HVAC (HLK) in German & American Homes | A Tale of Two Countries

What's up with American's addiction to air conditioning? How did an oil crisis in the Middle East shape German standards on efficiency? Plus the GENIUS way our new home is heated.
Read More from Stan Cox in his book, "Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World"
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👉Quick Jump to Your Favorite Topic:
00:00 Intro
02:29 Quick Statics on Energy
05:53 America's OBSESSION with AC
09:16 Geography & Climate Play a Role Too
14:01 Why Do American's Use Forced Air?
16:05 The History of HLK in Germany
21:53 The Genius way our New Home is Heated: Fernwärme
Episode 41 | #housing and #architecture in the USA and Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany | Filmed February 2nd, 2022
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Originally from the Midwest of the USA, we moved to the #blackforest in 2013 and quickly embraced #expatlife. As American expats living in #Germany, things weren't always easy, but we've grown to love our life in Germany. We started this #travelvlog​ to share our experiences with friends and family, and to help those who are interested in moving overseas! Whether you are interested in moving abroad, working abroad, studying abroad, raising a family abroad, or just want to #traveleurope, we're here to give you a first person look at what lies ahead. 😊🎥🌎

[@XynxNet]

Best natural AC in Germany are a couple of big trees around your house. I experience it every summer at my workplace. My building has a nice temperature opposed to the ones of my colleagues. They are exactly the same, except the oak trees. Same goes for whole cities. Those with big parks and green air corridors are significantly cooler in summer.

[@theresabu3000]

Yes - the key is to block the sun from overheating the house. Green spaces - parks and trees in streets can stop sun - too much enclosed spaces in cities, large parking lots... really contribute to cities being 3 - 4° warmer. You mentioned also blinds on windows - I fully open my windows at night in a heat wave and have cross ventilation to cool down each room. And close all windows and blinds come morning. Your insulation of the house is key with this - but this way you should keep room temperature at ~26° C - even if the outside is 33°. If you live in city in South Germany in rooftop apartment then you'll probably will need air conditioning with hotter summers each year.

[@brockreynolds870]

And it doesn't hurt that the average high temeprature in the summer is 12 degrees cooler than even here in Central Missouri where I live. If you are in the south in the US... average highs are 18-20 degrees hotter than Germany. Imagine if your climate was like Austin, TExas... average of 108 days per year OVER 33 degrees celsius.

[@jhuizi123]

I am Dutch but now living in Greece. In the Netherlands I didn’t even know what an AC was, but here in Greece we have AC. Temperatures can go up to 40-45 C in summer. But we always try to make the difference between outside and inside not too big. And that was a difference with the US where I was for a seminar. Outside backing, inside freezing. Very uncomfortable

[@huubjoanfranssen8980]

The difference between inside and outside is the most difficult part to deal with. It is the main reason I prefer ventilation over airco. Even when driving.

[@SkeeveTVR]

a big difference between them is'nt healty. heart and systemic circulation and fall apart and then u are unconscious.

[@human_isomer]

pretty much the same in China and other Asian countries, at least in the densely populated areas. For example in Hong Kong, you need to bring a jacket in summer when working inside, because you'd probably catch a cold if not. >35 C and high humidity outside, dry air at

[@huubjoanfranssen8980]

@@human_isomer yep, worst cold I ever had…..

[@derohneusername]

first time I was in NYC during Summer I felt like the Subways are set to temps belowing freezing. Insanely cold.

[@stancroot6476]

Ive had experience of blown air, radiators and underfloor central heating and I would chose underfloor every time. It simply feels more comfortable, a more even spread of the heat and of course much more decorative and furniture freedom of arrangement, ie no walls you just cannot have furniture against. Bathroom floors are particularly more comfortable with underfloor heating in my view.

[@AaronHuffmanPerson]

I agree and I've had the same experience. The home I'm at currently uses forced air and it is very uneven through the house.

[@brockreynolds870]

Of course, you can only have that if your floors are concrete.

[@matthiassvoboda527]

Not at all, this also works in wooden houses.@@brockreynolds870

[@vanguy9780]

I really enjoyed your explanation of the heating system used in Germany. I had no idea how it worked or how green, energy efficient and simple it was. It is amazing what can be accomplished when people put their heads together and they collectively support a clean environment. Unfortunately none of this would work in the US. Half of the nation has been radicalized into thinking that green energy is bad. Half the politicians here tell folks that if you try to create clean energy that this means the government is declaring war on the gas and oil industry. These politicians who especially favor the wealthy know that wealthy families who have passed down oil and gas stocks for generations would be hurt by losing huge dividend checks each month. Of course they do not care what condition they will leave the air, and the the earth in general, for their children and grandchildren. US society has become so selfish and greedy that none of the new and efficient technologies for creating energy will be developed on a large scale here until it is too late.

[@manfredsturm9152]

Hello, I'm German and I love your videos very much for several reasons: 1. I really enjoy watching your videos, because I am very interested in your view of Germany from the outside. It always makes me realize what advantages living in Germany has. 2. You have chosen very interesting topics in your different videos. 3. You research very thoroughly and prepare the facts for the presentation very well. Often you know better about German conditions than many Germans. 4. You make entertaining, charming and amusing videos - my warmest congratulations! Many thanks for that all! In response to your question about new topics for further videos, I suggest comparing the German radio and television program and organizational system with the US American one. In my experience there is a huge difference. And another question interests me very much: Why is the USA politically so deeply divided into two irreconcilable camps and how does it compare to the political camps in Germany? Is my point of view, correct? Are there efforts to improve this? Your loyal and enthusiastic subscriber Manfred 🤗😘🤗

[@preypacer]

As someone who is interested in history I looked into how people coped with heating or cooling homes without modern means. It is quite interesting to see how much you can recognise in older buildings and that some of it is still in the minds and traditions of the people. A few examples: Too cope with heat in the summer rooms were built quite high, so that the heat could rise and it would remain cooler closer to the floor. Windows towards the south were smaller than those towards the north. Rooms that needed to be colder, like dairies, would be placed towards the predominantly windy northern corner of the house with a floor of unglased tiles. These tiles would be doused with water in the morning. During the day draft and evaporation would bring the temperature down several degrees. To make heating more efficient walls were covered in tapestry or wooden panelling, that would better reflect the heat and insulate the cold walls, so that less heat is wasted heating the walls. Houses in colder areas tended to have double windows, so that the air between them worked as isolation. Basically a precursor to our modern double glass windows. Old timber frame houses with wattles and dow(?) walls had a very good natural heat management. A lot of the old practices like the one you described still work really well today. Several of these old practices and techniques see a resurgence in modern building construction and I find that very interesting.

[@TypeAshton]

100% agree. It is SO ingenious the techniques they utilized that are still so relevant.

[@preypacer]

@@TypeAshton It's fascinating that underfloor heating basically was already used by the romans with the hypocaustrum and in addition they used hollow earthenware bricks called tubulae to funnel the hot air from the hypokaustrum trough the wall and thus heating the wall and the room. They basically turned the wall into a chimney. That was the way they heated houses and the caldarium. You could say that this a precursor to a modern forced air central heating.

[@rumbaughsteven5577]

I think it is “wattle and daub”

[@rumbaughsteven5577]

And of course Romes advanced heating systems were made possible by slaves, who only enjoyed there benefits if they were household servants, not the poor devils who were firing the system.

[@svenweihusen57]

One thing leads to another. A house build with frames offers lots of space to hide air ducts while a brick building makes this really complicated. A brick house has a huge thermal mass which acts as a buffer against heating up. So some commonly used strategies in Germany like extensively venting during the night would simply be way less effective in the US due to the small thermal mass of US homes. And low energy prices result in less incentive to safe energy. Even in Germany homes with energy standards higher than 55 are barely economic.

[@nejdro1]

I grew up in Chicago where the whole town is full of solid masonry houses and buildings by law as a result of The Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The downside of a house with high thermal mass is that after prolonged heat spells, it is like living in a bakers oven! They just do not cool off at night once heated up. The average daytime temp for Chicago in August is 29 degrees Celsius, with much hotter from time to time. Add to the thermal mass of the homes themselves, the pavement of thousand of miles of streets. I grew up in the 1950"s without air-conditioning. I won't give up A/C willingly! I presently live in Portland, Oregon, where last summer we hit 44.4 degrees Celsius. Yes, my A/C was running non-stop.

[@svenweihusen57]

@@nejdro1 these old houses have almost no insulation. Insulation works both ways. Many cultures developed ways to keep houses cool without an AC. Houses in the US just need excessive AC because they are not built in any way to use natural cooling.

[@jessicaely2521]

@@svenweihusen57 you can't say this about all houses in the US. I will agree a lot aren't energy efficient. My mom's home is wooden, but extremely energy efficient. The doors where shitty and would let hot or cold air in. My mom replaced the doors for a better seal and it was great. Her home is cooled and warmed by Geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is the 4th cleanest form of renewable energy.

[@jessicaely2521]

Oh also Germany doesn't have the humidity that some parts of the US does. Food for thought....Average humidity in Germany is 60%. Average humidity in Florida is 75%. There are only 8 states that has an average humidity level lower than Germany. Its mostly out in the desert. If you open your window you are inviting mold and mildew to grow inside your home. You want to keep your windows and doors closed as much as possible. *Edit another thought here. Most European cities are further north when compared to most of the US. Spain is close to the longitude of New York. Oberstdorf Germany is further North than Maine (this is the southern most city in Germany. Right? I'm testing my memory here). Maine you are able to go without A/C if you open windows when cool and close windows/blinds when hot. Global Warming is making it more difficult in Maine to go without A/C.

[@nejdro1]

@@svenweihusen57 One thing the older American house had was much higher ceilings than is common today. Often 3 meters high or higher, so that heat would naturally rise up to the ceiling. They also had large windows, mostly "double hung", which would allow the upper sash to be lowered, causing a natural cross ventilation even in a room with only one window. Also, it was common for hallway doors to have a "transom" over the door. This was a small window which would kip inward to again allow a cross ventilation through the room, even with the door closed. I grew up in an 1883 Victorian wood frame home in Chicago that had all these features.

[@johnkitchen4699]

Another magnificent video guys. Well done. We came to live in the USA in 2009 and are shocked at the inefficiency and waste of heating and cooling, especially as Americans use their systems extravagantly. We live in Reno (high desert climate) and have our indoor summer temperatures at 73-75 (c23C). In the winter, we warm to about 69 during the day and 64 overnight (20.5 and 18C) whereas almost all of our friends cool to 68 (20C) in the summer and warm to 74 (23C) in the winter. This short term, selfish view shows a total lack of consideration for climate change (or is that ‘fake news’ as the climate change deniers claim).

[@lincoisedwards2989]

It

[@jank.6296]

I live in Germany in a half-timbered house, a rented single-family home, built in 19th century. And as much as it is a struggle to keep it warm in the winter (which in my opinion could be fixed if adressed properly) I found myself surprised how cool it keeps even in the hottest of summer. I thinnk this is due to a regional technique: It was common to take the wall that facing the sunlight and cover it with ceramic roof tiles on a wooden frame, similiar to the roof, only perpendicular. These tiles do heat up in the summer, but they don't transfer the heat to the wall since there is a layer of air between them. Some of the old building techniques and materials, like wood and clay, have something to it, and are worth rediscovering.

