We have a row house, and the top floor gets very hot during the summer. Last year, we bought a standard AC ( ~CHF 5K), and it has been a real life-changer.
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what do you mean by âa standard acâ? a split system where one part sits outside the house and another part inside?
yes, a split system, one part sits outsite and the other part inside.
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This is an often-overlooked element: not only the trees, but greenery in general that should replace the âhardâ surfaces around a house. Mineral surfaces such as asphalt, paving stones, concrete, and similar materials can become zones of high thermal load. Vegetation is not only useful for the shade but it also helps to reduce heat through evapotranspiration.
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did you install it yourself or had someone do it?
Yes, I am thinking how to increase the green without waiting 10 years for a big tree to grow. Maybe install some trellis on the facades and let grapes, kiwi or some other plant climb
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If you canât create shade for a window, one DIY option is to apply a layer of chalk to the outside of the glass. This can help reflect part of the infrared radiation before it enters, reducing heat while still allowing some light to pass through.
In France, a traditional product often used for this purpose is Blanc de Meudon. It appears to be out of stock in many places at the momentâŠ
I am sorry if this is a bit cynical, but I as a Swiss person think all the âSwiss waysâ of dealing with heat is a circlejerk giga cope. It doesnât matter if you cover your whole country in concrete or not, the magic word is called âair conditioningâ - so get an AC unit, temporary or not and enjoy living like a decent human being. The energy, time and efficiency of planting a few trees, compared to using an AC⊠I hate that we are so learn resistant on this.
As for what you can do without an AC, close blinds, donât open doors and windows durring the day and let air in when itâs like 19C outside, but as I said, this is all giga-cope, nothing helps you if itâs 35-40C outside, other than an airconditioner.
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âŠif and once available.
Has been out of stock for what feels like forever.
Considering temperatures in ZĂŒrich didnât drop below 20 degrees yesterday and wonât tomorrow, youâll just have to wait for a few days.
And get up at 4 or 5 in the morning - which means going to sleep when itâs still hot.
I can only guess what that means, but whatâs the âgiga-copeâ about using your shading or keeping windows closed during a heat wave (or any other time, for that matter)? Sounds more like common-sense to me.
And whatâs wrong with having trees? Unfortunately, I donât have a big enough garden to dedicate proper space for that, but I get the idea.
While ACâs are much energy-efficient, at least in modern buildings and it seems permits can be obtained much easier then they used to, they remain ugly and noisy. Sure I donât hear most of it indoors, but living in a quiet neighborhood, Iâd be rather irritated to hear constant buzzing from my neighbors when Iâm outside. Donât even get me started on having to see any visible pipes inside. Or on the facade? There goes the neighborhood⊠Sure, maybe those could be hidden, but thatâd just add to the cost.
Given all that, itâs not that obvious the best solution to spend 5 digits on, and thatâs for likely a few hours of annual usage, only.
To add, Iâm currently at some 25-26° which is a bit too much for some rooms, but I wouldnât go down to 20 or something.
Besides the desire to stay within budget, I vetoed the geo-cooling during constructions mainly due to concerns about getting cold feet 
Maybe they shouldnât have asked me during winter time.
Guess I will add that one now and also get a quote to add cooling to the ventilation. Thinking about all the cons of air-con now , Iâll cross it of my list for the moment 
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Yes. And things will have to change going forward, i.e., permits to install AC units will have to become much easier to get. Not saying we should not also increase buildingsâ efficiency, amount of green, etc, but AC also needs to be part of the equation, e.g., to save weak and old people from long heat waves (is wave even the right term when they last weeks?). Also, AC will be needed the most when solar power production peaks, helping balancing the grid I guess?
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1st world problems⊠there are people dying from heat and your argument is the âlook of the neighborhoodâ? Well, thank god you seem to be fine.
Doing 90% of the effort for 10% of the benefit, whereas putting an AC in a house is 10% the effort for 90% of the benefit. The whole push for energy efficiency isnât something more important than the QOL of people imho, especially considering that this probably shortens the lifespan of some people
Few hours? More like a couple weeks to months - and the tendency is that the period of usage will become longer and longer.
Short term.
Longer term, AC produces heat and, depending on how we manage to handle our energy balance, it can participate to global warming through energy needs, which impacts temperatures on the longer term but also other factors like natural hazards which become harder and harder (and more expensive) to handle year after year at least in mountainous cantons.
