Making Housing Cool

As we all sweltered in Junes soaring temperatures and the on searches for air conditioning rose as fast as the mercury, the National Housing Federation (NHF) and Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) took the opportunity to publicise their research into over-heating.

Their analysis of the English Housing Survey suggests that over 70,000 children under the age of one were living in homes subject to over-heating. In a YouGov survey they commissioned 31% of parents experiencing overheating in their home said it was harming their children’s physical health and a slightly lower figure for harming mental health. This equates to almost half a million children. Similar analysis revealed over 1 million children having disrupted sleep.

Higher temperatures also affect older and vulnerable people with an estimate of 3,000 early deaths as a result.

Until recently the focus on climate adaptation has been mainly upon increased flood risk. Funding for improving and building homes has concentrated on the unhealthy impacts of cold weather. In some instances, the impact of increased insulation has been to make buildings both hotter and more difficult to cool. Trapping heat with roof insultation has been a huge success but it means upstairs room in houses can be unbearably hot in the summer.

The Building Regulations Part O tackles the issue of overheating in new homes. As with guidance of improving energy efficiency Part O has a fabric and design first approach, increasing shading (e.g. from balconies, awnings and shutters), setting maximum window sizes, particularly for south facing rooms, and providing ventilation. When it comes to air conditioning Part O states, “Mechanical cooling may only be used where insufficient heat is capable of being removed from the indoor environment without it.”.

The provision of air conditioning is further complicated by planning restrictions in conservation areas, for listed buildings and for rooms which face onto a main road. Many councils have been antagonistic to air conditioning eschewing it as another (stereotypically American) unwanted contributor to energy consumption and climate change. In Elim’s homelessness provision there is housing which can only be kept cool by installing aircon units, fans do not cut it in temperatures over 30 degrees.

The Government was forced to put out a statement during the heat wave. “There has been media coverage this week suggesting that air conditioning is banned in homes. This is incorrect. Air conditioning can be installed in both existing and new homes.”

Both the Warm Homes Fund and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme can be used to assist with overheating. The talk of air source heat pumps (basically a fridge in reverse extracting heat from the air to warm a home) is increasingly being replaced with talk of air-to-air heat pumps which allow you to reverse the heat flow during heat waves. This could improve the image of heat pumps which have failed to catch the imagination of the general population clinging to the reliability and fast response of gas central heating.

The recent heat wave has been uncomfortable and inconvenient with many services closing but perhaps it could act as a spur to change the debate and the plans around ‘warm homes’ to a more balanced approach to both heating and cooling homes as our climate changes.