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While I hear you, I think AC is better centralized for the building, along with heat and water.

Yes, there are numerous reasons why this is harder to do than just doing it ad-hoc per apartment, but if we’re to see it as infrastructure, it should receive the same level of consideration as other utilities.

Agreed, new builds should be mandatory, but this is not easy to retrofit to existing apartment buildings in a country where labour and parts are notoriously expensive and have to be split with the residents.

I can run a broken toilet tank all day long without extra fees, hundreds of gallons. Can turn all faucets on without penalties, nobody is counting and the utility doesn't care. The maintenance fees for water cover it, spread across all residents (although they are not low, like $1,800 on top of mortgage, subsidizing things I don't use, like card rooms, ping pong hall, etc.). Some families live 4-5 in a 2 bedroom, in my case it's just the two of us and the dog. Pretty insane, no logical solutions in sight. Moving isn't inexpensive.

That seems unusual to me. I've never lived in a place where water was not metered and charged by the volume consumed. A necessity like water (and A/C) should be as you describe, but I've never seen it, at least not in the USA.

I live in a condo in Florida in a 3 building high-rise compound. There are no water meters per unit. Water is covered by maintenance fees. They are atrocious and rising, but water is "free". Retrofitting will increase maintenance fees, likely by a lot more than I would save paying for my own water usage.

I had a similar situation involving electricity when living in Los Angeles, in the Valley. Electricity costs were averaged across all units, there were no individual meters per unit. My family of 3 humans in a 2 bedroom apartment consumed a lot less than a 10 human family in a 3 bedroom, and that was a thing. I subsidized their electricity usage. This involved things like pool heating, grass maintenance which I never cared about or used. This was at Bella Vista near Warner Ridge. https://www.equityapartments.com/los-angeles/woodland-hills/...

In the US, utility companies don't bill you for actual usage, they have "predictions" on what you may use. IME. You can burn candles and eat canned food for a month and still get billed $300.

Thats easy then. put the condenser in the running toilet

For most of the buildings from communism era - all the utilities run through the apartments anyway and there is absolutely no place or way to retrofit these utilities without extensively either re-doing it from scratch, or trying to somehow retrofit it on the outside.

All of these options are a non-starter considering basic AC starts from $500. Why should anyone invest more than that?

Many communist-era buildings had a service shaft the width of the back wall of the toilet closet (yes, bathroom and toilet are separate rooms). This was hidden from everyday view with large cabinet doors.

A national-scale project can likely package cooling for these shafts, possibly emanating from rooftop units.

Permissions and structural concerns aside, you only need one 65mm/2.5" hole in the wall to run the high/low pressure gas lines, a drain hose, and a power cable, plus couple more non-penetrating drill holes on the wall to mount the inside and outside units. You'll need a hole saw attachment on a drill, a vacuum pump to thoroughly dry out the system, and bits of plastic putty to fill the hole against intrusion. It's a less than 5 man-hour job.

you don't really need drain hose for outside multisplit unit, my AC drain hoses from all indoor units are connected to my WC tank, I used previously pumps to push the water to the roof, but they were not reliable and once after thunderstorm they died when I finally went for passive solution, should have done it from the beginning)

The problem with shared is the issue of shared cost. How do you determine how much a user consumes?

There is also the issue of upgrading the shared infrastructure. Because of the size it's a lot more expensive to replace, so that is postponed for much longer because now everybody needs to pitch in.

> We have those stupid regulations in Finland about how the outside of our apartments buildings should look - meaning you cannot put the condenser visibly on the outside of the building.

Same for Germany, at least in many places. And if your building gets reclassified as being under Denkmalschutz (cultural heritage management) you've won in the Lottery of Pain.

Wasn't it the case in Germany it's only fixed installations? Meaning you could put the Midea split system there? This'd be a big no-no in Finland.

> ensure consistent placement of condensers

You can install one on the balcony below the railing level.