AC is probably a piece of the equation as it helps more vulnerable people but it has to be integrated in a global strategy that aims at balancing things on the longer run i.e., permits shouldnât be that easily given; conditions assorted with well thought exceptions should be applied.
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They obviously have more urgent needs than I do, but with that response, you could shut down every single question in the whole forum 
But yes, while visible pipes are cosmetic, Iâm noise-sensitive enough to be bothered, especially since itâs purely a comfort feature for me.
Shades and closed windows are literally 0 effort for me ;). And the benefit much bigger than 10% given how well modern houses are isolated, especially considering big windows facing south and west. Luckily, these âbasicsâ arenât mutually exclusive with AC or other options.
Anyway, Iâm not anti-AC and have lived with them in hot and humid areas in Asia and America. But letâs not compare apples and oranges.
I do wonder about that. My expectation was that here AC letâs you cool down quickly, letâs say before sleep, and it will actually stay cool for a bit.
As written before, thereâs more relevant reasons against AC than energy-efficiency. Especially for day-time use in summer, combined with PV, I donât see any issue here.
My original post wasnât meant as split-AC yes or no, but experience on several options incl. cost / benefit.
By the way, I did learn in the meantime that some AC arenât only tax-deductible in ZH, but you can actually get subsidies under the energy-efficiency rules due to the heat-pump part. But Iâm not sure it counts if you already have a proper heat-pump..
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Every year I do the same thing:
- Itâs super hot, try to ignore it for a while
- OK. Letâs get an aircon
- Oh no, they are all sold out
- Oh, they are back in stock, but it isnât hot anymore
- OK, letâs get it next year
Rinse. Repeat.
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Sure, I donât want to make a political discussion out of this, I do think that ship has sailed though, global warming doesnât get political capital anymore and mitigating it with technological advancements is probably the only way forward in this issue - but Iâm no politician, so yeah.
Thatâs an opinion youâre allowed to have - I think this is nonsense and an abstract future risk shouldnât be prioritized over a concrete current risk.
In our current apartment itâs somewhat tolerable. In our old 60yo 2 room flat under a roof⊠well, weâd be dying rn. I may have worded it a bit harsh, but âlooksâ as a reason to object shouldnât exist imho. This also stops needed expansions of green energy sources and itâs imho a very silly first world problem.
Sure, Iâm doing that as well, but the state has no right to mandate me to install automatic shades (especially, since I can just turn that off lol) - itâs a bureaucratic barrier with no real purpose. Anyone who has an AC will want to use it efficiently - and if not, theyâll pay for it, thatâs how life works.
I will try to refrain from taking this further on a political topic and thank you for your balanced point of view (feel free to answer, of course, I donât know how this comes out but it isnât meant to shut you down). I just feel compelled to add that it is no more an abstract future risk at this point. The real money we are spending every year dealing with geological and meteorological events that happened way less often before is now.
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Depends on the places. I have a (fairly recently renovated) attic apartment and thereâs already a ton of heat starting to accumulate.
With AC overnight, once you stop it temperature goes back at least above 27 fairly quickly at like 9am. I expect it to get worse as more heat accumulated.
The area is a bit of an urban heat island as well so you wonât get outside temp below 25 until after midnight (half the inner Hof is a parking with asphalt).
That said for attic apartment with bad isolation itâs a lot worse, afaiu itâs not uncommon to have the apartment be hotter than outside temperature during the day (the surface exposed to the sun is huge).
You probably need to change a lot of things to fix this in a passive way (air circulation inside the building so it doesnât get trapped, solar panel on the roof, maybe extra âskinâ to provide shade on walls, etc). (So I think AC is unavoidable long term in that case, esp when renting, Iâll try to convince landlord to put fixed AC).
But then itâs also not the majority of apartments, the ground floor in the building still feels pretty cool.
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For people I know in ZĂŒrich who got AC approved none of them have automatic shade management.
Asking about it doesnât mean the permit is denied (I suspect the question targets office places, because all the office buildings with cooling Iâve worked in did have automatic blinds).
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AC is way more expensive than the other options while you would realisticallt maybe struggle temperature wise 1 week per year.
AC is overkill.
when i lived in asia i gradually weened myself off of airco to the point where a 30 degrees day was chilly for me and iâd wear a light sweater
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