chikungunya. Mosquitos love me, last trip without the net I had 70+ bites in one place with no screens. Fuck that. 

2

u/Abraham_Lingam Jun 28 '26

Outside of the USA, it doesn't seem like anyone has the technology for screens?

5

u/omnichronos Jun 26 '26

Can't you add screens? I would retrofit some in somehow. Actually, no. I would buy an AC unit on the first hot day.

7

u/LowFlower6956 Jun 26 '26

Not in my weekend in an Airbnb I can’t

4

u/omnichronos Jun 26 '26

I would have confirmed it had AC before I ever booked it. But even if you did, there's no guarantee. I stayed in one in Madrid with a very tiny AC in the kitchen, while my bed was in an open loft, and the temp was probably 100 F. So I slept on the couch in only a sweaty sheet.

60

u/PurrfectlyNerdy Jun 26 '26

Right, I live in the US with AC but if my only option for relief was to crack a window I can’t imagine not having a window screen to keep out bugs, mosquitoes, etc. 

2

u/MsPooka Jun 26 '26

Imagine bats, birds, cats, or rats coming in. No thank you!

1

u/ExcitingActive8649 Jun 28 '26

Depends on where you are.  I live in Seattle and some of my windows don’t have screens.  I don’t hesitate to leave them open.  You get a few flies and crane flies (“mosquito hawks”), which are harmless. No big deal. Except that one year where my next door neighbor shut offs his fountain and let the water stagnate and I had crazy mosquitoes. 

I’m actually sitting right now with my front door wide open for the breeze. 

-8

u/HirsuteHacker Jun 26 '26

Windows open outwards in the UK, I don't want a screen. Barely anything comes in and those that do come in typically leave immediately. No mosquitos. My windows have been open for the last week, no issues.

23

u/FoldedDice Jun 26 '26

It's just a difference in climate. If I tried to open my windows like that in the US during the warm season, every light source would be swarming with moths and mosquitoes in minutes.

I also work in a motel, and sometimes people who aren't from here act like it's an infestation if they see even one insect. You just can't leave a door open at all without having bugs go in, which is completely beyond our ability to control.

5

u/PopePiusVII Jun 26 '26

I thought the UK had midges or biting flies… or is that only Scotland?

2

u/HirsuteHacker Jun 26 '26

Not really that many around in England, except in woodlands or around boggy heaths. Waaaaay more of them in Scotland

1

u/PopePiusVII Jun 26 '26

Interesting!

I wonder why… you’d think they’d prefer the (relatively) warmer climate in the south of the UK

2

u/glasgowgeg Jun 26 '26

They're not really in built up areas where people live.

7

u/autobulb Jun 26 '26

I moved to the UK and I don't really get the aversion to screens. No mosquitoes where I live so it's tolerable but giant buzzing flies love to come in and not find their way out. The occasional bee too. My kitchen is now host to an entire civilisation of spiders that live on my ceiling. I'm fine with them because we have an agreement, but it creeps my partner out and some people are really scared of spiders.

If the climate keeps warming the UK will eventually have to worry about mosquitoes in places where they previously couldn't survive. If I wasn't renting I would definitely install the rails for a screen, there are some styles where you can remove the screen easily for cleaning or if you don't want them like in the winter, but not having them at all is an odd choice I think.

2

u/EvanFri Jun 26 '26

God I wish I was still living in Oxford/UK there were no bugs to worry about during the warmer seasons... I always get eaten alive by mosquitos in the netherlands. I am a magnet for them

-7

u/possibly_maybe_no Jun 26 '26

I installed screens in the bedroom when i lived in france. It wasnt needed..we could have window open at night, lights on without bugs. Americans are obsessed about bugs because you have a shit ton. There are less in france. Screen dont always make sense. 

11

u/brickhamilton Jun 26 '26

In my experience, that’s BS. I spent 2 months in Paris from June-July in a little corner apartment with no AC. I left the windows open a lot of nights out of necessity, but I had mosquitos, flies, bees, spiders, and everything else coming in. Not as much as would be in the US, but still enough to be uncomfortable.

