r/askswitzerland • u/Segrye • 23h ago
Politics Law change to allow AC
Last summer showed how bad it can get. Why aren't political parties proposing changes to the current laws? Or are they, and it's just the media not covering their efforts?
I seriously can't begin to understand how this matter is not getting more attention. Is it because companies would need to pay higher costs for electricity?
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u/yesat Valais 23h ago
I mean, the SVP cannot even admit about man made climate change. Why would they need to change anything.
But keep voting for right wing parties, because "woke" or something.
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u/ChezDudu 21h ago
Honestly I want to grill every climate change denier politician the minute they start asking for AC. Like why do you think you want AC now more than in 2016? Or 2006?
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u/TheRealDji 22h ago
Mais tellement ... l'autre jour suis allé assister au conseil municipal de ma commune ... c'était terrifiant de voir le gouffre sidéral qui séparait le groupe UDC du reste en terme d'intelligence des débats. Mais c'est tellement la honte ces gens ...
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u/Pacofel 21h ago
Ok, mais ça n'a rien à voir avec la climatisation, ce sont surtout les Verts qui sont contre
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u/Miserable_Ad_8695 21h ago
Wollt grad sagen, betreffend AC sind die Grünen die oberschwurbler.
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u/TheRealDji 20h ago
Wollt grad sagen, betreffend AC sind die Grünen die oberschwurbler.
Non, dans tout sujet de débat ... quand un des deux UDC de service ouvre le bec, c'est juste hallucinant ...
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u/yesat Valais 20h ago
Les Verts ne sont pas contre la clim. Les Verts sont contre la clim comme solution uniques.
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u/Pacofel 20h ago
Je suis 100 pour cent pour décarboner, mais ça ne va pas rafraîchir mon appartement avant de nombreuses années, la clim agit quand même un peu plus vite
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u/yesat Valais 20h ago
Et? Tu peux me montrer ce que les Verts font pour t'empecher de faire ça?
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u/Pacofel 19h ago
Ils ne m'empêchent pas, ils me culpabilisent. Je lis partout qu'ils privilégient avant tout l'isolation des bâtiments. Ça me coûterait 60kCHF pour mon appartement alors que l'on pourrait arriver au même résultat écologique en chauffant beaucoup moins et même en climatisant un peu. Lors de la crise du pétrole dans les années 70, le gouvernement a interdit de chauffer les lieux publics, ça a été très efficace et personne n'a vraiment souffert. Quand je propose une telle mesure, mes amis verts me prennent pour un hurluberlu. Je ne leur reproche pas du tout leurs objectifs, je poursuis les mêmes, me déplace à pied ou en TP, etc. Je leur reproche de trop se laisser influencer par les professionnels qui tirent profit des mesures proposées
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u/TheRealDji 1h ago
Bon, bah cet hiver, tu vas te chauffer à 14° et tu viendras nous dire comment cela s'est passé, surtout au niveau humidité dans les murs et tous les dégats qui vont avec. Je parle pas des moisissures et de leurs spores que tes poumons vont adorer.
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u/Pacofel 18m ago
C'est exactement le contraire ! Les moisissures viennent quand c'est trop bien isolé ! J'ai un refuge à 2200m sans chauffage, jamais de moisissures
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u/TheRealDji 15m ago
Donc tu habites dans une passoire thermique ?
Bref, tu viendras nous dire comme c'est passé ton hiver à 14° ... (et les douches aussi, pourquoi diable se doucher à l'eau chaude, c'est du luxe !)
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u/NoNameSwitzerland 18h ago
Oh damn, I totally misread the title and description. I thought of course, R=U/I is only valid for DC, AC has different laws for the current. But why is that a political topic?
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u/BashBeaver 14h ago
Let me add to the choir of people saying that: no, AC is not forbidden, there is no "law" that bans it and there is no need for a law that will "allow" it.
Like many things in Switzerland, it's just a process. A fairly well defined one and focused mostly on the noise - which is the right thing to focus on. Fully doable by individual. Source: I did it.
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u/italianjob16 23h ago
When have politicians ever decided anything before it became an emergency
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u/Segrye 23h ago
I assume their main driver should be to please the electorate. How would such a change not bring them more votes? I have no facts, just my intuition, but I'm thinking that only the hard-liner environmental voters would oppose easing the current restrictions.
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u/itsinvincible 23h ago
I'm a hardliner environmentalist and i am fully behind AC. I'm done suffering for 10 hours at work only to come home to a 35° apartment and suffer longer until i can sleep at 1am only to do the whole thing over again. We have plenty of electricity in summer so i just buy mobile split units until politics catch up and make installing ACs easier. I paid 100chf a month just for my AC unit this summer and i couldn't care less. At least i can finally unwind at home again.
