The UK’s houses are still designed to retain heat. In an age of global warming, that needs to change.
Climate change can mean more extreme temperatures. We need to be able to keep warm, and keep cool. The better you insulate a house, the better it can keep cool after cooling down at night, and keep the heat out when you do use air conditioning.
One thing helping with this is airtightness, and MVHR. Couple that with good insulation (keeps hot out, as well as in), and things like shades above south facing windows to block the sun when it’s at it’s highest/hottest, and we see a lot of improvements. MVHR especially helps to distribute heat between rooms, and provide fresh air without completely heating/cooling the house.
MVHR especially helps to distribute heat between rooms
Never thought about this aspect of it. Was going to just get single room MVHRs for the bathrooms and kitchen, but now considering this… Downstairs gets quite cool at night while upstairs is still hot as balls, so distributing that heat with vents makes sense.
What’s MVHR?
Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery - basically you pull fresh air into the house and push old air out and transfer the temperature of the old air to the new air. This means you aren’t having to heat or cool the new air but you still get fresh air.
Mechanically Ventilated Heat Recovery system. It lets you get fresh air without losing heat / cool as the expelled air heats / cools the inlet air transferring its energy over.
https://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/information-hub/heat-recovery-ventilation-mvhr/
Im considering importing American tech when I eventually renovate my house, they have some great HVAC systems over there now.
If not I might put in some sash windows instead and buy the cheaper window aircons they use over there.
Im going to reder my house in brilliant white to reflect as much light as possible and also put in mirrored glass.
My house is completely south facing, which is great a lot of the time, but in this heatwave the rooms inside at hitting 30c by night. Fans arent enough anymore.
All that said, im glad we are getting some decent weather these days compared to summers of the past.
Houses, public and commercial buildings, everything needs to be rethought. Currently visiting the UK from a much warmer and more humid climate in the states. It’s bizarre that it’s pleasant outside but almost uniformly uncomfortably warm (and frankly, more important humid) inside. Out hotel room is supposedly air conditioned but stays a uniform 25-26c no matter what the thermostat is set on. It’s “working appropriately” according to management and their 3 different maintenance staff that have “adjusted” it, but it is not handling the humidity well. The only saving grace is one of the windows will open ~6in to allow us to open it at night. The bigger picture is how this heat and humidity are going to effect the buildings and their contents. It doesn’t take all that long a time for humidity and high indoor temps to allow serious mold issues to start taking hold. People forget the original use of ac wasn’t for human comfort but to keep goods (specifically paper) dry so it didn’t curl and become unusable by a printing company.
Serious mold issues are already a thing over here, in most public housing it’s a serious problem and some kid died from an infestation
I see lots of folks round our way with the windows open on hot days. I’ve been keeping all the windows closed and blinds down during the day, open it all up in the evening and morning to get the heat right down for the next day, works like a charm. If it does ramp up from this over the next few decades, we’re definitely going to have to put the infrastructure in place for the AC load and decent insulation.
When you need ACs, there is lots of sun, so lots of solar. So maybe not extra grid load if houses have their own solar.
I also close windows and curtains in the sun. Thinking of adding shutters.
Interestingly enough, solar panels work much better when it’s cold. There are a lot of improvements the UK could make to mitigate this problem for winter and summer. Solar panels are a must, followed by good insulation and subsidies for heat pumps ac pumps.
The people I know with solar do get less power from it in winter just because there is less light for less time. But it’s certainly worth doing!
I’ve never understood why we don’t build more houses from timber.
A portable AC unit for the bedroom is one of the best purchase I’ve ever made. We put a hole in the wall for the vent which can just be closed when we don’t need it.
I can deal with the rest of the house being hot as long as I can get a half decent night sleep.
Bought it during the winter though as in the summer they are either out of stock or have a massively inflated price (or both!)
Genuinely considering this when I get into my new flat. Me and my GF are both radiators when we sleep and having a fan on just doesn’t cut it. Dries my mouth and nose out as well.
Summers in the UK are only going to get hotter and more extreme. Really this needs to be taken into account in how we build homes… but that doesn’t help the existing houses and flats.
I’d strongly recommend at least a small portable AC for the bedroom. Worth every penny.
As someone who isn’t made for the heat, I am finding the past couple of summers horrendous. Having good blinds and the windows shut helps, but for how long? Things just keep getting hotter.
I know but living in a dark cave is so depressing. I love having my curtains open to see the world…but that lets heat in
I’ve got an old old house (1790 I think) I’m thinking of adding shutters. In summer, it makes a huge difference to shut windows and curtains for the day time, and open in cool of the evening. But shutters would be even better than curtains.
Thought for a while i need some kind of window shutters. Seems obvious to stop the sun getting to the windows keeps house cooler
Really good white-coloured blackout blinds will get you most of the benefits with a much lower outlay. Well worth sticking a cheap roller blind on pretty much every window that gets the sun.
Yes! I visit almost every year and coming from America with constant A/C and newer houses it’s very jarring. But the brits I’ve asked about it have been (characteristically) very stubborn about this.