[@MrTalaue]

My house is also a half-timbered house made from wood and clay and built in 19th century. Inside temperature in the hottest summer is never more then 25° and typically 22° during the summer month because a row of birch trees are in front of the southern wall. No ceramic roof tiles here anymore. It is also kept warm easily during the winter as I provided additonal ceiling and roof isolation before moving in and built in triple glass windows.

[@kate4781]

The fact that I thought it was normal to have to bring a sweatshirt everywhere when it felt like 40-50 C (Florida summer) because inside would be about 18 C is just insane to me now... (My family didn't like to run the AC at all). However, I want to add two additional factors for having AC. 1. Humidity leads to mold, which seems to be a much bigger issue for drywall than plaster. 2. If you don't have AC and do have well insulated walls, you'd want to leave the windows open at night to let in cool night air. That'd be considered too dangerous in most ground floor residences in the US. Those still aren't reasons to keep it so cold though...

[@der-buschman]

German here. hot water heating became common between WW1 and WW2 in modern multistory buildings in German cities. The system used was a coal fired furnace in the cellar of the building, distribution to all rooms with isolated steel pipes hanging from the ceiling of the cellar, non isolated vertical steel pipes in or next to the outside walls, next to the windows, cast iron radiators below each window, one or more open expansion tanks in the attic with thin horizontal pipes from each hot vertical pipe. This system did not need an electrical pump, but was powered by gravitional circulation (hot water goes up, cold water goes down). With this natural circulation system, the pipes needed to have a much higher diameter than with a modern, forced water system. The furnace needed to be filled with coal once or twice a day, and had some hydraulic regulation device. A hot water boiler was placed on top of the furnace, also to avoid the need for a pump. The same system was used for new family homes until around 1965-1970 when the big switch to oil happened. As long as oil (heating oil is diesel colored by an agent) was cheap, the old furnace remained, only to be replaced after the price of oil went from 6Pf/l to 60Pf/l in 1974. Forced air systems for heating were tried around 1970 with the rise of oil fueled central heating, but they had two main problems: 1) you needed extra space for the air ducts, which are a lot larger than the pipes needed for forced water. 2) forced air breaks the sound dampening effect the new stone and concrete buildings had. on the need for AC: South German houses are more build for hot weather than North German houses. After WW2 large South facing windows became common in North Germany to get more heat into the house. Since around 2000 this become impractical during heat spells, especially in cities. I would like to have the shutters, that are common in South Germany.

[@Terkina__]

The AC in the States is wild! You get cooked outside, but you need a thick jacket or sweater the moment you enter a building. I would live to have an AC when it's getting really hot, but I would never cool down my home like people over seas do it.

[@dazinkeys]

I am an American living in Germany as well. I have been here now for 12 years, and before this I was stationed here. I have spoken to several Germans on the topic of air conditioning and have heard all kinds of reasons why they don’t use it. Like you said “ ac makes you sick” when they told me this I had a blank look on my face. And replied your car has ac, the grocery stores have ac and your still alive. Yes retrofitting an ac in most homes here would be a nightmare. Considering most are multi family buildings with no or too little attic space for the units we are accustomed to. Mini splits are a great alternative and are also cost affective to operate. One of the major issues I see with the method of construction here is how easy it is to grow mold . All homes here including yours are insulated on the outside of the building. Great to keep the cold out, but humidity builds up inside on the cement and plaster walls, being kalkstein ( a light weight gypsum-calcium composite ) it loves to soak up water. thus leading to mold. Having an ac to remove the humidity in the air greatly reduces the ability for mold to grow. Also ac units help to remove allergens. There are a whole list of benefits that ac has. In the time I have been here I have seen a trend in installs of ac units . Most if not all were minisplit systems. One item that you did not mention was that , Yes radiant floor heating is great, but. In the US how many states would actually benefit or have the need to use it? I come from Florida AC is a must, heating not so much. Using a heat pump for both AC and heating would work for most new homes in the colder latitudes. Well that’s my take on it. Keep up the good work

[@mathildewesendonck7225]

Very interesting comment! But as a doctor (with a PhD in microbiology) I really disagree about the health aspect of AC. What you are writing is mainly what AC suppliers use to advertise their products and for most parts it isn’t even wrong, but it’s not the whole story. For example- yes, mold might be decreased with the use of AC. On the other hand, mold is not as health-threatening as many people believe, and is mainly a problem in really wet places, like bathrooms without a window. (in this case, I would really want an AC for the bathroom) But dry air is not good at all for the mucous membranes in your mouth and nose and greatly increases the risk for infections. In fact, there are scientific studies about the high CoVid case numbers in the USA and how they might be related to the use of air condition. There is sort of a range of a „healthy“ air climate, not too dry and not too humide. I monitor the humidity in my apartment because I have two expensive violins and they can get cracks if the air is too dry. Even without air conditioning, the air is always very dry in my place, even in summer. I actually even use water containers and plants to increase humidity a little, lol. And the ordinary AC systems don’t just remove germs and allergens, they mainly get stuck in the filter system. When it isn’t cleaned regularly and properly or fans are used, the germs are even spread more than without AC. In hospitals, AC systems can even be a hot spot for outbreaks of legionella and other infections.

[@Celisar1]

ACs in a time where everybody is talking about conserving energy and stoping climate change? That is what I call a bad idea.

[@Celisar1]

PS Reg mold: never had it, most people don’t have it. There is one little thing called window.

[@ralfklonowski3740]

As an engineer that teaches HVAC and the associated Technical English at a German vocational college, I totally enjoyed this. Thanks a lot for additional insight in the matter as well as expanding my vocabulary. Kudos for successfully juggeling two languages, two temperature scales and two currencies. That sure was no easy task. Also, your pronunciatiion of obscure German technical terminology was pretty spot on. Greetings from the Ruhr district!

[@TypeAshton]

Thanks so much for watching, we are glad you enjoyed it!

[@swabia1554]

this is also a good one for energy and environment topics in A level english classes

[@timoreiswolf3313]

My house in Dortmund (NRW) was build in 1958. I bought it in 2003, because it is sitting at the edge of the city next to a nature preserve. During heat waves my garden is about 10-15°C cooler than the street, allowing me to open up the windows in the evening pretty early. My bedroom is under the roof and was pretty hot in the first years. Then I refittet the roof with insulation, added solar thermic (8 kW) and photovoltaic (9,5 kW) modules which provide additional shade on the south side of the roof. After that the temperature in my bedroom did not exceed 25°C until 2019. For 2020 I bought a mobile AC, to be able to keep my bedroom below 25 if heat periods get longer and/or hotter. I modified the AC and a door, to be a closed air cycling system and the small 500W AC is now enough to keep the temperatures at bay. Given the fact my photovoltaic system produces more than ten times more electrity than the AC uses it's still quite climate friendly. The system ran for 1 day in 2020 and 3 days in 2021 from noon until the evening. totalling to about 6kWh of consumed electricity. I will further optimize the system to get it more efficient this year. I am one of those (german) guys where "good enough" isn't good enough. It has to be real good.

[@larryyoungquist6876]

Here in the land of forced-air furnaces, we recently built a home with hydronic radiant heat. We used a product called 'Warmboard' that is a type of sub-floor covered with a thin aluminum cover that allows pex tubing to be laid throughout. The water is heated by an on-demand gas water boiler that also provides our domestic hot water. This was our first home heated in such a way and we couldn't be happier. I'd never want to have a forced-air heated home again. The radiant heat makes the temperature comfortable and a 'non-entity'. Meaning that you don't really think about it. You don't hear the whoosh of air movement and you don't have cold or hot spots. The house also has air conditioning as we live in a desert climate, but we designed with solar considerations. Meaning that we built large overhangs on our south-facing patio that covers the length of the house. In the summer, no south facing window ever gets any direct sunlight. We can open our windows and utilize air flow to keep the house cool enough for our needs. When the outside temperature gets to 90F (~32 C), the inside temp will reach around 80F, and we will close the windows and doors and use the A/C at that point. I love the detail that you provide on the differences between Germany and the US. Very interesting.

[@TypeAshton]

This sounds REALLY cool! So does your house still use traditional ductwork for your AC or just room units?

[@larryyoungquist6876]

@@TypeAshton Yes, we have traditional ductwork. When I grew up north of Seattle (and like Germany) central A/C was not a thing and I can't think of a single home of any of my childhood friends that had it. But now, we live in Eastern Washington and NOT having central A/C would be most unusual. As well as bad for resale considerations. (Not well known, is that east of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State is a desert climate. It can get pretty hot here. Good for wine grapes. Not so much for humans.) For our A/C, we rely on an external heat pump and for the size of our house, it's purposely undersized. It the hottest days of summer, where it can be over 100 F to 115 F (32C to 46C) We most likely would not be able to cool below 80F. Which is fine for us. Some folks will keep the thermostat on 68F even during the high temps. That is simply crazy to us. My wife hates the fact that she has to carry a coat or sweater with her when we go to a restaurant during the summer. When you step inside and go from 100 to 65F.

[@th60of]

Well-researched, thorough, thoughtful - I'm running out of adjectives to commend you on this video! As for your question about personal attitudes towards air conditioning: I don't think I will ever install a unit, I would just feel too guilty. Fortunately, my job allows me to structure part of my working day to my liking; so on a really hot day, I will postpone some of my work to nighttime and rest in the afternoon (there is a reason for the "siesta" in Southern Europe!). And like any good German, I will elaborately complain about the weather, of course. ;-)

[@wora1111]

I never wanted an air conditioning either - but COVID and remote working changed my mind. Last year I had units installed for our home offices - right after the installation of the solar roof.

[@TypeAshton]

Thank you! We are glad you enjoyed it. Ashton's father is a farmer, so her complaining about the weather is in her DNA.

[@wjhann4836]

Couldn't write better - I agree.

[@martinohnenamen6147]

Having a room directly under the roof i'm seriously contemplating an AC unit. Unfortunately some strange EU regulation removed two-hose (one hose for fresh air intake, one for warm air outtake) AC mobile units from the market and only one-hose are left. Two-hose are much more efficient. Alternative would be a two piece unit where the heat exchanger is outside and the cooling unit inside but that woud need some bigger work on the walls.

[@wora1111]

@@martinohnenamen6147 I have two piece units and that was very little work on my walls. Less than with two hoses which would have had a bigger diameter

[@matsandersson4846]

In my old hometown of Gothenburg (Sweden) they started using district heating very early in the 70s utilising the cooling water from the power station. When the energy crisis hit, they put massive heat pump heat exchangers into the sewage treatment plant and recovered huge amounts of otherwise wasted heat from the water. So when you go to the toilet you are actually helping to heat the city. (most of the heat comes from peoples overuse of hot showers though)

[@user-sm3xq5ob5d]

So leaving a hot mess in the toilet actually helps fight climate change? Whoa!

