alt Hacker NewsSign of a rich and very developed country.
A lot of buildings in Austrian cities are still heated by burning oil or wood and the whole city smells like a bonfire.
Probably gonna have my lifespan shortened by at least a decade from all that fossil fuel pollution, but at least we banned that dirty nuclear from killing us.
Replies
Air-to-Air heat pumps can be quite affordable. Or even cheap if you find no name deals. There is install, but even that is not really that significant. This is at least in Nordics.
Longer term this shouldn’t be the case though - a fridge is just a heat pump, and an air-to-air or air-to-water heat pumps aren’t that much more complicated, nor should they be any less reliable.
It’s something that will become more of a commodity and eventually won’t be any more sign of wealth than owning a fridge.
I mean, we can see it already in air-to-air systems - I’ve had mini-splits supplied and installed here in Australia for something like 20% of the cost I’ve heard quoted for equally sized units in the US, for example - just because basically every electrician has a license to install them here because they are so incredibly common (for cooling even more than heating, but they can basically all so both here). Air-to-water I expect will be the same in cold climates - in 15 years basically any plumber will be able to do it and they’ll be far cheaper than today.
> Sign of a rich and very developed country.
You need to find another reason. Looking at IMF 2025 GDP per capita figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... ):
Norway: $92k
Denmark: $77k
Sweden: $62k
Germany: $60k
UK: $57k
Finland: $56k
So yeah, Denmark and particularly Norway are a bit richer than the others, but the others are in the same ballpark.
If I had to bring up some particular reason, gas grids are more or less non-existent in the Nordics, and electricity is cheaper than in central Europe or UK.
Get an ERV - it will most likely have air filter. Such a life improvement to a point I'm actually waiting for winter now (in summer you have a problem of mosquitoes, house doesn't cool quickly enough by itself and if you close shades for sleeping - you don't get adequate ventilation).
air conditioning is also a heat pump. they cost way less then the air/water heatpumps and are easy and cheap to install. Since two years I heat with air conditioning and its super effective and cheap.
edit// Hot water is generated by electric solar panels. 1200w are sufficent to have enough hot water for two persons
LMAO good one.
Yes heat pumps are expensive and you need different radiators and more insulation than with traditional gas central heating. That's why it's an issue in Holland too. Not many people have the investment for all that. It's mainly worth it when you have solar panels but that requires another big investment.
I'm lucky to live in Spain where it's not that cold so I just have one little plug in radiator I use a few months a year lol.