To ask how are people not dying in new builds with the heat?

[icantbreathehelp]

Our new build is a fu..ing joke!! We are actually going to have to sell our house before next year or live downstairs because it is so hot upstairs at night that a newborn baby would over heat and end up in hospital without a doubt!

How the hell are people coping with the heat in new builds? We live in a redrow house, we have to shut all the blackout blinds at the back and open all the windows at the front and even with 2 metal fans on its still like sitting in a sauna! I don't want to go to sleep because I am scared DC is going to over heat.

I cant cope 🥵🥵🥵

So keep a dressing gown and slippers by the bed for nocturnal loo trips. Unless you are spending ages at each trip (in which case I'd suggest you have bigger problems) your core body temperature won't drop that much. It's so wasteful to be using energy to keep the heating on when you are asleep. Half an hour before you get up - maybe an hour tops - should be plenty.

Sorry, stubby fingers: that was supposed to be replying to BullBullBull about heating on at night.

Totally with you OP. When we had the hot summer in 2003 we were in a new build and ds was a baby and I said to my husband we were moving because I was not spending another hot summer in that house. We moved in November of that year. The house we bought is a 1960s house and nowhere near as hot. Today it was very pleasant despite it being like an oven outside.

150 year old East facing slate cottage here with mile thick walls and wood floors. Was lovely and warm in the winter. I had to put a cardigan on downstairs this afternoon!

My MILs is like a sauna. 1970s 3 bed semi. Bowls of ice in front of the fan, cool showers, cold drinks and sleeping under empty duvet covers helps her.

The positive side of modern insulation is low low bills for winter heating. (Fabulously cosy at low cost).

Get a decent fan, forget the duvet, don't use the oven and get some shutter blinds that allow light in but keep solar heat out. (Who want to live in the dark?). Nice room divider screen are also a good idea to shield south facing windows.

Having lived in older properties with cold rooms, condensation on windows and damp corners I'll stick with the modern insulation and the issues it brings.

As a previous poster said, it's heat coming in from the windows that is the issue. We are south facing with huge areas of glass. We get free solar heating even in winter to make radiator use limited. We have only 1 room without windows (downstairs cloakroom) and it's cooler. The extra insulation, of course, retains the heat so house rarely cools. There are vents in the window to help air circulate and an extractor system to remove damp air.

In most hot European countries they close off the windows with shutters or put up awnings to provide shade. We need to copy them.

Been a lovely 28 degrees inside today. Achieved by opening windows overnight and closing them at 10. 30 when outside was warmer than inside. Curtains and blinds shut as soon as the sun came round. Windows open again now.

Using air con is only going to make climate change worse so awnings and shutters could be used first.

We have a door in the ceiling which we open and a stand alone air con unit we bought a few years ago which costs a fortune but means we can sleep

Also have fans as we sleep with them year round

Insulation is the name of the game and will become more important as time now goes on we cannot afford to ignore it.

However keepinmg the heat out another matter and yep!, blinds and shutters do have their place used wisely they can make a lot of differnce.

I do have a office/ workshop/ music room that has got Air con and yep if it is a very hot humid day and I have to work then the Aircon is on but it isnt used that much overall, but in winter its reversable it uses the heat above absolute zero outside to concetrate that to useable heat and thats roughly 1 KW in for around 2.5 KW out.

More than a little ironic the use of electricity to cope with the extreme weather caused by over use of electricity, etc.

Yes, have fans all year round, get aircon units thrumming away day and night.

In Timbuktu there are no fans.

The air is cooling dramatically now. Its blowing through the house that was so cool today that one of the radiators came on!

Perfect sleeping outside weather! Its so still.

I live in a new build, it's wonderful in the summer as it's really cool.

It's hard to explain but it's a very airy sort of house and sleeping at night is never a problem because it's just never that hot; the electric fan is currently packed away in the garage.

However, in the winter I find it really hard to get it as warm as I'd like.

We are in a new ish build flat.

It can be super hot inside due to the double glazed French doors/windows. But we draw the curtains during the day when we are out. The moment we are home open all the windows and its cools down well. Sleep with the French doors open. We also use a couple of fans as well and feel pretty comfortable.

In winter the windows really help to heat the flat so we rarely use heating. They are double glazed but I think there is something extra about them keeping in the warmth. Not sure what though.

So overall in terms of energy efficiency and comfort I rate it highly!

www.building.co.uk/revealed-new-build-flats-at-high-risk-of-overheating/5066809.article

pigsDOfly
That's odd.
Our walls are fully insulated, our loft is so full of insulation you can't use it for storage (great, as I've always overused my lofts
and had to de-clutter and use cupboards inside the house or the garages for 'stuff').

