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Comment by cwillu | Hacker News Reader

Brits will do anything except properly insulate their damn homes.

Brits, Dutch, Belgium, Northern Germany. They all have this incredibly outdated building style that they refuse to change. Bricks with no insulation. I live 1000km to the south of them and it is pretty standard for us to have tripple pane windows and thick insulation on our houses. But they for some reason prefer to live in cold houses during the winter and overheated houses during the summer.

I have had multiple conversations with people who lived a while in that area. Rich, educated countries, modern economies, but they live like they are poor farmers in the 19th century.

British building regs literally require insulation? It is not a law that old builds have to be brought up to code, but there were government schemes where you got free loft and cavity wall insulation in old houses.

This has not been true for at least a decade for dutch buildings: there are strict regulations requiring decent insulation for new buildings. Renovating and insulating old buildings is also encouraged, but not required by law.

Insulating old buildings and especially appartment buildings is very common over here. There the amount of uninsulated buildings is so much higher. Every time I am in that part of Europe I am appalled at the energy waste.

I think the buildings really are that old - you can't legally build new ones like that in the EU afaik. No idea about Britain, but yeah, I lived there in a flat like that, it was over 100 years old.

Purely anecdotal, but every house I have ever visited in the Netherlands and Scandinavia has been properly heated and above all insulated. Which is absolutely not the case for the UK and even less so for France and countries further "south". If you want to be cold indoors in Europe, spend a winter in Spain, Portugal, Italy or Greece. Here I speak with some experience.

Hasn’t been true in like 50 years, at least in new builds, even conversions. We have building standards too you know

> at least in new builds

It appears that something like 50% of homes are still over 50 years old, which seems to be more than enough for “some subset of brits large enough to be notable complain about the cold weather because they don't have a properly insulated place to warm up in” to have explanatory power.

And make a bathroom practical and enjoyable. Sink with hot and cold tap, electric water heater in shower, come on...

I don't think I've ever been in a UK home that didn't have these, except perhaps the electric shower; older homes may still use immersion heating for hot water.

Were you in prison when you experienced the above?

My last year Airbnb experiences in Scotland. I could not believe my eyes it still existed (I used to go often in the UK in the past).

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