[@nejdro1]

I guess there is nothing new under the sun. Downtown Chicago was heated and electrified by central systems in the early 1900's. The "waste" heat from the steam electrical plants was used to heat the buildings.

[@victorcapel2755]

Sweden has about a 50% overall connection rate to the central heating system, and about 90% for the apartment buildings.

[@robertcuminale1212]

Reston, Virginia uses district heating and cooling. If you look at the lake in the development you can see the three lines running through dissipating the heat from cooling during the summer.

[@andreycham4797]

In USSR all apartments were on centralized heating and according to data by 2009 Europeans were using as much energy for heating pro capita as Russians but most of Russia has much colder climate

[@mikeh6206]

As an HVAC installer in Canada and someone who mostly put in boilers, my belief is that forced air came in, aside from the fact that they are cheaper, is because builders didn't want to use a more highly skilled workforce of pipefitters and the potential for leaks with hot water systems, plus, back in the 20s and 30s radiators were VERY heavy (my back can tell stories). Now, after 30+ years in the trade, I put in mostly heat pumps, central ducted and air to water (due to living in an older city with lots of boiler systems).

[@tripsandwalksinmoscow4086]

And in Germany and in America has not yet been. Interesting! :)

[@luxuriouslife7853]

Still ahead)

[@Garbox80]

That under floor heating is the best there is at the moment. You generally tend to keep the overall temp lower than with radiators or forced air. This is because when your feet are warm, you're warm (or that's what your brain tells you, simplified). That can also make you feel more comfortable as your head stays cooler. The temperature is also somewhat equal everywhere (or in the whole room if it's adjusted individually). It's interesting to see how different the trends are even in Germany compared to Finland. Here it's usually only the multistory buildings that are built with concrete elements. Occasionally single houses and rowhouses too, but mostly they're built with wooden frame. The insulation seemed very similar though. Btw there has been a trend to build even some multistory houses from wood for a few years now. It's much more environmentally friendly that concrete (which has a HUGE co2 print).

[@Joelina456]

I am a huge fan of your channel. Such profound, smart, insightful and scientific/well-researched learning experience here ;-) Danke euch Beiden! Ihr seid super.

[@jimgeiser487]

I am a little older than you two (91 last December). I was born in Pittsburgh and at that time about 99% of the residences were heated with coal fired forced air. So, in my adult life I have lived in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana and all had different types of climates. Right now, I live in the southern tip of Indiana and AC is a must here. My wife was born in Berlin, so we traveled there and got to see early 1960s apartments. Most were heated with a large oven like thing that burned charcoal or compressed soft coal bricketts. Later we saw they were heated from a central city system and was radiant heat. In the 70's when the building rules went into effect, buildings were insulated by adding a layer or layers of outside material. Now when we go, we get to see some air condition attempts in small commercial buildings. Looking forward to June trip to Berlin again.

[@stephans.6158]

The district heating system really is a blessing when you have a power plant nearby. But even if not there are very efficient ways of heating and cooling using a heat pump. It‘s like the opposite of a fridge and half burried in the ground. Deep enough the temperature of the ground is allways 8 C in summer as well as in winter. In summer you can use this to cool the water of your underfloor heating. In winter you compress this to create heat for your underfloor heating and pump the even colder water back in the ground to warm back up to 8 C. This way a heat pump creates four to five times more heat energy than it consumes electrical energy. We live with such a heat pump for over 15 years now and are very happy with it.

[@jasonriddell]

in Winnipeg Canada there is a company called "water furnace" and they build heat pump forced air furnaces that replace a "normal" gas/electric furnace and on your property you drill 2 water wells and pump the ground water out of one well and through the heat pump and back into the other well they are quite pricy to have fitted as the wells can get pricy but are super efficient and they cool as well as heat

[@ballagh]

Living in a old house in Northern Ireland we have a slightly different take on heating and cooling. The external walls of the house are basically 2’ thick, roughly 60cm of stone and the main windows are north facing so summer temperatures are kept low because of thermal mass. Similarly a relatively small wood burner keeps winter temps comfortable once the house is up to temperature for similar reasons, once it’s warm it’s easy to keep warm. The only real issue is if the house gets cold (we recently messed up the timer for the heating while away) when it seems to take a full day to get back.

[@TypeAshton]

Wow that is amazing! 2' thick? I would love to learn more about the architecture of your home.

[@imrae1]

Yes, here too. Old buildings often have thick walls. We have different houses in our family : my parents: 70s building, 30cm brick wall, basically no insulation. Radiators, gas powered and tiled stoves. Me: solid wood wall (12cm) plus 30cm insulation (wood fiber) central heating via tiled stove plus solar waterheating, my brother 50cm brick wall (new building) and heat pump. My sister (us) what we call "American cardboard" (sorry) 10cm wall although with cellulose insulation. Still a nightmare to heat and only affordable with "per gallon" oil costs. OH and our heating costs per year are about 400 euros. (South of Austria)

[@magmalin]

@@boxoffrogs-studio I'm from the Swabian part of Bavaria. My house from the 1920ies has brick walls of nearly a metre as well as additional insolation on the outside, so it never really gets hot inside when we have high temperatures in summer. I don't need any air conditioning at all.

[@magmalin]

And it doesn't get very cold when there are minus degrees outside either.

[@jeanettemullins]

Similar to an old farmhouse my friend rents. It's never that hot in summer. This particular house does have damp though which makes it challenging to heat in winter. It got renovated incorrectly at some point using cement based mortar instead of lime and it no longer breathes plus the roof has issues. Aside from that it's noticeable how consistent the inside temperatures tends to be.

[@ladylandseer928]

In Germany there are heating systems that can also be used to cool the house: electric heat pumps. However, these must be used very carefully, as moisture problems can occur. However, with some geothermal heat pumps, you can short-circuit the two circuits and feed earth-cool water (~8° - 10° C) into the heating circuit. This way you can cool a little without using too much energy.

[@altergreenhorn]

Not a problem if you use air heat exchanger with additional module for dehumidification.

[@leDespicable]

There's also systems that monitor the condensation levels and automatically shut off if the level gets too high.

[@nejdro1]

Air-conditioning actually de-humidifies and require a condensate run off line to get rid of the water condensate. One of the mistakes made with air condtioning design s getting a unit too large. A too large unit will bring down the temperature before getting rid of the excess moisture, thus giving the inhabitants a cold and clammy feel.

[@leDespicable]

@@nejdro1 I think they were talking about heat pump systems that don't use forced air. The ones you typically find in Germany usually use radiant heat (underfloor heating/cooling), so when cooling in the summer you have to make sure the system isn't set at too low of a temperataure, otherwise condensation might be a problem.

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

Yeah.. heat pumps are nothing new in the US

[@qzmufu]

In think, the most important reason for German buildings maintaining temperature naturally/passively are the concrete/stone walls. These walls store heat and therefore carry the coolness of the night through the day. Personally, I prefer this natural building climate to the dry air of an air conditioning system. Also in winter, the moderating effect on temperature fluctuations makes a wonderful building climate and, yes, as you mentioned in your video, you can actively manage your window shades to collect the warmth of the sun (in winter) or block it (in summer). In modern, well isolated buildings this makes both cooling and heating virtually unnecessary (at least in our climate zone).

[@lcopetti]

I am Brazilian, and there you will find everywhere ac (wall mounted) systems. Here in Germany I miss the air conditioner a lot in summer..

[@wendyschneider1252]

Ah yes, the German fear of moving air indoors. Outside, it's fresh air and it's good for you, but the second it enters an enclosed space, it's going to cause a long list of ailments or just kill you outright. I've read some things that surmise this phobia dates back to the times when vapors were blamed for all manner of illness. Given that chamber pots were emptied into the streets at this point in time, I can understand it.

[@sieglindesmith9092]

Funny and true. "Drafts" seemed to be a major concern among adults in my family. Possibly because drafts implied loss of energy efficiency.

[@jaorlowski]

It may have to do with mould and fungi. If the walls and windows don't allow for any air exchange, water from breathing and plants and maybe your laundry (if you don't have a dryer) will condensate on the walls or any cold surface and allow a great place for spores and bacteria to flourish making people ill. Thats the reason you are legally bound to "Stoßlüften" a couple of times a day. Also its a nice way of the landlord to blame the tenants to be negligent of his property. Also some don't like air being too dry - especially when in a car. But then again when you get the water out by cooling it, it condensates elsewhere in the pipes for instance and then you have the mould and bacteria problem there. I'm not sure how much of a problem this is in the states but it something you hear every now and again here.

[@motioninmind6015]

See also: sitting on a cold chair instantly causing a bladder infection - in men! I've witnessed it often.

[@walkir2662]

> Given that chamber pots were emptied into the streets at this point in time, I can understand it. People really believe everything they'Re told.

[@mlem6951]

If it was more affordable i would get an AC asap. The Summer in Germany get hotter and hotter and the buildings get worse and worse in Terms of insulation ~~. I'm in the movingprocess and it's so hard to find affordable Appartments where you didn't get slapped in the face when Entering on a 30° day ...

[@RustyDust101]

Weeeell, I've personally heard (and until recently, even used) the argument that AC makes you sick myself a lot. Let's separate that into two distinct parts. If you step into a super-chilled room (somewhere around 19°C) from outside with a temperature of 30+°C, AND you are forced to sit in the extremly cold draft powering out of the AC unit, yes, then technically you can get sick. Not the common head cold that people like to claim, but rather muscle cramping due to effects similar (note: not equal) to hypothermia. Because in Germany there is a high chance that you walked or biked from your previous location to your home. So it was fairly common for people to have highly sweaty clothing. In the smaller rooms that predominated German housing the blast of cold air from an AC usually had less time to disperse and mix with the hot air than in the generally larger, more open spaced rooms of the USA. As such sitting in that stream of cold air from an AC unit with effectively soggy clothing may have caused some people some physical muscle discomfort and cramps. The other reason why you could get sick is because many people who did use AC's in the 70's here simply did not consider that the filters require regular changing and cleaning. The air filters can get clogged up with particulate matter making them perfect breeding grounds for bacteria in humid days, especially when the AC doesn't run continuously but gets turned on and off again regularly. Each and every such switch allows for humidity to settle into the filters allowing for better bacteria growth. The airflow then spreads these bacteria throughout the rooms. That's the second possibility of how to get sick by not using AC correctly. But consider this: most Germans grew up with some form of radiant heating, either gas, wood, oil, or district distribution for the last century or so. None of these required regular exchanging and maintenance of filters. Let out the air once or twice a year from the radiators, and refill the water reserve, and you are done. Even if you forgot about it, it would still work reasonably well, without making you sick. Not so with AC. A clogged AC unit can be a real center of bacterial infection for a house. Once this reasoning got out and stuck in German brains, it was incredibly difficult to get this out of the heads again, even when the filters and the AC units themselves improved drastically. It propagated into the general mindset and has stayed there since then. Just my two cents on that reasoning. Maybe there are even some more factors that I've forgotten or overlooked. BTW: Yes, I caved in and got myself an AC unit (central AC plus outlets for two rooms, living room, and my bedroom) two years ago when I completely refurbished the roof of my house, including thick insulation and high efficiency windows. It was the best energy efficiency class AC I could find for my requirements because I knew about the insane electricity costs I could run up here in Germany otherwise. I still try to use it as little as possible, with as little temperature variation between inside and outside as possible, just enough to keep a little cooler, roughly ten degrees C max difference). Interesting idea: here in Hamburg an engineer, not an architect, came up with a heating/cooling solution for two close building structures. One is an IT network server center, another is a municipal administation building. Both are linked by sewer and underground passages. The IT servers require huge amounts of cooling, while the municipal building requires a fair amount of heating for a long time of the year. Only in the summer is cooling required. A both of these buildings are close to the Elbe river, this engineer introduced the following system. The server farm was given full access to the water cooling for their server racks. This water was pumped across the street and used to distribute its heat to the municipal office building as heating. Only in the summer were both buildings cooled by introducing river water into heat exchangers in the underground sections. These were then redistributed into both buildings for active cooling. But in the winter the one building's servers are cooled only by distributing their generated heat as central heating via radiators to the other building. No further AC is required in the server building. Awesome idea, wasn't it?