It's sad that builders have lost some of the old knowledge. Our house is Edwardian, it has 2 reception rooms, one has a bay window to allow sun and warmth in in the Winter, the other has a verandah on the front, under a balcony so is shaded to keep cool in the Summer. Older houses seem to have more thought in the build than new ones which are often standard designs but orientated any which way to fit the site

I think the idea is to cut down on heating during the winter which shows whether we are taking climate change seriously and making our footprint smaller, but if it is causing such misery it could be a lack of ventilation. Older houses were ventilated with various methods. It has never been raised before. I have been house hunting to downsize and it fills me with horror that these new builds could be so oppressively hot.

Perhaps a surveyor could advise you on making the house cooler? I have ceiling fans and still need a separate one at arem level. You must take great care of the baby as babies can overheat in minutes. Feel the back of the baby's neck. If it is warm, whatever the weather she should not need any more bedding or clothes. If baby is too hot then it is a good idea to strip the clothes off and try tepid water bathing with sponges. It is so important to keep them cool. The health visitor should be invited in for her opinion because they have special training in heating and ventilating homes and she might not be aware of the problem.

It supposedly went down to 15 or less overnight (was 15 when I first woke up this morning), and yet the internal temps haven't gone below 25 or 26 ever. I've opened the windows early in the morning when I first woke up to try and cool it a bit as there's a nice breeze blowing outside.

Beginning to think the portable air con unit, just for those days when it's needed, and a massive window sealing kit, might be worth it. I can't figure out how the sealing kit will work with my windows but there should be something. No good at night but if I could cool it down in the day, that would help. It's a small flat so maybe cooling the main room will also help the bedroom. Nowhere to store the unit in the winter, though! (Major lack of storage in here for big things).

Or more umbrellas/screens, which would be the more eco-friendly alternative, so I could try that first. I don't know how much of the window has to be blocked and for how long, for it to make any noticeable difference in the temperature. The small amount I blocked yesterday with what I had didn't make any difference on the thermometer, though I thought it felt a bit better. I don't know that I'd be allowed to affix any permanent awnings, screesn, shutters, etc to the fabric of the building, so has to be freestanding I expect.

My bedroom is in the loft. I have a portable air conditioning unit which brought the temperature down from 32 degrees to 18 degrees so it was definitely effective!

Oh, and the sealing kit doesn’t work with my windows but it’s still fine. I just put the pipe out the window and close the curtains around it.

wow that's great. Do you find it quite noisy and/or expensive?

Does the cool air circulate to other rooms? I guess that's hard to tell if it's in the loft

and how long does it stay cool? I'd have to turn it off at night because of security/noise issues (ground floor, main road)

Advice wanted about preventing solar gain.

As posted earlier, I'm concerned about a room that has a south-facing wall that is almost all double-glazed window glass.

I'm in a flat, so doubt I would get permission for anything that changes the exterior of the building. However there are lots of flats with similar window, so it's possible that if they were an attractive shuttering system, a standard solution could be approved. The windows in the hottest room are casement windows that pivot a a quarter way in from the edge, with the outwards projection being about two feed, if anyone has any ideas.

What I really want to ask: I see there is such a thing as double-glazed sealed units with an integral blind, i.e. the blind is between the two glass sheets. Does anyone know how well that will work to prevent solar gain?

I'm think what I need to do is replaced all my south-facing windows with new sealed units that:-
a) have special glass to prevent solar gain
b) contain integral blinds
c) contain an exhaust vent near the floor for a portable air conditioner. (Though that would stop the blind being lowered all the way.)

I used the portable air conditioner for the first time yesterday. Less effective than I hoped, struggled to keep the internal temperature to 27 degrees. (BBC said it was 33 outside.)

I hadn't completely implemented the seal to prevent air moving through the window opened for the exhaust though, have since done that, so maybe it will do better next time.

I had the curtains closed, and noticed that the air between the curtain and the glass was like a furnace. I think I always knew that I was going to have to do something to stop sun getting in, not reasonable to expect the air conditioner to counter that.

wow that's great. Do you find it quite noisy and/or expensive?

Does the cool air circulate to other rooms? I guess that's hard to tell if it's in the loft

It is noisy, yes. It’s a constant sound though which I’m ok with. It cost about £350 so it is expensive. I think for it to be effective you have to make sure all doors and windows are closed, except where the pipe is. The room does heat up again fairly quickly when it’s turned off.