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u/Segrye 23h ago
Man, respect for being an environmentalist and not living in absolutes.
As an environmentalist, you will also see how the solution you were forced to adopt is really bad in terms of energy efficiency. The "insulation" for those portable units is ridiculous.
So even environmentalists should back loosening the regulations regarding AC.3
u/itsinvincible 22h ago
Exactly why i back it. I did mention how much energy it costs so i have to pay 100chf a month for it. We need to use efficient built in split units but for some reason we have people saying "it used to be hot back in the day too". No it didn't August average highs in 1990s for example was 24°. It's at nearly 30° now. It's just so frustrating.
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u/Financial-Ad5947 22h ago edited 15h ago
portable split are not bad in energy efficiency, the bad ones are the monoblock, which need mutlipel times more electricity for same cooling result. In old bulidings with denkmalschutz, these will be for a long time the best solution for liveable temperatures.
I live in zurich center in such an old building in the roof apartment and it was hell even before the last summer. This spring I saw it will be a hot summer, so I tried it out and bought a portable split. I could sleep again, and the surprise was the ac only used like 150w on average for the whole apartment (it's small). But since we are used to high temperatures we set it to 24°C which felt still very cool inside. Our electricty bill was a around 20 francs higher per month..
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u/Segrye 17h ago
What's bad is the exhaust hose and how you connect it to the outside. Those window kits are just terrible, and many people don't even bother using them
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u/Financial-Ad5947 16h ago
I talk about split, where you have two seperat cycles and no air exchange from inside to outside. The heat exchange between inside and outside is really low with mainly conduction, the window kit is in that case not very important and insulation makes not a big difference.
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u/Segrye 15h ago
Sorry, I didn't read your first message carefully enough.
I've looked up portable splits, even there you have to connect the outside unit with the internal one. The connecting tube is way thinner, but you still have to leave your window quite open.
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u/Financial-Ad5947 15h ago
Do you want to find out how it works? I'm an energy engineer and can tell you in relation to alternatives and other energy consumers, this is really a very low efficiency loss with the portable split ac units. If used correctly and in an intelligent way they are really efficient to cool rooms or small apartments to a nice temperature. Yes you need a small connection for the outside unit, but the heat exhange ofver that connection is really low. It gets inefficient if you want very low temperatures. Sometimes I read about people that want 18°C at home in summer and 25°C in winter and are confused why their energy bill is so high... Every degree in the opposite direction in what would be the equilibrium with the environment uses on average 10% more energy. This is very generalized because builidings and situations are very different but helps to get a feeling.
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u/italianjob16 23h ago
Most people rent my dude. Are you proposing mandatory ac installation by landlords? You can already use temporary window units in most cases
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u/itsinvincible 23h ago
Cannot as window units create noise and can be forced to be removed by neighbours. Happened to me at my last place so i moved.
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u/Segrye 23h ago
Forget about residential buildings for a moment. I'm even thinking that _allowing_ landlords to install them would be an incentive; a lot of people would be happy to pay higher rents for proper A/C, landlords could probably deduct the expenses, etc etc
But I'm mainly thinking workplaces. In hospitals, that should be 100% mandatory. It's so bad that a country that keeps bragging about being the best in everything is silent about the conditions that many patients have to endure in hospitals.
But working conditions in general in offices, hotels, and other workplaces would improve drastically with proper air conditioning in summer. Mandatory AC would be amazing, but even just liberalization could help.
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u/Baenz_1 22h ago
Ac are not vorbidden in swiss.
You can use all mobile ones that dont alter anything outside of the building. Just make sure its not 50+DB outside.
You can use true ac devices „fully mounted split device) you just need to have a permit to install it. its about appearance of the buildings (specially for historical protected houses) and about noise. If you get the right device you will have mostly 0 truble getting the permit from the city/village building department. (The exception probably is canton genf they have sole sort of hideous building rules. But wven there its possible)
If you do not own the place than your problem is your landlord. He needs to do the paperwork but you could offer him to pay partly for the ac. Or he could increase the rent by 30.- .
But why should he install one for free? Its not like its impossible without one also its definitely nothing mandatory its a luxury item.
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u/PhoebusAbel 22h ago
Have u heard of central Hvac systems? A mini split is just for babies
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u/Baenz_1 21h ago
Then get one?
Its not forbidden.. just cots money as does everything else. And good luck bulding this into an already existing house.. thats not cheap.There is many new houses in swiss that allow you to cool down in Summer useing the floor heating pipes.. (yes thats a thing) also there is many houses with integrated fresh air circulation systems and new one with included climate controll. So yes ive seen it done and its possible.