[@TypeAshton]

Wow this was REALLY interesting to read!! Although it does have us wondering about the "opposite" effect in the winter time. This is completely subjective, but we've always felt like our Germany friends and colleagues heat their homes to a much higher degree in the winter time. Often, we find ourselves wearing t-shirts to German restaurants in the middle of winter because they are just SO hot. If the big temperature swing could cause you sick in the summer - would this also be the case in the winter with big temperature swings? I could totally be wrong here, but it just had us thinking. Also that is a SUPER interesting approach taken in Hamburg. Really really cool to learn about. Thank you so much for sharing!

[@RustyDust101]

@@TypeAshton Yes, totally agreed on the sickness aspect in winter. Most people peel off multiple layers in office buildings in the winter, often sitting around in t-shirts so they don't get sweaty and get cold and quasi-hypothermia when returning outside. I totally agree, temperatures should be kept lower. But then again, the insulation as well as the base construction of most houses in Germany is much thicker and of higher value than in many more southern US houses. Even in the north (possibly with the exception of Alaska) houses seem to built to standard US code with fairly thin outer walls of open wood-frame covered by relatively thin wooden siding, as well as less than half a foot of insulation if at all. My roof during its refurbishing and extension recieved roughly 30 cm of additional thickness thanks to insulation and further understructure. That means I gained a FOOT of thickness on an already half-foot thick roof structure, plus the timber support frame. So when heating in Germany, the heat radiated out through walls and windows is usually quite a bit lower than in the USA. Next, as you will find, there is the so-called Vorlauf-Temperatur, the pre-run-temperature from your central heating system here in Germany. If you use radiators this temperature needs to be much higher, somewhere around 60-65°C in comparison to the floor heating, which can be as low as 40°C. Using radiators has a tendency to have fairly hot radiators as the radiant heat looses quite some temperature as it spreads slowly through natural convection through a room. Floor heating has the whole floor of a room as a radiation source, distributing the temperature evenly throughout the room, requiring much lower base temperatures to bring the room to a nice cozy warmth. The downside is the length of time that floor heating takes to react to temperature changes, especially if the underfloor is not well insulated and the sensors are placed at the wrong spots. HVAC has the advantage that air under pressure in vents spreads more quickly, but it also cools off much more quickly if there is ANY kind of seepage anywhere or once they are turned off. Radiators tend to stay warm longer once they have reached the desired temperature. As a caveat many people turn it up far too high to acchieve a quicker warmth distribution but then forget to turn it down again, so their rooms tend to become over-heated in the winter.

[@bebex599]

@@TypeAshton I'm living in Austria with radiators gas heated and I heat as less as possible not to get a heat stroke. Really I never be able to wear knitted pullover or even long sleeved shirts. Before I had an table stove heated with wood and it got never too hot or too cold, I loved it. Governments here do not like this and they order to build apartments without access to the flue, so you can't have your own stove. And most of the people can't afford houses.

[@jasonriddell]

@@TypeAshton I have family that works for Microsoft and they had an idea to lease servers out in "furnace" sized racks to private homes and use the heat generated pumped into the houses heating system in the winter and exhausted outside in the summer the plan also increased Microsoft's network resiliency as the servers would be spread out over MANY locations and NOT one server farm as far as I know the idea went nowere

[@reinhard8053]

@@TypeAshton My old appartement (built 1990) had good insulation, gas central heating and neighbors at all sides. The hot water tubes to the radiators run all over the rooms in the walls. Even if the radiators are switched off the water runs up to there and back. If it wasn't really cold outside I needed to stop the water flow at the main valve, because I had more than 25°C without radiators switched on. One year I had it off for more than 13 months so the company assumed their energy counters to be defect 🙂while I only wear T-shirts all the time. Of course in single older houses that's completely different.

[@JohnTovar-ks8dp]

As a child, I loved the oil heat we had because it comes out hotter from the vents, and the vents were larger so you could sit on them.

[@robertcuminale1212]

I've lived and worked in a few places in the US. In New York City (Manhattan) nearly every building is hermetically sealed. There are no windows that open. That includes the high rise living and business buildings. Con Edison provides the electric grid and also steam heat from midtown to downtown mostly. There are some areas of downtown like Greenwich Village and areas uptown like Washington Heights where it is mostly private homes with independent HVAC systems. Con Edison is sloppy with the steam. In almost every street scene from Manhattan you see these tubes in the streets with steam running out the top. here mostly breaks in the system which if not vented would destroy the underground infrastructure. Manhattan is incredibly crowded underground. There are the power lines feeding the transformers buried under the streets. When one has to be replaced the entire street has to be torn up to pull the bad one out and replace it. I worked for years and never saw a transformer in a building, just the electrical distribution system for the building. The basements are incredibly warm and you sweat just being in there. Most basements are a couple of stories underground. Digging in most of the borough is dangerous. There are unmapped gas lines, water lines from the late 19th century and early 20th century everywhere and you're bound to cut something. There's also the subway systems in the way including all the dead tunnels no longer in use. Did you know there is a dead spur tunnel to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel installed for President Roosevelt so no one could see he was a cripple. And there was older stuff. I worked in a district once that had Edison's DC electric grid. I discovered it one day when equipment I'd installed wouldn't work. I replaced a couple motors and still had the problem. I called my boss who told me that the store room had DC motors to replace the AC equipment. That area was finally converted to AC years ago. There are gigantic squirrel cage fans that push the air upstairs. In one building the vacuum on the room was so great you needed help to open the door. Dumpsters are squeezed into tight spaces everywhere. To empty them there are air pillows under them that inflate and let you push them to the loading dock. A truck hauls it away while another truck brings in an empty one. All of this uses tremendous amounts of electricity. And almost all of it is buried under the streets. Big Allis the main generating plant is so hot cabling melts. The subway system runs entirely on DC current. The trains, the lighting and the system generates its own electric grid apart from Con Edison. Unless you live and work there you cannot appreciate the immenseness of it all. All the water comes from the Catskill Mountains in two tunnels. Water Tunnel #3 will take about 40 years to complete. It's under tremendous pressure. When you poor a glass from the faucet its cloudy from the oxygen bubbles. If you wait a minute the bubbles will pop and the water is crystal clear. And tastes good. It's fresh mountain water. Anyway. The US is not Europe. Europe has a lot of old buildings but also a lot of new ones because of all the bombing that destroyed the cities' during WW 2. There's no comparing the two continents.

[@Candy7la3Creme]

As an german I love my radiant heating per room. You can choose and set the temperature for every room different (yeah, you know e love sleeping cool and with open windows even during the winter) so you just dont heat the bed room that much. During my time in the US it was always the struggle to statisfy every temperature preference and especially when you have a host family with 5 kids :D

[@TypeAshton]

Great point! We also noticed when we were back in the USA just how much some forced air systems struggle with keeping a good, constant temperature in older homes. We slept in a guest room right next to the furnace and practically roasted. But the other guest room at the other end of the house was very, very cold.

[@claudiakarl7888]

The floor heating system in my new house is regulated room by room too. The heating system is used is a Wärmepumpe.

[@wjhann4836]

@@TypeAshton - aren't there airflow regulations inside the AHVC? Otherwise that is a natural disaster. By the way - also German radiation systems might suffer like that. sometimes you have to do a hydrostatic balancing to get heat to every radiator.

[@nejdro1]

@@TypeAshton Again, it is all about cost. There are thermostatically control duct dampers which can throttle down the hot air going into a room - at an additional cost. I personally just shut down my bedroom vent in winter because I like to sleep in a relatively cool room. Ironically, it was my German wife who grew up in a totally unheated bedroom with the windows open in winter, who complained about the bedroom here in America being too cool! I will say, there is nothing greater than sleeping under a downfilled duvet in a cold bedroom!

[@w8stral]

There is a VENT on the floor... CLOSE/Open them... IT is not difficult... Even as a 5 year old child I could do so...

[@luke2509rl]

I live both in Frankfurt with my parents and in Rheinland Pfalz in my student home. My parents flat is very modern and highly insulated. My mom gets up very early in the morning in the summer and will open all windows. The flat will therefore be cool enough to survive the day :D In my student home I live in a more than 100 years old „Altbau“ with pretty thick stonewalls and newer added insulation. If you’re not living directly under the roof I don’t think I‘ll need air conditioning in the near future.

[@ZebraJess92]

To the "getting sick" part. When I was studying in Mainz they built a new building on the campus that got an AC. I changed Uni before the building was opened. Apparantly they made the AC go way to strong and cold in the first summer. People came in hot and wet from sweat just to be blasted by extremely cold air and lots of people (students and staff) got sick that summer.

[@AL5520]

That's not the only reason. One of the reasins that more people get sick in the winter is the fact they stay in closed heated unventilated places. In the summer closed places with now AC use natural ventilation but when you install an AC you close the place up with no ventilation, just like in the winter which leads to a higher rate of infections.

[@christiankastorf1427]

Germans can take and endure a lot, but five minutes in cold drafts inside a house kills them. The other factor is noise. That constant howling and humming of AC units are unbearable. I could not find any sleep in a hotel where it was not possible to switch that bloody thing off.

[@goshagosha5348]

Of course if you turn your a/c too cold you can get sick because of the difference in temperatures.But half world lives with a/c as necessary home appliance.From Dubai to Singapore,Tokyo and etc.Where is the problem to solve?!.Don't like, don't use it.

[@goshagosha5348]

@@AL5520 What is the natural ventilation you talking about in the Dubai deserts or tropical Miami where it's hot 24/7 most of the year

[@wjhann4836]

I remember a journey to Sri Lanka. Every hotel that was proud of an AC would also turn the thermostat down - in the last hotel I entered our room - it was some 17deg C. Coming from some 30 deg outside an be a little sweaty - nearly 80% of the group flew back with a cold. For me a part of the "AC problem" is dealing with the thermostat. In hot summer when I drove home in my car, I put the inside temperature to some 25 - 27 deg. So not to have huge difference between in and outside.

