Jesus why would ducts be shared between units
this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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To enjoy the smell of your neighbour's sardines
so you don't have to heat and cool 185 individual units one by one.
I know it's kinda gross but imagine every room in a house having it's own HVAC....?
Most modern apartments or condos in the US have their own HVAC. I’d say anything build in the last 50+ years at least.
Where are you where this is not common?
lived in apts from 2000-2015 - the ones in texas had their own AC, but elsewhere? Shared heating (steam fed radiators in ny) or large AC units on roofs pumping cold air into multiple units (VA, OR, WA)....
What?? Sharing air can allow airborne disease to spread??
Typically in the hospital isolation rooms both have their own ventilation but also have negative pressure, it’s for a reason.
Was it in doubt? I heard about Legionnaire's disease spreading through air conditioning 40+ years ago.
Its even part of standard testing protocol, and tests positive a lot...
Remember when buildings had windows that opened so you could let in fresh air?
Where I live you keep the windows closed to have clean air.
I don't remember a time when the air outside my home in a car-dependent industrial city was fresh. Luckily my current apartment gets centrally filtered and heat-exchanged replacement air.
Remember when the world didn't suck so bad that you could have windows above the third floor that people didn't want to jump from?
No, not really. People have been jumping from heights since at least biblical times. Also not an excuse to prevent putting in at least small ventilation windows.
In Europe, schools were opening their windows to let in fresh air during the covid pandemic to cut down on disease transmission.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/10/13/school-windows-coronavirus-europe-winter/
Meanwhile in the US, we hire architects that design our schools like prisons, and end up with sick building syndrome because there are no windows that open.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_building_syndrome
Did you know the children who survived the mass shooting in Uvalde Texas were able to escape because they were in an older school building with windows that open? Good thing we don’t build our schools (or any other public buildings) like that anymore. 🙄
https://people.com/crime/boy-recalls-escaping-through-window-during-uvalde-texas-school-shooting/
Its gotten significantly warmer
I mean it makes sense, public hallways are also usually pressurized so it keeps smells inside the units too. This would push anything pathogens from the hallways into the units.
God that's a bad design
Very interesting. I remember reading about the SARS case from before the pandemic. Make sure to run water through all your drains periodically!
Sky blue says star witness
You guys are getting ventilation? Best we got is a wall unit. Luckily we have heated floors, otherwise we'd also have to deal with electric radiant heaters along the floorboards.
I lived in an apartment for a summer in 2022 and the area didn't regulate cooling requirements since summers were very mild when the regulation was written. The building was new construction and only "cooled" common areas while exhausting through the apartments. At that point summers regularly had 95F/35C for ~6 weeks with peaks above 110F/43C and lows not dropping below 85F/29C.
Furthermore you could only crack the windows and one of the walls was entirely window. I had taped up foil and cardboard to block the sun.
Anyways the entire apartment building got covid simultaneously at the peak of the heat.
Another win for steam heating.
Steam heating only covers one third of the functions of an HVAC system.