There is no replacement for air conditioning. It's a modern marvel. People who hate it should also refuse to have heating in winter.
Clearly it is much different than heating in winter; the latter is a matter of survival, while the former is mostly a matter of comfort.
One could indeed argue that in the precarious state we are in, expending energy for unnecessary comfort should be minimized, something that passive designs can aid.
As we also try to minimize energy expenditure of heating, through insulation and other passive means.
There really is nothing "unnecessary" about the comfort of AC. Just like there isn't anything unnecessary about the comfort of heating in winter. People can at worst die without it, and they do. When your environment is uncomfortable, that is your body telling you that the environment is wrong, and it has millions of years of wisdom.
Further I put a jumper on in the winter, have insulation in my house, have curtains etc to keep heat in. What's wrong with having passive ways of keeping warm or cool?
In southern Europe this is false for many weeks during the summer. During heatwaves you want to open all the windows during the night, and close everything at 9ish-10. Because the temperature outside is going to rise to 40-45 celsius the ambient air will only heat your house, even drafts will feel burning hot. So not just shutters, but glass windows and curtains too,
Then about 8 hours later, you want to open everything back up and wash your balcony or terrace (evaporative cooling it essentially), you want to use a minimum amount of water, that will evaporate in the next 30-40 minutes because it attracts mosquitos.
But overall air conditioning is the way to go.
AC full on without other measures and passive thermal control techniques are no only two available options, one can combine them.
There's nothing wrong with the passive ways, when they are enough.
elmer2•7h ago
codingdave•7h ago
AnimalMuppet•7h ago
codingdave•7h ago
FWIW, it isn't either/or - we practice keeping the shades, curtains, and windows drawn when it is hot, open when it is cool.... and we have air conditioning. Best of both worlds.
elliottkember•3h ago
zemvpferreira•36m ago
draven•2h ago
One thing I'll never understand is not having shutters, only curtains. I live in France, almost everyone has shutters. But in other countries it's often different. I lived in Thailand for a couple of years and had only curtains, so the sun would still get past the window pane, heat the curtain, and the AC would then have take this heat outside again. This seemed massively inefficient.
I thing the best compromise is using whatever traditional, passive means of cooling we can, and then AC as needed.
jaapz•53m ago
Maybe electrical energy is massively subsidized or just cheap in general. Installing shutters can be a large up-front investment, especially when installed by somebody else. It may take many years of burning energy with an AC to earn that back.
Also maybe the home isn't even yours, but you are renting. The owner doesn't care about your energy bill.
draven•28m ago
A cursory web search tells me shutters can influence the DPE ("diagnostic de performance énergétique".) A bad rating means you can't rent your property.
bob1029•2h ago
Instead of adding a 2nd condensing unit, try adding spray foam and double glazed windows. I can keep my 2400 sqft Texas home ice cold with a small 3 ton system. There are similarly sized homes right down the street from me with 5+ tons of capacity across multiple condensing units.
The biggest problem with oversized cooling systems is latent heat removal. It's much better to have a slightly undersized system running constantly through the hottest part of the day than it is to have a very powerful system running with 50% duty cycle. It's also significantly better for system life (capacitors last much longer this way). During summer months, my hvac system cycles maybe one time between the hours of 10am and 10pm.
benj111•1h ago