[@ICHRA11]

As a German electric engineer I know that it is a sin to use electrical energy to heat/cool rooms. Thus any typical forced air AC system is simply unacceptable...Well, I now have an AC for my home office room which is under the roof being heated up dramatically in the high summer. And I now have a solar power system which feeds (among other things) this AC. THIS makes perfect sense for me 🙂

[@ja_u]

While there are a lot of problems with AC, I feel like in Germany we should start incorporating more AC. The weather is moving to more extreme summers due to global warming. And I have to say I was shocked and very disappointed when my school built a new building that opened like 2 years ago and it has no AC whatsoever.. As we are moving to more clean energy I think building new public and other major buildings without AC is a bad decision. I hate the summer only bc ACs are not very common and I start sweating quite quickly. And let me tell you, sitting for 8 hours in a school classroom that feels like it never goes below 28 C is horrible. Bad for learning and bad for wellbeing. Obviously you don’t need to make it feel like December like they did in my Ohio HS. Kids would literally come to school with thick jackets and hoodies when it was above 90 F outside bc in the school was more like 60 F. And when I got to the airport in Charlotte on my flight there I was freezing in my hoodie and jacket, then I stepped outside and it was like opening an oven at 200 C hahaha

[@MrTuxy]

I think it's only a matter of time before people will be begging for more coal fired power plants to power AC units across Europe.

[@leob4403]

It seems so sustainable doesn't it, not at all as a surefire recipe for disastrous collapse of civilization

[@fjdcwc832]

When I stumbled upon this channel I thought it was a standard vlog kind of thing, but I really came to appreciate the kind of videos where your professional backgrounds and a lot of research add to the content. Thanks for all the work! On topic, I live in an older building (~120 years) in Munich. The whole block is setup with courtyards that remain pretty cool during summer (with shade by trees and the building themselves). Flats usually have a side facing the street and a side facing the courtyard, so the cooling strategy is to just open the courtyard facing windows and close the rest. During the hottest days you can cool via the courtyard until around noon, then close all windows until sundown. I always found the building setup quite clever in this regard and haven't heard of anyone here needing an AC.

[@jiggsh54]

I lived in a home in southwestern Virginia that had radiant heat, sadly it was in the ceiling. Most of the homes were heated by oil or coal. Our house faced east, but our kitchen with a sliding glass door faced west. It was almost impossible to stay in there to prepare meals until the sun dropped below the neighboring mountain. We used a wood burning stove in our basement to warm the house. Once the room was comfortable the house was nice and toasty.

[@tabletbo3887]

Our house has a Photovoltaik which we use to heat and cool. The heat pump takes the outdoorair wthdraws 6 °C and pump the cold air out of the house on the other side of the bildung. The walls has 36 cm and the Windows have so low kWfactor that Our house is always cool. In 25 years we never thought of using the coolingsystem or buying an a/c. With the rest of the produced electricity of the PV we can use any other Equipment of the house. We are nearly autark. Just in winter and on longer rainperiods we need to buy electricity. We love it to do something against the climate change and to save money.

[@dksilber9500]

I really appreciate the effort you put in these videos. Kudos to you!

[@TypeAshton]

Thank you!

[@Anna-uv3lw]

You should have a look also into Geothermie, it's very common in the south of Germany. Water is pumped into very deep holes in the ground and heated up via the warmth of the ground. There are big (financial) risks to this system because drilling the holes is a huge expense but once you have a good spot you only have to pay for the water pump and laying the insulated pipes.

[@user-sm3xq5ob5d]

Talk about that technology to the people of Staufen. You will get an earful.

[@denniswitt1638]

@@user-sm3xq5ob5d Staufen and the surrounding area is about the only part where drilling is a risk, as they basically live on gypsum. But especially in former mining areas it is little to no effort as millions of holes are already there and can be reused.

[@alexanderkupke920]

Living in Germany but looking at some new constructed houses in the US, there seems to happen some shift. Instead of old water boilers which very simplified store 200 liters of hot water over a gas flame now tank less water heaters working as condensing furnaces which even draw heat out of exhaust gasses and condensates. For cooling, central forced air AC systems are either scaled down or not used at all but split systems may be used in rooms where needed. It seems those are in many cases a lot more efficient without all the ductwork. Regarding District heating, it can quite often be found in German cities also as a byproduct of large industrial plants, or for example from waste-to-energy plants (since quite a few years now we don´t have any open landfills any more for different environmental reasons, mainly protecting ground water which often is as well our drinking water source. Instead waste is incinerated. As this of course produces a lot of waste heat, it is used to make steam for generating electricity and heating as well.

[@odiederhund9762]

We have an air conditioner in our bedroom. It is used primarily for dehumidification and secondarily for cooling on hot summer days. We use the air conditioner as infrequently as possible, which was much easier in 2021 than 2018. Air conditioning can promote and support colds, but not cause them. To my knowledge, the only air conditioner triggered illness due to poor maintenance is legionnaire's disease often caused by "Legionella pneumophila".

[@TypeAshton]

YES. I moved to Germany in July of 2018 and it was literally trial by fire when it came to acclimating to the temperature change.

[@gloin10]

I worked in the USA, in the moving business. One of the occupational hazard was headaches due to the difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures. The locals would set their heating to temperatures where you'd be happy in a t-shirt and shorts inside, when the outside temperature was running -10 to -20C with snow drifts all over the place. In the summer, they'd have internal temperatures which meant that a wooden jumper or thermal underwear would be indicated, while the sun blazed down outside... Constantly shifting between such large temperature differences would result in a splitting headache after a few hours...

[@bernardmathey6232]

you didn't talk about the Wärmetauscher, in french VMC double flux. So you can recuperate up to 95% of the heat already in the house in exchange with fresh outside air.

[@TypeAshton]

I just did a little bit of googling on this and this is fascinating! Do you have one in your own home?

[@thomasbaro7377]

Oh yes. I would love to hear your thoughts on Wärmetauscher and Wärmepumpen for residential homes.

[@stefan1524]

@@TypeAshton You can go to the Vauban and look at that houses, which are all "passiv" or "Energieplus" Houses, which meaning all of them have that Wärmetauscher and the "Energieplus" houses producing more energy than they consume this houses are much better than the KFW 55 houses. Look on google maps for "Solarsiedlung am Schlierberg" for the "Energieplus" houses location. And if you visiting that area, go to the "Heliotrop" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliotrope_(building)) which is a house that turns always towards the sun and looks pretty amazing

[@bernardmathey6232]

@@TypeAshton Yes I have one in my appartment. It is very usefull, because you can leave your home, without leaving a window open and have fresh air when you come home. If you have a party, you only increase the speed of exchange, and you have nearly no cold entering. If you add enthalpie (humidity regulation) you can have a better and healthyer climat in your home.

[@Warentester]

@@stefan1524 do you know how they stack up against modern technologies? Vauban was innovative in the 2000s when I lived in FR.i B. but I'm curious how further we could take things today.

[@mamabear9389]

I live in central Missouri, hotter than hell in summer and freezing in winter. We built an 1800 square foot ranch home with passive solar design using post frame construction and fiberglass batt insulation on a slab. We have three minisplits and all electric, including appliances, well and hot water heater. Our monthly electric bill for everything is $90 on average, lower in summer and a little higher in winter. We are in rural Missouri on 210 acres and the construction options were limited. So no fancy construction methods were possible. A good passive solar design is very beneficial. Lots of south facing windows that are shaded in summer but help heat the house in winter.

[@BrandonLeeBrown]

I remember during one oil crisis, new houses in America were built with 7 and half foot ceilings, instead of the American standard 8 foot ceilings. That was done to save energy, but after the oil crisis it wasn't popular to do.

[@MrTigaente]

I live in the south of Germany and we have hot days in summer. I do not have AC, though and I never wanted it. In summer it is hot. That's just the way it is and our bodies are equipped with an internal heat regulation system that works just fine for the most part. AC units are usually set to a way too cold temperature for my taste. As I've already mentioned, it is usually hot in summer so I'm dressed accordingly. I absolutely hate to go into a place that is set to arctic temperatures when I'm only wearing a thin shirt and shorts. Combine that with the fact that AC units dry up the air which I turns drys out your mucual membranes in the nose lowering your bodies defense against infection and you know why Germans state, that AC can make you sick. Happens to me often summer when I'm in ac'ed rooms. In addition, I don't think I need to bring up the environmental effects of these things like insane consumption of electricity in combination with climate change and the question where our power will come from in the future. I think I can easily stand a couple of hot days in summer in order to lower my personal power consumption.

[@nejdro1]

You live in Southern Germany where a day may be hot, but the nights cool off significantly. You are also at a somewhat higher elevation, with its cooling effect. what most Germans don't realize is how much further North Germany is than America in general. Munich is 48 degrees north latitude. Dallas, Texas is 32 degrees north latitude. Average summer temperature in Dallas is 35.5 degrees Celcius. Move to Houston,Texas on the Gulf Coast and you can add very high humidity to that too. Yup, you would buy air-conditioning too. Here in Portland, Oregon we hit 42 degrees Celsius last summer. Yes, my A/C ran non-stop!

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

Yeah alot of the US has more extreme weather in basically every way compared to Germany and alot of Europe for that matter. Where I live we get cold winters and hot summers. It's commonly 0 to -10 C in the winter with multiple inches of snow and then in summer it's 37-40 C for 3-4 months a year.

[@uliaschoff2189]

Thanks, another very interesting video. When we travel to teh US we have always in mind to take along a hoodie when going to Walmart or in a restaurant because of the air conditioners. In Germany there are also "Waste incineration plants" (is it the right translation for Müllverbrennungsanlage?) which are producing power and district heating.

[@TypeAshton]

A few others have brought up the incinerator and that sounds so interesting!! We'd love to look into this further.

[@faultier1158]

There are also the bio gas plants that make use of agriculture waste. Those are very efficient if powered by waste produced during your normal food production. But specifically growing crops for bio gas plants is super bad for the climate, because using additional land is one of the worst things you can do to the climate. The same principle is true for wood chips/pellets - it's only good as long as it uses the byproducts of existing & necessary wood agriculture.

[@Geschichtelehrer]

Hab in den USA diese "Heizung" (forced-air heating ) kennen gelernt. Und es war furchtbar! Man drückt warme Luft in den Raum, es fühlt ich an als würde man einen riesigen Haarföhn anschalten dazu ist die Luft trocken ohne Ende. Man hört wenn sie angeht und auch das Rauschen nervt ohne Ende. Dann wird der Raum zwar warm, aber durch die miese Isolierung dieser Holzhütten wird es merkbar schnell wieder kühl. Ein absoluter Wahnsinn wie die dort bauen und heizen. Wirklich unpackbar.

[@ThomasSchmid]

I am Austrian, but have spent the past 27 years living in Western Canada. During the hotter summer months in my youth, i remember having every single window open at night time, then closing everything up tight and shutting the blinds. i dont remember owning fans for extra air movement either. usually living in a century old concrete building did the trick of keeping us cool. Forced air furnaces were introduced to me when i first moved to Canada. Until then i only knew of wall mounted radiators. Living in a very rural area for most of my adult life, I had a combination electric/wood forced air furnace. Moving to a suburban area later on in life, it was definately either electric forced air or natural gas forced air. Only in the past few years have i enjoyed a central AC unit in my home, because i moved to one of the warmest parts of the country.

