LogGrad98
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Well first of all, the rant was centered on our apartment because it came after our party here where it was sweltering and my shirt literally looked like I had dipped it in water from sweat. But really it was aimed at the general topic that AC here is non-existant. Of course everyone has it in their car, but you rarely find it in any buildings. Dutch has it right, most Europeans are acclimated for cold weather, so you see them greatly over-react to stay warm when there is a hint of cold in the air. For example, we are supposed to get some rain in the next few days, and I guarandamntee that we will see people running around in cost with scarves and hats while the rain brings the temp down to the high to mid 70's. I just cannot fathom that at all. Dutch is right about buses and such too. They become hot-boxes. Last summer while I was here in July they had a big kerfuffle in Berlin during a 2-day heat wave where dozens of people had to be taken to the hospital due to heatstroke riding a tram. But then the next day it started to rain, the temp dropped 10 degrees maybe, and everyone was in coats and scarves again. It is the single most bizarre difference I can think of.
As for our air conditioner, in some ways Dutch is right about that too. The reason most Europeans don't have AV is due to 1) what I said above and 2) there really are only a few weeks a year when it is really needed. We were hoping our apartment would get us some reprieve in that we are on the bottom level in a WWII era building (meaning thick concrete walls) and the back side of our apartment is shielded from the sun. So we hoped it would at least stay somewhat cooler. Which it does compared to the other apartments, but that means that our apartment nearly reaches outside ambient temps inside, and the other apartments are 10-20 degrees hotter. The folks living in the top apartment came down to us yesterday and spent half the day at our place since their apartment was so much warmer. Plus they have 2 little kids (5 and 3) and we have a little garden area where we set up a little kiddie pool and the kids, including my 13 year old, "swam", and later the adults too. It was so. Damn. Hot.
Anyway, we are going to look into something. The layout and design of German floorplans make it hard to get one unit to do much to the whole house, so we will need to use a combo of a window unit and fans to move air around. Every room here has a door that closes. You can stand in the hallway and have zero clue where anything is with all the doors closed. It is weird. Plus the windows here are not like most windows in the US. They are build for ventilation since most houses have no forced air system (we have floor heating, but most places uses hot water radiator heating units under the windows), so the windows frames are extra thick and are designed to tip inward for ventilation, or open completely swinging inward like a door. And they are not easy to remove or anything, so to have a unit in the window means having a window swung inward open. It also means they don't have many such units available here and they are expensive. We will also have to build it in somehow since the windows are all about 4 feet tall, but that is doable for the summer at least. But being a ground floor apartment it also means a weak spot and there have been some break-ins in the area. I don't know we are still debating what to do. We are hoping our friends are right when they say that it gets hot for 3-5 days, then rains and is cool for a week, then gets hot again, etc.
This is what the windows are like:
