The thing is that British buildings aren’t built for any kind of heat. There are no airy courtyards or encouragement of breeze, no cool stone seats, not even usually full shutters to block the windows on the sunny side of the building.
(More puzzling: also not built to keep out damp?)
We’ve just bought a 1930s semi. After a cob cottage (thick walls that keep heat out), I spent much of the first night checking the central heating wasn’t on as it seemed so warm. I eventually realised it was the lack of draughts.
Fitting blinds to keep out radial heat are on my to do list.
The bulk of our housing stock was built either during the little ice age (Victorian) or within a generation of it. So it was built to retain heat.
The rise of cars means front gardens are now paved over, creating runoff flash floods too.
We do on the main walls but not the extension which is single brick.
We’ve still got some of the original air vents in the bedrooms which I hope we can keep. I also suspect we have some boarded up fireplaces. And there’s definitely plastic lino over older actual lino in the kitchen.
We bought it from someone who had lived here since 1979, and did the trad old lady thing of putting carpet on top of carpet.
Her son popped by on his Enfield motorbike yesterday to tell us how the jury-rigged electrics in the garden work.
There’s a view that it’s the age of the housing stock, but I’ve lived in newer properties and know people in actual newish builds and they still struggle with heat dissipation. It’s not even like we have uniquely changeable or changing weather
This is fascinating and to me suggests there is some structural reason (policy, incentives, building standards etc, i.e. NOT lack of competencies) for why UK housing is so poor compared to neighboring countries
Yep I live in a new build flat and in this weather I have to come over to my parents’ because it becomes an absolute sauna. Holds heat very well and won’t release it. The huge windows don’t help.
In fairness, my flat which has the build quality of the world's worst Lego constructors working hungover on Friday afternoon is very good at keeping heat in for the 9 months a year it is necessary, but terrible at releasing it in the 3 months it isn't.
Have often heard (also in this thread) that UK buildings are built to keep in heat. But isn’t proper insulation good both for trapping heat (in winter) AND keeping it out (in summer)?
This boils my piss. There's no reason why new builds should be like this. We have known about global warming for decades. We could've had decent insulation as a planning requirement for years.
It just seems ludicrous that insulation and renewables isn't a basic requirement for planning regs. It's so much more difficult to retrofit and for people in flats, impossible
Hard agree. It’s south facing with big windows as well. Outside shutters would make a huge difference as in a flat you can’t even get a cross breeze going.
My wife is Czech, they have cold winters and hot summers. Even the most basic house there has big air cavities in the bricks. The difference in both winter and summer is marked
And it’s not like there haven’t been heatwaves before. Like The Great Stink (as delightful as it sounds). Wikipedia: “In June 1858 the temperatures in the shade in London averaged 34–36 °C (93–97 °F)—rising to 48 °C (118 °F) in the sun.”