[@slightlygrouchy]

I don't mind air conditioning, but I find people's use of it sometimes less than sensible. A few years ago, I had to travel to Qatar for work. Although it was still winter and the outside temperature was never exceeding 26 degrees, the AC's were turned to arctic winter and the situation was so bad that I returned home with a massive cold that even affected my hearing for several weeks after I had returned home again.

[@TypeAshton]

It is really interesting for us just on how cultural interior temperatures can be. Coming from the midwest, we would always snicker at those from Florida. If its 60 degrees and sunny, we're wearing shorts and opening all the windows in our home. They would be dressed in parkas and have the heat cranking. 😂

[@slightlygrouchy]

@@TypeAshton Haha! I know exactly what you are talking about. When I lived in Scotland, people would start running around in tee shirts as soon as the temperature hit 5 degress in the spring.

[@jessicaely2521]

@@TypeAshton the big differences between Florida "cold" and up north cold is the humidity. Humidity or damp cold makes things feel colder than it is. 60 in Florida feels like 50 to your skin. This is something I had to adjust to in Switzerland. I would see it was 50 outside and I would dress like it was 50 in Florida. I would be sweating my ass off. This wasn't after living years in Switzerland. It was my first winter in both areas.

[@JackoBanon1]

I remember working in the USA as a German once and we had our office in a trailer outside. It was during the Winter with cold temperatures and a lot of snow. In Spring on the very first day when it was actually sunny and warm outside one of the overweight Americans didn't hestitate and started the AC in the trailer. After that it was even colder than in the Winter.

[@pablopicaro7649]

There is a lot of fat overwieght people for sure

[@rumbaughsteven5577]

I’ve added several comments in the past. I worked for the US Army and lived in Heidelberg-Emmertsgrund 1977-80. We first turned on the radiator in our living room Dec 1, 1977. On December 6, our son turned 2 and we had a party. It became very warm with a bunch of people in the room. We turned off the radiator, and never turned any radiator on in our apartment for the remainder of our 3 years. Now there were exposed pipes running floor to ceiling that connected the radiators in each room. These provided plenty of heat without opening our radiators. Of course, we opened windows every day of the year as did everyone we knew. Consequently when I hear about strict window standards in a place like Heidelberg, I think, “What difference does it make to have super-insulating windows if you open them every day of the year?”

[@TypeAshton]

Yeah its kind of a catch 22. The windows are SO well insulated that the house no longer "breathes" properly and consequently, some houses have mold issues. We have de-humidifiers in our new house running constantly because the walls are concrete construction and still have a pretty high moisture content. In some of the back bedrooms if we don't have them running the humidity rests around 70%.

[@arnodobler1096]

If you do it right it's not a problem. In Germany, there is a term for this: "Stoßlüften" (shock ventilation) - you open the window several times a day for a few minutes, so that fresh air comes in, but the room itself (walls etc.) does not cool down. In such well-insulated rooms, this prevents mold growth.

[@heikeh.9977]

I totally understand and appreciate AirCons in every hot and humid part of the world. It´s so much more comfortable. But in Germany, it´s normally just one heat wave in the summer. And everytime, I felt, I need to get an AirCon, the wave was already over. So I decided to simply stand these 3-4 weeks (if it is that long) and cool myself with cool water towels, fans and a small humidifier as the heat here is rather dry than wet. But I have a high tolerance to heat, so everything between 25 and 29° C in my room is totally fine and I feel comfortable with it. 🙂

[@olgatarasevich3113]

I love the fact that we don’t have AC units hanging on every wall and I do agree that when I was working in the office with AC I had more colds during the summer . However in summer 2020 I was heavily pregnant already and must admit we caved and bought portable air conditioner . We used it just for a few weeks though , as Jonathan said opening all the windows at 5 am and closing them at around 9 works just fine if the house is more or less decently insulated

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

Huh? Houses in the US don't all have A/C units hanging on every wall either.. forced air cooling and heating are some of the most common.. AKA just a small vent on the floor of every room.

[@k.schmidt2740]

This is a really informative and helpful video. Thanks much for the information and comparison! As for the forced air/ radiated heating controversy: I have lived with both and must say that forced air brings the temperature in a room up or down faster. That is more convenient, when you are freezing or sweating, I suppose. The downside is the air "blast" itself, which I, as someone who has to deal with allergies, now regard as somewhat suspect. Filters are a possible answer to this problem. In addition, the need to air your rooms at least daily can be disregarded to a great extent, as the air is in constant exchange due to the heating system. Nonetheless, I still prefer my radiated heating with room by room temperature control using room thermostats (I mean, who needs a bedroom as warm as a living room?!). In addition, the energy efficiency of Fernwärme is wonderful. We don't have it here in our mini-town, but had it in the nearby city, and I enjoyed it. Questions of fuel and maintenance of the heating system were not our problem - in contrast to our having to own and maintain our present gas furnace. If there are problems, an entire neighbourhood puts pressure on the energy company. Things get fixed relatively quickly, and problems with the system are rare. Thanks for all your great work!

[@TypeAshton]

Thank you for watching! We have actually had a counter experience with the lack of forced air. Ashton has very bad allergies in the spring/summer time, which is increased when we have all of our windows open. When we are in the states with forced AC and a clean filter, the allergies are often much less severe. So, perhaps it could go both ways.

[@nejdro1]

@@TypeAshton My son had allergies and we had an electrostatic filter place on the hot air furnace. It is amazing what that filter caught! The furnace also had an ultra violet light to kill bacteria. With hydronic ( hot water) heating, an auxiliary duct system would have to be added, as well as for humidity control and possibly A/C. Although, a split system A/C can be added without duct work. Incidentally, the new split system heating and A/C units are now more efficient than the best hot air systems.

[@lassenforge7648]

We're not in Germany, but we DO live in a hot climate (4 story stone tower in central Italy, and a 2 story cabin in California) - what we do is open the windows (all the windows, starting from the top floor and working our way down, but especially the upstairs ones to get the heat vented out) in the evening once the outside air is cooler than the air in our house... we also have fans to help move the cooler air closer to the ground level inside. When we get up, we close the windows once the air outside stops feeling cool compared to inside (meaning it's getting warm outside), from the bottom floors to the top floor (again, to help chimney the hot air out). DO NOT turn the fans off - you want to keep the air circulating to get the most out of your cool air you have stored up. Trick 2 - Thick (wool if you can get thick ones) curtains - not only heeps the heat from going through the windows (even our double paned ones bleed heat), but also blocks the radiant heat from outside (REALLY prevalent in California). Confession time - We DID install (in California) a window AC unit (small and thrifty) in the bedroom, (along of course with the window fan) but run it on energy saver mode - essentially it chills once, then switches the fan on and off until the temp goes up 5ºc. Then it runs the compressor for about a minute, shills down, then does the fam cycle again. ALSO because we have a dry climate there (RH of 35-40% or less) I have a swamp cooler (squirrel cage fan with water running through intake batts - the only electricity is from the fan) in my shop... otherwise it would be unbearably hot. We've needed neither in Italy - yet - tho I'm looking at options the same way.

[@manuel0578]

The BVG in Berlin said if they would start air conditioning subways the temperature in subway stations would increase by 10 Kelvin. And yes, US subway stations are incredibly hot in summer.

[@scb2scb2]

Love your videos since compared to others you put in a lot of research into these topics. I know this sounds weird but as a dutch person i am very happy we had the 1973 oil crisis in many ways it forced the netherlands to rethink what they where doing. Maybe compared to now (our possibly 3 restricted years) it forced our country to some extreme rules like car-free sundays and more questions on why we would allow cars to take over so faster after the war and during the rebuild. It was one of the main reasons why the dutch goverment started the concept of making better infrastructure for bicycles and public transport and how they interact and the reason why many parts of cities have car free zones or car suppressed zones. Now 40+ years later we are so far ahead of the curve on how alternative transport works and a bicycle happy country. Now any dutch person who claims its fun to ride in the cold and against the wind is just lying but with the electric bicycles now its a perfect to take the edge off and get a balance between human and electric powered transports... The eletric bikes are now 50%+ of bike sales and i would claim the dutch 'teslas' :) .. My home is also part of a power-plant setup hot water and heat is supplied by them the only downside is you need to hire/pay for the parts and are fixed to this one supplier for heat that results in they have power over you and what you pay.

[@TypeAshton]

I had no idea it was the oil crisis which drove Holland to improve the bicycle infrastructure. This is super interesting to us! Thank you for sharing.

[@scb2scb2]

@@TypeAshton Here is a already old clip explaining part of it. Even this is already showing a older state since so much has been changed in the last 10 years alone since this was posted. Many of the shots in this video are from the town and area i grew up in the 70's and almost yearly more updates are maybe kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqallZlvn76dbdE

[@HladniSjeverniVjetar]

I live in Dalmatia, Croatia. Summer temperatures go up to 40 C, we had a wall AC and we removed it since we found that it was having negative effects on our health due to too big of a difference when you would get out from 20 C to 40 C outside and vice versa.... Now we simply make a breeze in the house by opening the windows....and its very comfortable.

[@anthonykaiser974]

American military living in Mainz this year 2022. Apartment in the "roof story" of a newer multistory home. One room has AC but I can't use it after 10 PM due to the noise it makes. Fortunately, even with the few 100 F days, I could mostly control the temp by night venting and using roladens and external blinds and blackout curtains in the bedroom during the day. Our office is in a very heavily built 3 1/2 story 1950s masonry barracks near Ingelheim am Rhein. The shaded side of that building never got hot.

[@Warentester]

As I child, I hated Fernwärme as the underground pipes would melt the snow in front of the house making it much harder to drag your sledge along.

[@TypeAshton]

You're totally right! I hope Jack doesn't despise the system.

[@Warentester]

@@TypeAshton The danger are the edges of the molten snow. There you'll get ice. As you are responsible for keeping the pedestrian walkway in front of your house safe for others, make sure to get up early with a shovel and grit after snowfall

[@rogerheuckeroth7456]

The only negative I have is that you call air conditioning "obsession". It's really not an obsession, and more of a necessity in much of the Southern US. I live in South Carolina and people can die if their AC goes out... Things are just getting worse with the climate getting warmer. My family in Germany has also noticed more heat waves coming through on occasion. BTW we offset about 80% of our electrical AC requirement with a 27 panel PV system, so...

