Londoners Find Working From Home Is Getting Harder Without Acs

(MENAFN- Live Mint) (Bloomberg) -- For a lot of Londoners trying to work from home a day or two a week, the latest heat wave is turning into a major headache.

On Monday, Britain had its earliest ever tropical night of the season, defined as a temperature above 20C (68F). On Tuesday, the daytime temperature soared above 35C, a record for the time of year. Both extremes were registered in the country's capital.

Gary Woodward, managing director of Airconco, an air conditioning installer based in north London, says his company is now booked out until the end of the summer.

“Even if people are only working two or three days a week from home, they're still sitting in a converted bedroom, spare room,” Woodward said. It only takes“two or three days of extremely hot weather in which people start to become uncomfortable and unable to work, unable to sleep” for demand to shoot up, he said.

With the UK experiencing a faster pace of warming than the global average, having access to effective cooling systems is increasingly turning into a necessity. For now, though, air conditioning remains a luxury enjoyed by a minority of Britons. Though adoption of AC units has doubled over the past three years, it's still only installed in 7% of UK homes. Another 8% have portable units, which are cheaper to buy but less efficient and costlier to run.

“Much of the country was designed for a climate that no longer exists,” says Andy Love, founder and managing director of Shade the UK, a community interest company that works with government and authorities to manage overheating risk in buildings.“We have spent decades largely prioritizing warmth, airtightness and winter performance, often without fully considering how buildings would behave during prolonged hot weather.”

The failure of Britain's buildings to shield people from extreme heat now represents an“architectural crisis,” he says.

Vanessa Chan, who moved to London from Hong Kong three years ago, has been stunned by the extreme heat she's experienced in the UK capital.

When it gets too hot in her apartment, Chan says she works“in the office more than staying at home because our policy is that we can stay around two days at home, but I will try to go back to the office to enjoy the air con.”

The 34-year-old, who lives with her husband in a modern block of flats in southeast London, says her rental doesn't allow for proper air conditioning. And even if she were permitted to install an AC unit, she says she would struggle to afford it.

Chan's is a familiar story as British heat waves get hotter and more frequent. April Richardson, a writer who grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, says her duplex apartment in an older building in Brighton, a coastal city south of London, is like living“inside of a brick pizza oven.”

Richardson, 47, says she's tried to keep cool with a regular fan and has resorted to sleeping on the floor in her living room, which is downstairs and slightly cooler than the bedroom.

“It's hard to get anything done,” she said.“It just feels like you're walking through soup.” And in the current heat wave, Richardson says the last thing she feels like doing is being close to a hot laptop battery.

“No one's trying to do that,” she said.“I mean, it's uncomfortable. It's difficult to concentrate.”

Though offices are mostly air-conditioned, the trip there can still be hot. More than half the trains that make up London's famous underground network - known as the Tube - have no air-conditioning.

London's local government has long been opposed to embracing air conditioning, citing the added energy consumption such units entail and their impact on carbon emissions. It also warns that widespread use of AC units will worsen urban heat islands, as the hot air sucked out of buildings gets pushed onto city streets.

And in some of London's most expensive boroughs, residents looking to install air conditioning also face hurdles. For example, in Kensington & Chelsea - where the average home costs about £1.3 million ($1.7 million) - AC units usually require special permission, and are sometimes effectively prohibited due to concerns they'd clash with the historical facades common to the area.

But as Londoners like Chan struggle to cope with rising temperatures, those running the city are now under growing pressure to reconsider. This month, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) - a body that advises the UK government - said it's no longer acceptable to reject air conditioning as a key tool to help Britons cope with the increasingly dangerous heat levels they face.

“Air conditioning is going to be essential, particularly in places where we have vulnerable people, like hospitals and care homes,” said Julia King, the CCC's adaptation chair.

On Thursday, the UK parliament's Environmental Audit Committee said it was convening a meeting for June 3 to discuss how the country“should adapt to a rapidly heating climate after the UK recorded its highest ever May temperature” this week. The meeting will discuss findings recently published by the Climate Change Committee, it said.

Meanwhile, early-season heat waves such as the one now gripping Britain and other parts of Europe are particularly dangerous because people haven't had time to acclimatize, says Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, a lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. The Institute says England and Wales may see 250 additional deaths as a result of the current heat wave.

Love of Shade the UK says more focus should be placed on ensuring Britain's buildings are constructed in ways that avoid trapping heat. That way, people stay cool even if there's a power outage that renders AC units useless, he says.

London's planning policy requires developers and homeowners to demonstrate that they've tried passive cooling measures, such as shading. Only then are they allowed to add air conditioning.

But the CCC says solutions such as shading may no longer be enough in a warmer Britain, particularly in London. It's now advising that air conditioning be part of the country's“plan for more active cooling.” That means investing in air conditioning in public buildings, applying maximum temperature regulations for workplaces, and subsidizing air conditioning for people who can't afford it.

Last year, the UK government announced £2,500 subsidies for air-to-air heat pumps, a type of home heating which can also provide cooling. However, those funds aren't yet available because certification standards for installers and equipment aren't ready.

The Mayor of London's Office has launched a consultation to update the city's development strategy, including settling on cooling solutions. At the same time it's resisting recent proposals from the national government to standardize planning rules across the country, out of concern that such a measure would remove London's ability to set more stringent environmental requirements in the capital.

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said that current policy“doesn't rule out air conditioning, it recommends new developers consider passive measures in new homes in the first instance, such as external shading and glazing areas, to minimize the need for householders to use air conditioning, which helps to lower their energy costs.”

--With assistance from Eamon Akil Farhat and Joe Wertz.

(Updates with Environmental Audit Committee's announcement, in 20th paragraph.)

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