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Comment by carlosrg | Hacker News Reader

I don’t understand the obsession the Americans have with claiming that we hate AC. Europe is not a country. There are countries where AC is more used. Here in Spain it’s common. It’s probably less common in other, less hot countries. Besides heat, countries with a lower GDP probably have less ACs installed than richer countries. So probably France have more AC-per-capita than Moldova, my guess is that something similar happens if you compare California with Mississippi. It depends. We have nothing against AC as a technology.

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> Besides heat, countries with a lower GDP probably have less ACs installed than richer countries.

You couldn't be more wrong about it. A 12k BTU unit is about ~ 250-300EUR + maybe 100EUR setting it up. Building that are almost collapsing have AC. Its a thing to have AC.

Mississippi, despite its much lower per capita income than California, has a much higher percentage of housing units with air conditioning (93% vs 72%). AC is now so inexpensive that whether or not a house has AC is mostly about average summer temperatures not income.

Average price of AC instalation in Spain goes from 550€ to 5000€ depending on what kind of instalation, equipment and units. Average wage is between around 1300€ net per month.

In Spain it's not cheap.

Edit. And also local towns have rules, I can't just install one that have a device on the outer wall/window and I own the whole house, in the flats you depende on the community to decide.

You should ask an American. Glad you asked, temperatures in Paris are of no concern to 99% of us in the US, we have our own merde to deal with. What's the big deal anyway, I had an AC unit hanging out of our concrete multi story bunker in Soviet Odessa. Some places are just hot and I am not gonna "man up" and keel over some ideology or architecture preservation, or I'd just move. The tech has been around for decades and has only gotten better and more efficient. Install AC, don't install it, swim in Seine if you must, buy a neck fan at Auchan or Carrefour, whatevs, Americans are pretty easy going, no matter the mother country and so are the Europeans™ , IME. We have other issues to tolerate or deal with for the next 2.5y, but that's a different thread. Cheers, mate, didn't want to come off nasty, I spent a considerable amount of time in Catalonia and Madrid, lovely everything.

Even in Spain depends on the zone it can be everywhere or nowhere. In the north it's rare to find AC.

No one hates AC, it just wasn't needed.

> Besides heat, countries with a lower GDP probably have less ACs installed than richer countries.

I suspect that's actually not the case, because most of the richest European countries have climates where it's rarely necessary.

California is a funny example, because the ocean is cold. If you live close to the coast, the nights are cool even during heat waves. Where I live, air conditioning is less useful than in Finland.

The Economist is British

They don't have bylines, though, so individual authors could be of different nationalities.

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