[@jamescarel5520]

Yeah but how did people in the south lived before AC came about? I mean it’s only been mainstream for about maybe 30-40 years.did everybody just dropped dead in the summer ? Nope they thrived and multiply.I think is just a bad lifestyle and they’re right to call it an addiction because in many parts of the world much much hotter than the US people just adapt and live fine without AC

[@leob4403]

It's a vicious cycle, because of global warming use more AC, which worsens global warming, until everything collapses

[@mschr2880]

Tschörman here: When discussing AC with Germans, keep in mind that - because it is not commonplace in our homes, and electricity is expensive - it is regarded as a kind of luxury item, almost but not quite like a pool. And with anything in that direction, the German envy kicks in. So, if you have AC or prefer AC, people around you will come up with all sorts of explanations why they don't have it and don't like it and you shouldn't have it and shouldn't like it, too, you Klimasünder. If you don't have AC, you are still lucky: Floor heating is actually enough to bring that to the test. Most German appartments and houses don't have floor heating. Not because it's more expensive, no, no, no, but because with floor heating the dust can't settle on the floor and constantly floats around in the rising air flow, which is extremly unhealthy. True, straight from a conversation between young moms on the bus who had to compare their new familiy houses. They felt really lucky to find out neither of them has floor heating.

[@jessicanicolebelmonte6252]

Score a point in favor of forced air heating: Radiant heating has NO filter system, while force air heating has at least SOME filter system. BUT, that filter needs to be cleaned regularly!

[@Dirk-R]

The detailed information you bring is amazing. I'm from Belgium but worked and lived 12 years In Germany from 1983 on (Belgian Forces Germany). It's clear that you know (read examined/studied) a lot more than we did back then. For administration, we largly depended on Belgian services, and our housing was from the German Bund, in coop with our administration. You both clearly had a lot more to figure out, and did so well, that I keep learning new things about living in Germany in every video. Of course, a few decades have passed and some thing changed over there, certainly more regulations etc). As for the people, culture and food, we did integrate completely back then and loved to live there, because of the people, the great food and nature (we lived near the Möhnesee in Sauerland). I learn a lot from your videos, but also recognize a lot of the joys of living there. I can assure you, if you ever leave, you'll miss lots of things, especially the varried landscape, nature, their habit (any excuse or Fest is good) to put stands with ready to eat foods and drinks in the city centers (Schwenkbraten!!! mit Pilze und Bier oder Wein), Frühschoppen, and of course the Deutsche Gründlichkeit. Keep making the great videos!

[@TypeAshton]

Thank you so much. We are really thrilled that you enjoy the videos. So not to worry! We plan on staying for a long, long time. We agree and think there would just be too much that we would miss about the Black Forest to ever leave.

[@Dirk-R]

@@TypeAshton The roots always linger, but these days so many ways to keep contact (video chats were science fiction in the 80s). However, in our case, a weekend at the parents and visiting hometown friends quickly resulted in +1200 Km driving, but still managable. However, kudos for taking such a huge +7000 km leap over the big pond. I do have to warn, our kids were born when we lived in Germany, and the oldest is now kind of a "no-roots" guy, going to other countries and other cultures is dead normal to him, not bound to the country we returned to. A cosmopolitan, which is great. Reminds me of Alice Merton's song No Roots (spot on) as she lived in Germany her whole yought (dad britisch military). There's something enriching of living abroad, and your kid(s?) will absorb that, which is great!

[@flowerpower7077]

On our many visits to the U.S. we found the air conditioned indoors too cold after the really high temperatures outside. We found the quiet ceiling fans in some bedrooms very pleasant and installed one in our bedroom at home here in Germany.. We only need it on hot Summer nights. Our well insulated roof and outside blinds plus letting in cooler air early in the day help us keep the rooms reasonably cool.

[@lokiva8540]

You guys missed the important concept of Enthalpy. That's the amount of energy in a given amount of air, and is in many regions based more on humidity and water's heat of vaporization, than on temperature alone. If indoor humidity is too high, mold, mildew, and fungus growth may make a premise a biomed hazard. A dehumidifier is in effect an air conditioner with evaporator and condenser together, while HVAC is generally designed to be more efficient. In regions with heat pumps and high humidity in winter, defrost cycles can consume more energy than actual heating per se. That, and optimizing temperature ratios, are reasons why ground water heat pumps make sense in many regions, over fuel based systems, such that COH or SEER actually operate at optimal spec points (and solar cogen may be the primary energy source, multiplied by the heat pump).

[@1Naenie1]

During vacation I was in an Airbnb with this air heating stuff and it is soooo damn uncomfortable. (Not how to turn it on and of, that is easy, as you said.) But the heat feels bad. Believe me, it feels so so much better when the heat comes from the floor and gently moves up by nature instead of beeing pushed through the room. It is another kind of warmth and so much more efficient. It feels more like sitting next to a fire place but wholesome. It is also diffrent when not only the air is warm but the floor and or the walls are warm too

[@daemonbyte]

I'm British so even the warm German weather is crazy hot for me but after we paid to get our 70s house properly insulated the blinds and open windows at night works well enough. The kids in the converted loft (attic) have AC units though. Portables just for those few really hot weeks. We got rid of our old oil boiler and replaced it with a heat exchanger because that's more efficient that a standard electric heater. I learnt lots about the various systems for heating to decide here and if I was building a house from scratch, I would do a ground to water heat exchanger as well as a system that took the hot air from the top floor and bedrooms then sank it into the water heating system.

[@daemonbyte]

When we lived in Oslo the whole city there is a distributed heating system though with a power plant that burnt rubbish. It was a really good system and I have seen a few new builds around here doing the same thing.

[@JB-ie6rz]

In Vienna, Austria they started to build a Fernkälte Network in addition to the Fernwärme.

[@NorCalMom]

Not all of America is A/C obsessed. Most of the West Coast of California, Oregon, Washington, do not have A/C. We’re in NorCal. The past few summers we had some 116 to 121 F days which were tough. We replaced our old flat roof with a new reflective coating which helps reduce heat absorption tremendously. Also we have blown in insulation in our 1949 house, and have the luxury of cool overnights to capture the cold air with open windows. Nothing better then falling to sleep with the sound of crickets, frogs and owls. I would love to have radiant floor heat for those chilly winters though.

[@june4976]

I personally wouldn't like forced air in my home. I am very susceptible to draft; my neck and back muscles will tense up and cause backache or headache. So, I love my radiators. We don't pull them up to full capacity, though - that's much too warm even for my taste and wastes energy. In fact, in our home there's the rule "if only one person complains about being cold, he or she has to 'onion up' (put on more clothes / blankets) until anybody else feels the chill, too". Since my husband and me have a very different perception of temperature, that usually leads to me wearing fleece jackets and warm sweaters for a few weeks longer in autumn and spring. But it saves heating costs :)

[@TypeAshton]

That's a great rule! We will need to pick that one up here. :)

[@huubjoanfranssen8980]

What I find most interesting is that how easy people adjust to what is locally accepted. I lived in HK, stayed a good time in Indonesia & Mexico. The airco was my friend over there. In Europe it is not my first choice to cool down. Unless it is the only option.

[@TheGbab]

I live in Vancouver Canada. I used to live in an old bungalow which had no insulation in the walls, and no AC. I had doors and windows open all Summer, and lots of bugs in the house, (no screens either) Then I moved to the suburbs of Vancouver into a bigger mid 70's house of 3000 square feet. This place has a gas 94% efficiency forced air heating system with a central 60,000 BTU AC using a scroll compressor. It is also well insulated. Same ducts for heat and AC, simple. The AC is wonderful on hot days. This Summer of 2021, it got up to 41C a few days. I learned the limits of AC when it's 106 Farenheit outside. Keeping this place at 85 F in that hot weather costs $3.50 per day. I don't us the AC for more than say 25 days during the Summer. It's also not a heat pump, just straight AC, which means it does not run at all for most of the year. Heat pumps for both AC and heating grind away all year round making noise and wearing out the compressor. The main gripe with hot water heating is slow heatup times. Yes, forced hot air is a bit dusty, but the house is comfy in 15 minutes after you come home and turn up the heat.

[@Vizeroy9]

We live in Cologne - so a rather mid temperature zone in Germany. However, the way our flat is layed out and oriented, we get next to no air movement in summer when we open our windows front and back. Our Balcony itself heats up to scorching temperatures and runs all the length of our back windows. So we got us a split AC system with the compressor outside on the wall and the outlets inside. All flats in the house got AC systems, which make life in summer so much better. on top of that, the central heating unit had to be replaced due to failure and the house now got a heatpump system, which fits the floor heating quite nicely.

[@TypeAshton]

We also gave in an purchased an AC unit for our house when we found out I as pregnant. We live in an attic apartment with south/west facing windows. Our home BAKES in the summer time since we don't have exterior window blinds to close off the house when the sun comes in.

[@jessicanicolebelmonte6252]

@@TypeAshton Attic apartments are pretty much the worst in the summer. Hot air rises from the whole building. And if there is no ridge venting, the heat just accumulates under the ceiling and bears down on you with suffocating pressure.

[@jennifersierack5746]

I live in Cologne in the last few years the temperature rise above 40 degrees. My tips to survive: In the morning, by morning i mean 5 am to "lüften" and we have special blinds that are heat-repellent. These are also urgently needed we live in the attic. In addition we also have a fan but we only use it when it is above 30 degrees in the room and sometimes I take a cold shower :-)

[@TypeAshton]

Great advice! ❤️ We also live in an attic apartment and thankfully cool summer nights help a lot to get the air moving through the house.

[@seboost4999]

What is crazy here in the US is how excessive the use of the AC is. We had to learn to always take sweaters or jacket and long pants with us when going to work, school, or restaurants, or we would be unpleasantly cold, even if the outside temperature is 104*F/40*C. As we continue to use our bikes to commute to work and the kids to school, this is extra complicated as you need two set of clothes. Often I am looking forward to get out of the building into the 100*F at the end of a work day to finally warm up again. Quite a bit of AC energy could be saved simply by approximating the inside temperature a bit closer to the outside temperature.

[@marwerno]

As a German, I have lived for 15 years in countries with AC (Singapore and Australia). One thing that comes to mind as well: NOISE! Air-con system, even decentralised ones, will mostly give out much more noise than radiator type heating systems!

[@babelhuber3449]

I have a KfW55 house, too. During the hot summer months, it stays surprisingly cool when I'm disciplined and never allow direct sunlight to hit the windows. But once you make a mistake and the house becomes hot, due to its isolation it takes ages to cool it down again. Have fun!

[@TypeAshton]

We are really curious what it will be like this summer. We can't wait to give an update. Thanks for the advice from a fellow KFW55 homeowner.

[@michaelrosner8868]

The upcoming summer 2022 we will retrofit a central forced ventilation system to our house (built in 1880) for heat recovery during heating season and for cooling during summer. The fresh air will be cooled in summer and preheated in winter by use of a subterranean system, working similar to the Roman air well. Of cause we use sun power in for heating in summer (hot water supply) as well as electricity (air ventilation). Blexen is right at the coast to North Sea and so we hope to install a vertical wind generator, too. Our tenants welcome these improvements. For us as property owner it pays off very well.

[@eLISAbeth0395]

My tip for hot summers would be moving underground, if you have the possibility. We live in a house with 6 flats and 4 of them have a "Hobbyraum" in the basement. You can only acces it through the common stairwell, but there we have a 20 sqm room just for ourselves. In the summertime the temperature down there normally does not rise above 21/22 °C which is a very comfortable temperature for sleeping and working. So probably you could think about such a room in your basement where you could escape from the heat.