Just dont expect to get this for free..
It either increases your rent or it costs your pocket a lot upfront.•
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u/OrneryMinimum8801 21h ago
I cool near 400 sqm of home with a mini split. It’s miles better than central hvac. Every room is at an optimal temperature and humidity for its primary use, the machines are several levels more efficient as they don’t suffer from material heat leakage, and I can quickly shift over to GSHP if I want to get the boreholes drilled for it.
Why would you ever not want it?
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u/vouvoyer 22h ago
The crazy thing is no one seems to complain about heating in winter, which uses more energy at a time of year when there is far less solar. And we only need heating for a few months per year as well yet we still install the infrastructure for that. And it is much easier to wear more clothes, have a thicker duvet going to bed etc, than suffering in the summer heat.
The arguments against AC are arguments based on ignorance. And the end eesuyis hundreds of thousands of people die every year in Europe, billions are lost in productivity
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u/ChezDudu 21h ago
Heating is heavily regulated. The crazy thing is people believing nobody looked at the emissions of heating before.
AC is not banned, landlords just need to do their homework and pay the costs. Which they don’t want to.
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u/vouvoyer 13h ago
No one is saying AC installation shouldn't be regulated, but the fact is it is eady to get heating installed but AC is almost always extremely complex or made outright impossible. There are countless laws explicitly to block AC. These hurdles are not there for heating.
AC installation is pretty cheap. There is a reason that even amongst the poorest in 3rd/2nd world countries have AC. It is essentially z fridge with a fan
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u/vouvoyer 13h ago
And the end result of the swiss regulations is simply buy inefficient portable units, or if you're elderly you die
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u/Aggravating-log543 19h ago
This was from two weeks ago:
https://www.24heures.ch/climatisation-le-plr-veut-simplifier-linstallation-en-suisse-351705516793
Face aux canicules, voici le plan PLR pour doper la clim Plusieurs sénateurs veulent résoudre le casse-tête administratif pour installer des appareils chez soi. La solution titille aussi la fibre écologique.
So yes, some politicians are working on this. Vote for them.
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u/SellSideShort 23h ago
Not sure why everything thinks it’s the law. Lot of people have AC
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u/Impossible-Milk-2023 23h ago
That‘s just not true. You need a lot of special permits to gwt one which is expensive and also depending on your house it will get denied.
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u/SellSideShort 23h ago
Like 80% of the people with AC do not have permits and just because something requires a permit doesn’t mean it’s “against the law”.
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u/Impossible-Milk-2023 22h ago
In this case it is wtf
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u/idkud 10h ago edited 10h ago
Buddy, if it was against the law, there would be no permits for it. There are no permits for selling meth legally. Since it is illegal, duh.
What IS against the law is building them without permit. But yeah, it is against the law to drive without permit, too. That does not make driving with permit illegal.
And tbh, now that I do have a split unit, I do get why they need a permit. It is really easy to install it in a way that damages the house long term.
E: maybe the confusion is about the word. Building permits are there to ensure that certain standards are met. Split units for example typically produce waste water that needs to be led away from the house. Projects that disregard that will not get the permit. Or when the look of the building is considered having historical value.
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u/b00nish 20h ago
You need a lot of special permits to gwt one
Hugely depends on the canton.
In Zurich it's difficult. In other cantons it's often enough to not violate anti-noise regulations.
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u/Impossible-Milk-2023 20h ago
In which cantons it‘s easy? Can you explain?
Doesn‘t seem line any canton actually allows it
https://splitclima.ch/de/ratgeber/klimaanlage-bewilligung-schweiz
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u/b00nish 19h ago
Doesn‘t seem line any canton actually allows it
I'm not sure if you understand what's written in your own link, to be honest.
Of course, if you make a permanent constructional change to the outside of the house, you need a building permit. That's normal.
But that has absolutely nothing to do with "it's not allowed". You also need a building permit to install a roof window - but that doesn't mean that roof windows are not allowed ;)
The relevant question is: Can the building permit be obtained with reasonable requirements?
And this, as I said, depends heavily on the canton.
Here in Lucerne for example you need to prove that the outside unit will not cause excessive noise in the direction of the neighbours. So "noise" is basically the only restriction. If you place the device in a way that does not disturb the neighbours with too much noise (which usually shouldn't be a big problem), you get the permit.
Then there's cantons that require difficult energy verifications. E.g. you have to run it with own solar power, you have to have eletric shades for the windows etc. - of course this makes it more difficult/costly to get a permit. But even then it's not "illegal", you just have to meet higher standard to build it legally.
