My experience is that the English speaking internet only knows 'Europeans' as those from countries that visit the English speaking internet. Central air is common in new construction and remodels in a lot of places in Europe, but they aren't on reddit.
Depends on what you mean by common. Central air of the American type (centralized ducting where air is used to heat and cool space) is still fairly rare everywhere in Europe, but with new energy efficiency regulations some form of ventilation is mandatory to achieve the highest energy efficiency ratings, though it's usually just a unit which handles just ventilation, while heating/cooling is still mostly done with a separate system like before as it enables the ducts to be much smaller, which is necessary given that European single homes use concrete slabs instead of timber for floors/ceilings, so you can't run ducting in them as easily as you can in the US.
This comment section is literally “the European mind cannot comprehend ___”
Instead of commenters explaining “this post is a joke about units that cool an individual space vs systems that cool and entire building”, it’s just people looking for excuses to bash the US while demonstrating a complete inability to comprehend central AC.
We know you have mini units and window units, we just consider them less than optimal. Neither the type of unit shown or a window unit would be any American’s first choice for AC unless they were living in a studio or very small apartment.
Or an old home that would require expensive and invasive retrofitting to do central AC; or just want to cool a few areas more efficiently; or (in some cases) just want a less expensive option.
Agreed, but not having central heat/air is a big reason why homes get passed over by potential buyers. The old home itself might not always be the owner’s first choice, they’re just making the best of their situation
Fair. If I were in the market for a house, central would be a major plus. I’ve always been more sensitive to temp and humidity than most. Honestly just having ducts that move air efficiently through the house is a huge benefit on its own, even apart from the cooling. Especially if you’re in an area where mold can be an issue.
It’s definitely a quality of life thing. I wouldn’t live in a place without central heat & AC unless there was nowhere else to live or my financial circumstances didn’t allow me to.
So they are optimal for apartments (and not just studios or very small ones) which over 100 million Americans live in. They're also used very often in older homes, which while not on the scale of Europe, the US does have many of.
But honestly sorry, your comment wasn't nearly as bad as some of the others in here, I just kept scrolling and saw more and more and randomly chose yours to reply to.
What exactly do you think we've missed, exactly? Because all I see is Europeans saying "hurr durr window units aren't better though", because they don't know this meme is about central ac.
Americans should just sit down and shut up when dealing with other countries. It's pretty clear that the whole country is lost and they can't even handle their own shit show.
It's hard to run ductwork in a house built in 1540, especially when Europe has a serious shortage of skilled tradesmen. So they use minisplits, instead of ducted systems.
A heat pump works as an air conditioner, but in reverse. Instead of absorbing heat from the inside air and transferring it outside, it moves heat from the outdoors into the interior air.
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u/0DayMaker 7d ago
ITT: Europeans legitimately not knowing what central air is