Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot! - Heatwaves in the UK and the importance of retrofit for the future of healthy homes.
As we’ve experienced this week, heat gain, not just heat loss, is becoming an increasingly important housing and public health issue in the UK. In summer 2022, the UK experienced an unprecedented 40°C heatwave, causing 3,271 deaths in England and Wales. By the mid-2030s, 90 per cent of the UK’s housing stock could be susceptible to overheating.
Last winter we saw 10,892 excess winter deaths. And now with the reduction in the number of people who can access Winter Fuel Payments, we anticipate that more people are at risk of fuel poverty and will not turn on their heating, resulting in poorer health, isolation and more excess winter deaths.
Now more than ever it is vital that we make our housing stock fit for purpose.
In the UK, we have the most poorly insulated homes in Europe. To make our homes energy efficient and environmentally sound, we need to begin by making sure the ‘fabric’ (i.e. the walls, roof, floors) are fit for purpose.
Taking a ‘fabric-first approach’ prioritises insulation and draughtproofing to slow the rate of heat loss and gain of a home in order to provide the foundation for comfortable indoor temperatures. In doing so, the energy required by other technologies (green or not) to make a property habitable in winter and summer is lessened, reducing the burden on wallet and planet.
What is heat loss and heat gain? How does it affect me?
Heat naturally wants to move toward the cold. In the winter it will want to migrate outside, and in summer it will want to migrate inside.
Each structural area of your house will lose heat at a variable rate and volume because of the materials each is made of and its relative surface area. For example, if in winter I were to wear a hat but no jumper, my head would lose less heat than my chest because the hat would slow the rate of heat loss. But if I were to wear both a hat and a jumper, then both my head and chest would have slower rates of heat loss. However, I would most likely feel the effects of not wearing a jumper more than not wearing a hat because my torso is bigger than my head.
The same goes for buildings.
On average, a house’s percentage of overall heat loss
will look like this:
- walls lose 35%
- the roof loses 25%
- floors lose 15%
- doors lose 15%
- windows lose 10%
It is impossible to stop the migration of hot toward cold, but it can be slowed down through installing materials, like insulation, to increase a building’s thermal mass. Thermal mass is the ability of materials to absorb, release and store heat. The rate and proportion of heat migration will depend on the thermal mass of the materials used in each part of your home and its state of repair. Adding insulation to your loft, walls and floors is one of the best ways to reduce the rate of heat loss and gain for your home.
How can we help?
If you would like to find out if you qualify for a grant to help insulate your home or to access low-cost 1:1 advice about your home’s energy efficiency our Future Fit Homes service can help.
If you don’t have time to currently to make a plan for your whole house, ensuring your loft has adequate insulation is the most effective, and least intrusive thing that you can do. Our Love Lofts service is a free handholding service just for lofts. Click to find out more.