The housing company is responsible for the exterior surfaces and thus also responsible for whatever happens to fall on bystanders when it will inevitably happen.

AC installers are also notoriously bad at following placement guidelines.

I've had one placed like this in the balcony of a XVth century palazzo turned museum plus hotel, straight in the historical heart of Verona. If they can do it, everybody can do it as well.

Seems like Poland and Finland might have something in common then. It's exactly the same here and exactly senseless.

Is it really so hard to put a small fence around it to hide the ugly?

Of course not, there are numerous ways to make things look nicer.

Sometimes it's not about the fence, it's about exerting power. Put people in charge of the decision that shouldn't be there, and you're in world of pain.

Flowers bad, planks good?

Doesn't matter what it looks like, problem is it changes the facade. For that you need to submit some paperwork and get it approved.

You can actually install a heat pump in most apartment buildings, as long as it's on the balcony and not visible from the street (=below waist-level). Main reason you wouldn't, is condensate output which has to be piped indoors or into a heated drain during the winter. Or you just pipe it into your balcony's rainwater drain and accept that you can't use the heatpump below 0C.

Fencing AC units is a very bad idea, as they just cause air flow problems. After all, air and refrigerant circuit exchange heat.

Obviously, people thought about this, and there are lots of fence designs that admit plenty of airflow and lots of products ready-made for this already.

Service technicians hate fences unless they are easy to remove during a service call. Honestly, esthetics is not as much concerning as the noise from compressor and condenser fan. I stayed in an AirBnb, where the outdoor unit next to the bed room, and I couldn't sleep.

Ok, you're clearly trolling it this point. Fences can open.

I think you misunderstand what isolation does. It will also keep the heat out. Having window awnings to block sunlight from directly warming up the room will go a long way.

Now here is exactly one place where the regulation can hit hard: awnings are maybe not allowed because the house wasn't designed with them. Possible to get the new design approved? For sure. Simple? Ha.

Yes and no.

The problem is if you can't get the home cooled off, then heat that does build up can't escape.

In western Canada until recently we got away with very good insulation coupled with opening windows at night as daytime-vs-nighttime temperatures could swing as much as 15C.

But as both daytime and nighttime temperatures increase, or in more humid climates where the temperature doesn't drop enough, that's no longer effective.

The net result is the home just gets hot and stays hot.

You say stupid, but I actually would find it sad to see beautiful buildings that are in many cases hundreds of years old defaced with loads of small condensers bolted on to the face.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't have A/C but rather all flats use one system with a large roof condenser, or where that is not possible district cooling or ground source.

I'm not talking about historic buildings that are hundreds of years old. I live in Finland - we don't have many of these. Almost all apartments are built after the 60s outside the downtown and look like concrete boxes.

You'd be surprised (I certainly am) how fond can some people be of concrete box architecture - hint Le Corbusier.

Take a look around [1]. This is what every neighbourhood built looks like now.

[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/bMYANpDU2AGDKVQN7

Same in Switzerland. https://maps.app.goo.gl/jHncP5XvFC4F3WAt9

The amount of engineering that goes into a system like this makes it impossible to retrofit into an existing structure.

> I've heard stories of residents being scalded for putting flowers on their balcony

In medieval times, not after, I hope.

I could see this being a good policy for unsightly detrius or debris but they've taken it way too far.

if you have balcony you could hide multisplit unit under railing

if you don't want permanent installation there are not basically mobile split units like Midea Portasplit, it's basically same thing you would install on the wall, but mobile on the wheels (personally I have regular AC (Toshiba) and my multisplit unit is on the flat roof invisible from the street, this year neighbor floor below me installed his unit on the roof as well, we are the only 2 apartments in two units with 40 apartments in total with AC, so much for Prague AC statistics, though honestly even under the roof in 35C+ temperatures it was not that bad prior turning on the AC)

wow such beautiful industrial cement buildings how can someone put flowers and destroy the beauty of cement?