Jedes neue Haus in Großbritannien sollte über eine Klimaanlage verfügen, sagen die Liberaldemokraten | Klimakrise
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/26/every-new-home-should-have-air-conditioning-say-liberal-democrats
Von Altruistic_Fruit2345
32 Kommentare
should be something you can have fitted
should not be made mandatory, just should be allowed
would help if properties were built with say air-air heat pumps that work both ways
More like should be built with the possibility of installing air con. Not everyone wants to buy one but that the building should not physically make it too difficult.
Air-to-air pumps are the perfect compromise. Low carbon heating in the winter, and cooling in the summer.
I agree, we need to start preparing for climate change. But I guarantee if you make it law to force them new house builders will buy a bunch of air con units wholesale, put them in the houses then slap an extra 20 grand on the price for having done it just because they can.
Yeah I don’t understand this martyrdom about suffering in the heat for some kind of original sin of existing..
Can we get the solar panels on all new homes before we move onto the next new thing.
I’ve just had a split unit fitted. Brilliant and no VAT.
Or simply loosen the restrictions on installing split system a/c if the owner chooses to, without having to jump through mountains of paperwork.
This is especially bad in leasehold apartments where you need freeholder’s approval. I was quoted £900 + VAT just to get a piece of paper from the freeholder allowing me to install an a/c in my flat. The whole “property management” process in this country is beyond dumb.
All new homes should have AC, solar pannels, EV charging (where practical), smart meters built in, household wide internet coverage.
This should be as normal as central heating, indoor toilets, telcoms cables, electricity etc. has become. Otherwise, we’ll just fall behind…
Given that the managers of the power grid have to make real-time adjustments when coronation street’s advert break comes on, because of all the kettles that get switched on at the same time, can we reliably say that almost everyone having installed air conditioning wouldn’t make the grid fall over when it gets hot?
Honestly, why? Why do they jump straight to the energy hog? We can build new houses with shutters and trees for shade, good air flow and insulation and triple glazing to keep inside temperatures comfortable.
Making air con mandatory for new builds is just encouraging people to waste more energy and increasing the already high cost of housing, while letting developers off the hook for shoddy builds that aren’t fit for purpose.
I get that we have a lot of old houses that don’t stay cool very easily and can’t be insulated properly, and that some people living there are at risk of ill health from the heat. So yes, subsidies for air con for them. But maybe we need to think about our odd fascination and reliance on old solid brick 1920s houses that aren’t fit for modern living.
Should be mandated that any new home with air con also has solar.
Anyone that installs it without needs to give their head a wobble….
Today you install a split reverse cycle A/C, it cools in summer and heats in winter. Can be instalked into any house or flat. They are inverter types, with condensors that run quiet ( no upset nieghbours) and auto defrost the condensor in winter when they ice up. It works in Oz.
It’s great for heating as well. Although the gasses arnt great new F gas is alot less harmful for the environment than it used to be
the government have schemes to get people to get solar panels don’t they? then they should have schemes to help people get air con
Heat pumps are the answer for new builds but we also really must detach from our national obsession with radiators and start building houses with forced air instead. There are dual-mode heat pump systems that, with a single outdoor unit, can both heat a water tank and provide warm and cold forced air.
We need to further develop carbon recapture if we’ve any shot at not all burning to death. Air con is just a Bandaid.
Brilliant. We need to maximise industrial production in order to combat the catastrophes caused by industrial production. We all need more machines! Aircon, heatpump, electric car, home battery, solarpanel, wind turbine. More more more stuff.
What are the rules to installing AC’s for older buildings like Victorian terraces and if they are leaseholds too?
Well insulated homes will generally transmit minimal heat through the walls. The biggest culprit is windows: homes are typically fitted with a „low e“ pane that reflects escaping heat (which is great in winter), but the outer pane is standard, so the combination encourages solar heating of rooms. So either install a pane that reflects at least some solar IR back outside, or have a modern take on an old solution: shutters. Also consider roof overhangs and orientation of windows. For new builds there are a bunch of engineering approaches to reducing solar heating of homes which don’t involve placing additional load on the grid.
What a great idea!
Sooo say it’s mandatory, air con installed throughout the house by the company building the houses. Air con units cost approximately £20,000 and are installed. Company then adds the cost onto the value of the house but also adds parts, labour etc etc. suddenly a house ‘which is already grossly expensive and built poorly with mostly cheap materials’ which used to cost £400,000, is now valued at £440,00! Housing companies will ALWAYS inflate valuation through extra labour costs, additional materials ‘even though the materials are of poor quality, and that’s if they even bother using the materials but charge for it anyway.
A lovely utopian concept but the expense is always passed onto the customer, usually over inflated to stuff the fat cats pockets.
And before anyone asks, I’ve seen it, experienced it and heard horror stories regarding it.
Why only new homes? Or do people who live in non-new homes not matter? Air conditioning can be fitted in most all buildings.
While we’re at it, can we please make it a requirement to have external shutters like in warmer countries. Keeping the sun out is extremely important as well and (I would imagine) much cheaper and simpler than installing air conditioning.
(Not saying we shouldn’t have air conditioning, but shutters would keep the interior cooler and help to lessen the amount of air conditioning use).
We should make up our mind if we live in a USSR style command economy or a more libertarian capitalist economy. I’d be ok with this if it’d look like „all houses must have some form of being able to cool the interior temperature below 27 celcius“ but we know it’s going to be some incredibly overspecced nonsense which means you have like 3 available models of air conditioning to choose from.
Are there no ways of building well ventilated buildings that don’t increase energy consumption?
I’m not quite sure why HVAC is so controversial in the UK and Ireland. Why wouldn’t you have it? Not expensive and can be powered using solar.
Back when I was a kid, air conditioning was simply opening the window – and to be honest, we barely ever did that. How quickly things have changed. Those who deny climate change have their heads in the sand.
Another good idea in principle, and I do wish every home had air conditioning — at least the ones I’ve lived in — but adding yet another requirement to housebuilding when we already face a major shortage just isn’t practical.
I agree.
They should also be installed in all rented accommodation by the landlord without charging the tenant for it or increasing the rent.
AC is going to be as essential as heating to stop people dying from the heat.
How is this easier than just putting a stop to the AI data center project in Leeds? Or better yet just completely switching to green energy and banning companies from burning fossil fules inside of the UK?
Air conditioning is worthless when it’s only helpful for a week.
No, stop obsessing about wet heating systems (radiators) and make Air-2-Air systems more popular, that way you can have heating and cooling (yes that still leaves an issue for DHW but there are things like Phase Change Material boilers that can handle that).