[@katharinawinter3788]

I live in a German city. When looking for a home, everybody asks for much light and sun. As I am suffering very much when it's hot, I consciously chose an apartment on the lowest floor with the windows shadowed by the neighboring houses. Yes, my flat is dark. But as soon as I get into my cool flat on a hot summers day, I am very grateful for that. And since the house is well insulated, I don't have to heat more in winter than my neighbors. (And for me, 18C in winter is enough)

[@extrememememachine9989]

I think that AC unit with heat pumps that can both cool and heat are more efficient, the channel "Technology connections" has a very detail video explaining why, it's called "Heat Pumps: the Future of Home Heating" you should check it out, but in short it comes to the ratio, for systems using a boiler 1 unit of energy translates to 0.8-0.95 units of heat while using heat pumps a unit of energy equals 3-5 units of heat moved (heat or cool)

[@thatcarguy1UZ]

I live in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania area. In the summer time I set the air conditioning temperature at 79⁰F (26.1⁰C) for the occupied living spaces (I have window units) and a fan to circulate the air. However I like my bedroom at 65⁰F (18.3⁰C) to sleep. In the winter I keep the home heat set to 64⁰F (17.7⁰C) during the daytime and 59⁰F (14.4⁰C) at night time.

[@irenehopfner4915]

I am using a geothermic heat pump combined with solar panels to heat and cool the house with an underfloor heating system. It is not only cost effective but also very convenient. In Vienna the energy for the central heating system comes from garbage disposal plants, waste water plants and hydroelectric power

[@sharonmueller4009]

Forced air heating is just really inefficient. When its not blowing, it feels immediately cool-cold again. The warm air dissipates quickly, or rises up to the ceiling where, well, it doesn’t do anyone any good. It is also extremely drying for the skin, nose and throat. Radiant heating, because it is actually in contact with structures of the house(like the floor in the case of underfloor heating, or the heating of nearby furniture in under window radiators )warms them too by that contact, thereby infusing more fixed structures in the house with a heat that doesn’t dissipate as quickly as warm air being blown into the room.

[@Cowboy-in-a-Pink-Stetson]

Excellent. !!! An astoundingly informative, well researched and delivered video. Thank you so much! I live in Germany in a semi-detached house built in 1994, so not quite up to all the newest environmentally friendly regulations. But not too badly thermally insulated. I use gas central heating with room radiators for heating. In 2015 I put a photovoltaic system on the roof and produce more electricity than I use in a year. (Of course, I sell it back to the utility company for about half the price I have to buy it from them 😞so they still make money out of me ) In 2018 "I caved", as you put it, and invested in an AC system. The interior of my house is fairly open plan so 1 exterior wall unit and 2 inside inverters was all I needed. I figured it was only going to get warmer in the summer and all that extra sunshine driving my PV system could power an AC system 🙂. I only use the AC when the sun is shining anyway😅 Thank you again for this (and your other) educational video on US and German building practices. gas

[@TypeAshton]

So glad you enjoyed it! We really appreciate all of the positive feedback. Although I would like to ask you about selling your energy back to the grid. Are there regulations in Germany that regulate the price? In the US they mandated that the utility companies have to purchase it back from you at the same price you buy it from them.

[@Cowboy-in-a-Pink-Stetson]

@@TypeAshton Dear BFF, "Are there regulations in Germany that regulate the price?" This is Germany!! Of course there are regulations. 😁 But, as you know having lived here a while, they are not 'unsurmountable': If you are thinking of adding PV to your build it would be best to ask your energy utility how that would work where you live. You don't have to sell it back, but you'll have to find a way of dumping/storing any excess you produce. In the end it is easier just to hook it up to the grid. I am not sure if the utility companies are mandated to buy back, but you sure won't get the same price as you buy it for. You just buy from the grid when "the sun don't shine" and sell it back on "happy, sunny days". There are a few things you need to sign (I've forgotten what they were), and you will be registered as a production company. You would be producing energy, after all, just like a grown up utility company. You will also have to declare this on your tax returns, but I found I was getting a (small) rebate as I was earning +/- 0 Euros. They reckon it takes up to 10 years to get your investment back and start earning. But, hey, for the good of the planet and taking away my guilt for the AC ......... Aber wie gesagt, this is all pretty simple and the utility company will should help you out. Looking forward to your next video.

[@michaelotto5301]

We consider an AC for our house here in Germany. But only since we have 12 kW Solarpanels at our roof plus a 6kW Battery in the cellar. So we harvest too much electricity on a bright summer day as to use it directly. Therefore an AC unit could add some comfort without wasting electricity. I’m very positive astonished by the depth and profunde knowledge in your video and would be interested in how you perceive the different voltage systems eg. 1 phase-3 phase, 120V vs. 240V or 400V in our both country’s.

[@TypeAshton]

Ah great idea for a future video! Thank you so much.

[@mohammeddavidzhang-singh5846]

Jonathan, you do a better thermal management at work than many Germans. They open the windows and shutters when it's hot outside and than complain about the heat. I'm not kidding!

[@mowana1232]

I have lived in various places around the world (temperate, subtropics and desert). What I found severely lacking outside of Germany is window and building insulation. Germany primarily mandates good insulation to save energy in winter, but it also helps with keeping interiors cool in summer. Among other places I lived in Hong Kong, which has humid and hot summers (80-100% humidity, 30-35 degrees C), and colder dry winters. Electricity prices in Hong Kong are similar to Germany. Our monthly electricity bills because of air-conditioning during summer were insane, especially after we moved into a house (think thousands, not hundreds). Better building insulation and double-pane windows would have helped considerably. We are now back in Germany (north) and live in an apartment with district heating (under-window radiators) and no air-conditioning. It was built in the 1960s but has updated windows and facade insulation. I permanently switched off the radiators in February. We didn't need them anymore. During hot summers days, we open the windows early in the morning, then later close the blinds and bring down the balcony awning on the south-east side of the apartment. That way the room temperature is about 5-8 degrees lower than outside. Sometimes we also switch on a fan, but very rarely. What also helps is that the apartment has windows on two opposite sides, so that we can create a natural draft... oh the beauty of Kippfenster :)

[@davidgolieri4218]

I find your technical discussions interesting. As a Floridian who lived in Ottobeuren, Bavaria for 5 years the AC is evil statements by Germans has always been irritating. I will give up my AC when you give up your heat. I grew up in a house without AC in Florida, not fun. The environments are very different. In Germany we had the hot water that circulated constantly through radiators in each room and hot water taps in the bathrooms and kitchen. I loved it and it was efficient because you could adjust the heat separately in each room and had hot water at every tap instantaneously. At first it was fueled by oil and cost about 1300 Marks (1990s) once a year to top off the 4 1500 liter tanks in the basement. Then the landlord switched to natural gas and it was about 100 marks per month on average. It was never hot enough to need AC, the house was cool opening the windows in the morning and closing the rolladens in the afternoon. Here in Florida we almost never need heat and use AC 10 months of the year. Our house is 1200 square feet and was built in 2019 and is very efficient and electric costs about $80 in the summer and $40 in the winter. We keep it at 78 degrees F. I think the real difference in HVAC energy usage between the US and Germany is house size. You did a great job talking about this in an earlier video. Also remember energy is more expensive in Europe because of the EU carbon taxes. Keep up the great videos, see you next week (on KZbin)

[@system64738]

15:56 about 1999, Virginia (near D.C.) , a flat with air heating, wood frame construction: if you turn it out, the room feels cool in 1 or 2 hours .... Germany, floor heating, stone house: if I switch the central heating off, it's still warm enough in the living room after 5 hours .... ah... and not far away from you: France, Alsace, Obernai / Ottrot / Molsheim: Hotels with electric heating (electric radiators - no fan) - if you switch it off, it soon gets cold in the room ... hm ... I prefer the german floor heating :-)

[@suserockle7332]

Under floor heating is the best. I moved in an apartment 4 years ago that has it and I love it. No cold feet ever again ;)

[@TypeAshton]

We are totally looking forward to it.

[@Attirbful]

“latitudily” should totally be included in the English lexicon. Love it!

[@Attirbful]

It sounds like something Annie Hall would say: “Latidudily, lah-dee-dah, lah-dee dah…”

[@juergenbubeck]

Living under the roof of a uninsulated 5 unit building from the 60s, I do own one of these portable Bauhaus AC units. This however only runs during the mentioned heat waves, so probably 3-5 nights a year to cool down the bedroom when the nights are still above 28°C or the forecast predicts thunderstorms. In all other cases, I prefer opening all the windows and using a ventilator to force the hot air out. That is way more comfortable and cheaper to run than the AC. In terms of heating, I really really prefer a stone house with radiant heating in comparison to the rental unit with forced air and paper thin walls I lived in for one Michigan winter.

[@TypeAshton]

Admittedly, we also own one. We panic bought when we found out Id be pregnant during the summer (and the summer prior we had 7 heat waves with 40+ C days). Ironically we didn't end up using it that much and that summer was relatively mild.

[@juergenbubeck]

@@TypeAshton There is no real downside to owning one. It does not take up a lot of space and gives you the option to cool the air in case it's really needed.

[@letofregar5410]

We live in a house around 200 years old. Basically, the walls are about 1 meter of rocks mixed with some plaster. As a result, without heating, temperature inside will not rise above around 19°C in the summer. Basically, in the summer we heat the house by opening the windows. Now, in the winter, without heating, the house will stabilise at around 9°C. So, not freezing, but not really comfortable. 😉 As a heating method, we "only" have fireplaces in each major room. Fireplaces like ours (closed glass door fireplaces) deliver a combination of thermal radiation + infrared radiation. This provides a very fast and rather cozy heat, but there is no thermostate. If it gets cold, you start a fire, if it is too warm, you let the fire die. The thick walls are less insulation, but more a mass reserve for the temperature. I.e., if you heat every day, you will get waves of less and more warm conditions, but always more or less OK. If you do not heat a room for a few days, it will get cold and take several days of heating to recover. Ironically, this whole setup was rather inefficient by the time it was built (there were a lot of cold days back then), but was done anyway just due to the availability of materials. With climate change around, we have more days "heating by opening the windows", and less days where we actually have to heat the rooms.

[@bi0530]

I guess one main factor for forced air ventilation is just the point that you CAN use it for A/C as well. radiators just don't work for this because of condensation issues. If you don't use A/C at all, that advantage becomes irrelevant.

[@ladyalexandra2980]

I live in Vienna (not really Germany, but close) in a building from 1907. That means thick brick walls. It hardly ever gets above 25 Celcius. I open the windows in the night, so its quite nice and cool in the morning, then I close the windows and the thick brick walls keep the temperature. - And my body adjusts to the heat, when I go out, its hot as well. Cooling my home to 20 Celsius or so, as some public buildings and offices do, would be too cold- this is, what makes people sick, specially, when cold air is blowing at them, when they come from the heat outside and they are wet from sweat. I think, people on Europe walk much more, then in America, and so we have to adjust to heat more, since thats what is outside, when walking from one place to another.

[@jessicanicolebelmonte6252]

Refrigeration instead of cooling, together with perspiration is what makes people sick.