To feel baffled as to why buildings don't have shutters in the UK

From memory that solar ordination was to have big south facing windows to reduce heating demands. My large south facing windows have turned that room into a furnace in this heat and Im looking for not too ugly long term solutions now.

I think OP means external shutters which work much better than internal. With internal, the heat is still trapped next to the window and rises up into the room - a mini radiator really.

Because at some point in history shutters instead of curtains implied you are poor. And in the UK we haven't had the weather where shutters were useful.
Loads of modern French, Belgian and German houses come with double or triple glazing, open outward and have metal shutters built into the window frame. They are not attractive from the outside though.

Planning takes a while to filter through and the architecture of housing has been pretty much the same for decades.

We are also more geared up to combat the cold rather than the heat in this country.

I do think that there should be adaptations though, roofing with solar, batteries (as standard enforced by planning law) plus shutters as you say.

Internally opening windows don’t work well with rain because any rain already on the windows drips inside the house when you open them. Not too bad if your house has a European tiled floor in every room, rather more problematic if your house has British carpets and wooden floors. Obviously the way to get around that is to build the roof at a shallower gradient and build deeper eaves, just like they do in Europe. That way the windows are more sheltered from rain fall.

So buy your shutters, but also buy new windows and / or new floors and a new roof too which would require planing permission because you would be completely changing the aesthetic too.

And you would lose your loft with your new shallow roof so you would have to build a basement, just like the Europeans do. Expensive shutters.

We have those metal shutters in our southern Europe house. You have to carefully pull a pulley to get them down. The windows are slide across ones to accommodate them. Wouldn’t be any good in our freezing temps.

I used to live in a Victorian house with the original wooden shutters which folded back into the sides of the bay window.
Lined curtains proved to be better, both in summer and winter. However, that was when it was rare for the temperature to reach 30°c, and when hot weather tended not to last more than a few days.

I’ve just been in a Portuguese place with external shutters. It was a flat in a small block for reference. I’m slightly on the fence about them. The weather was cooler there than the UK ( 26 /27 degrees ) and there was a breeze but even with tiled floors it didn’t feel that cool ( shutters down when the sun was out and up later ). There were very specific instructions for using them because breakages require a specialist blind repairer. Im going to have to look at the photos of the older buildings to see what they were using.

Temperature difference with/without shutters/air con. Shutters stop it getting hot in the first place, but yeah if it's already got hot you are done for.

True! I love Auld Reekie but it's not a hot location.

Why are you 'baffled'?

The sensible and logical explanation is that we're only just starting to notice climate change, so shutters haven't been necessary up to now. If summers like this become a pattern, perhaps they will become commonplace.

Because the weather in the UK Is usually shite 12 months of the year 🤣 it’s only the past few weeks that the weather has warmed up a bit!!
Next year may be like any other year and we’re lucky if it hits 30c!!

I also dont get this, especially as we used to have shutters much more until around the 1850s.

They are great insulation for heat and cold and it gets properly dark at night.

I lived in Germany for a bit and there windows were so good compared to ours all round.

I had proper traditional internal shutters in one of my old tenement flats in Edinburgh. They were amazing. Room was pitch black at night, and it kept out a lot of noise. Not sure they did much about heat, but I’d say that was rarely an issue in Edinburgh.

It’s not uncommon for much older houses to have shutters.

Possibly more in the interests of keeping heat in rather than out. Who knows.

How do shutters even compare to an aircon? They trap heat and don’t do much in keeping a place cool.

External shutters are supposed to be much better because the sun doesn't get through the glass. Apparently internal blinds block 25-40% heat, external blinds they can block up to 95% of heat.

I'm baffled as to why people don't understand the climate and temperature averages of the UK prior to the recent 5 years.
I'm baffled at why people think shutters should have been installed to make a difference for about two days a year, in previous decades.
It's all so baffling.

Absolutely this. It’s not baffling at all! But yes it’s a good idea going forward.

If we had stuck with the Code for Sustainable Homes we had under Labour in about 2006, by 2016 (I think) all new builds would have been carbon neutral and adapted to future climates, designing in passive ventilation, thinking about solar orientation, etc. Then conservatives got in and 'cut the red tape', apparently we can trust market forces to get us to where we need to be... Not.

Yes. I'm baffled about how anyone voted for Farage. I'm real.

Our weather is varied across the country though, a lot of it in the north and west is quite wet and cloudy so they wouldn't need them

I have just opened ours. They are internal and you still get quite a heat coming off them when in the sun.

It’s a very old house.

We managed to keep our south facing rooms at 25 yesterday when it was 38 outside with just removable window film on the windows. Cost less than a tenner.