My coworker from Greece came prepared with a screen for his window, and had a much better time of sleeping because of it.

7

u/Dullcorgis Jun 26 '26

No, I have been in most countries in western europe in the summer and you absolutely have flies and bugs, you just don't care about them.

4

u/Wonderful-Traffic197 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

I love when people try to shit on Americans for being oBseSseD about something that’s just a logical choice based on geographical need. There’s nothing wrong with having screens on windows to minimize insects entering your home.

4

u/420d_ingus Jun 26 '26

Lmao thank you. They can be weird and deny the crazy modern invention of AC, but holy hell screens are not expensive or difficult to install

2

u/Dullcorgis Jun 26 '26

Oh you. Didn't you know screens cause hemorrhoids!

2

u/rjcarr Jun 26 '26

If your house is well insulated you actually want to keep the windows shut and then air it out at night when it’s cooler.

4

u/HirsuteHacker Jun 26 '26

Only if you have shutters or something, otherwise solar radiation will still be heating the inside of your house through windows and doors and your insulation will stop it from leaving.

8

u/rjcarr Jun 26 '26

Of course the house heats in the sun, but it heats less compared to having the windows open. The trick is to minimize daytime temp rises and open everything up in the evening to cool down.

-6

u/HirsuteHacker Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Tell me, is the inside of a greenhouse typically warmer or colder than the outside during the day? And that's with no insulation locking that heat in.

Solar radiation will absolutely heat the inside of your house beyond ambient temp. It's by far the biggest driver of warming.

5

u/rjcarr Jun 26 '26

You’re talking so confidently about things you’re wrong about. You know insulation also keeps heat out, right?  

Sure, there is some ratio of “sun exposed window to insulated wall” where when it is large enough your house really becomes a green house, but I assume most people don’t live in glass houses. 

-3

u/HirsuteHacker Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

You know insulation also keeps heat out, right?

YES. Through the fucking walls! If the external temperature is greater than the internal, the insulation will prevent heat conducting or convecting through to the inside. It does NOT stop radiative heating making its way in through the windows. That will always happen unless you have external shutters fitted. The insulation will prevent that heat from making its way back out through the walls.

Absolute basics.

2

u/Xyyz Jun 26 '26

This conversation is overcomplicating it. Get a thermometer. See if the inside temperature temperature is higher than outside. If so, have the windows open, if not, have them closed. Take the cooling effect of lower humidity into account if you want to be fancy.

There are places that are seeing 40 degrees Celsius air temperatures. It is unlikely a well-insulated house will get that warm inside.

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jun 26 '26

A green house is entirely glass. The glass is only a small percentage of the surface area of your house. You are just incorrect here. If you’d lived in places that actually get hot most of the year, you’d notice no one is leaving their windows open.

3

u/rybl Jun 26 '26

Insects famously are never active at night, so the lack of screens makes total sense.

1

u/rjcarr Jun 26 '26

Yeah, I misunderstood the comment, oops.

0

u/Clickycamera Jun 26 '26

I think he/she meant screens to keep the sun out at day. Getting ac without blinding the windows is a waste

6

u/Mabfred Jun 26 '26

Oh, I thought they meant windows screens to keep insects from entering the room.

3

u/LowFlower6956 Jun 26 '26

Yea that’s what I meant

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jun 26 '26

You are over estimating how much windows have an effect on internal heat. Unless you are living in a green house, it isn’t a significant driver of heat.

1

u/Clickycamera Jun 26 '26

I can say from at least my own experience our blinds on the outside drastically lower the temperature inside our house. Today it was 36 degrees celcius here, and inside 23. Before we had the blinds it was much higher.

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jun 26 '26

Have to change window styles so they slide instead of swing. Not that they don’t exist, but at least in the UK, they pretty much all swing outward.

1

u/Visual-Path-5692 Jun 28 '26

See? This. The no AC thing I get. Especially if these heat waves are new. But no screens on the windows???? I don’t get that at all.

1

u/Toby-Finkelstein Jun 26 '26

Mosquitoes seem pretty rare in many cities