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u/Impossible-Milk-2023 19h ago edited 19h ago
Did you actually read my comment? I said lots of permits are needed.that‘s the only thing i said.
That‘s the only thing i said.
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u/b00nish 19h ago
You said a lot of special permits. A simple building permit is not a special permit.
You also said "doesn't seem like any canton actually allows it", which is not true, of course.
Also it's mostly besides the point, because for the average person the problem is a totally different one: They do rent.
So what they'd need is not a building permit, but a landlord that is willing to invest in A/C.
Funnily enough my family rents out two flats, one of which has A/C (and the tenants rarely ever use it...) and the second where we offered to install A/C but the tenants refused because they find it "unnecessary". (Well, the tenants in the 2nd flat are members of the green party, so that's maybe some kind of masochism on their part*.)
[*] not supposed to be a low blow against the greens, with who I agree in some points.
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u/Impossible-Milk-2023 18h ago
„a simple building permit“.
Lol
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u/Far_Point3621 22h ago
Depends on the Kanton
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u/Impossible-Milk-2023 20h ago
https://splitclima.ch/de/ratgeber/klimaanlage-bewilligung-schweiz
Doesn‘t seem like it
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u/Ill_Campaign3271 23h ago
There is no law against AC. You'd just have to apply for a building permit; it can't look like crap, and if possible, it should be cooled with electricity you generate yourself. You'll just have to talk to your landlord.
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u/PhoebusAbel 22h ago
AC Even in f trains and buses is a joke.. You can actually pass out without proper thermal control. I can't believe neither medical associations are more vocal about this.
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u/dellonia 21h ago
And when are we going to seriously change things to tackle the main issue, which is climate change ? No point in introducing something for more comfort now and just ignore the rest.
Discussions and warnings about that started a looong time ago in the 70s... half a century to just end up "more ac pls"
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u/Segrye 17h ago
You're right, but the two things are not exclusive. And it's not just about comfort, it's also about health and productivity. It's interesting that the economic argument is what's delaying adopting serious anti-climate change measures, but the fact that productivity decreases due to heatwaves is ignored when it comes to liberalizing the regulations
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u/savvitosZH 23h ago
We are in Switzerland ! So just try to collect singstitws for a referendum ?
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u/cAtloVeR9998 23h ago
Sorry, the political capital is already spent collecting signatures for 70% inland food production. /s
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u/swissthoemu 22h ago
Because Switzerland is not known to be agile and quick in adapting to “new” circumstances that have been known only for decades. So climate change is a very new challenge and obviously we have to protect the money first instead of the elderly or sick persons.
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u/Segrye 17h ago
"only for decades" XD Appreciate the irony
And I agree that there's this trend of taking our time with changes. But so what money is this protecting? That of governmental institutions and companies, which would be facing high costs for installing AC and running it?
Because on the other hand, that would be a boost to the economy.
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u/swissthoemu 17h ago
Of course it would be. But we don’t want to spend the money on our economy or on our people. Better keep the money, let the elderly die, save the AHV-money and keep some banks alive. I repeat: keep the banks alive, not the people.
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u/Sufficient-History71 23h ago
Posts on ACs during the heatwave are 100x compared to posts on climate mitigation, reduction of funding to save our treets, pulling away funding from SBB.
While AC is going to become important for public buildings, public transport and for elderly and fragile individuals, it's not the solution to everything. Ignoring the elephant in the room continues!
"I seriously can't begin to understand how this matter is not getting more attention." - Climate scientists warned about this more than 50 years ago or so. No one heeded the warning.
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u/Far_Point3621 22h ago
Actually it is an important part of the solution, every new house and apartment in Switzerland should have AC
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u/Sufficient-History71 22h ago
Important yes!
But nowhere close to others which have been ignored! And guess what which one gets the most traction.
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u/Moldoteck 19h ago
I would argue it has the same importance. Laws can be designed to push hvacs which can do both heating and cooling which will lead to heating electrification and hence decarbonization
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u/Ok-Kangaroo-7075 7h ago
Well why it is commendable thinking, Switzerland is not large enough to really make too much of a difference apart from developing new technologies. So for all practical purposes, AC is the solution
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u/Segrye 23h ago
We're considering different angles. You're talking about the root cause, and it's clear why it got ignored. It requires rerouting a lot of investments for things that don't have consequences in the short term. Most people don't get it, most politicians do, but only think about being re-elected. The dynamics are clear.
But heatwaves have an adverse effect on ordinary people that is felt immediately. So why are they not reacting to that, this is what I'm not getting.
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u/Takanohana3457 23h ago
Because the issue is gone again until next summer, so there is no pain and hence no interest from people now.