For decades, people in the UK tended to view air conditioning as something that belonged elsewhere. It was associated with office buildings, hotels and hotter countries rather than their own homes. But as summers become warmer and heatwaves more frequent, that picture is beginning to change.
Colleagues and I analysed data from the English Housing Survey, a nationally representative sample of about 16,000 households. This shows that air conditioning remains relatively uncommon, with just 4.3% of households using it in summer. That’s far below countries such as the US (nearly 90%) and Australia (around 75%).
