Biospace wrote: ↑30 Jan 2023, 2:51pm
Are we not becoming rather extreme and heading in a Puritan direction in calling for older properties to be demolished rather than improved because they're not as thermally efficient in cold conditions as new houses?
Increasingly, air conditioning is being talked about for modern houses because so often the ventilation is poor, how much energy will this use? Given last summer's 40C heat is predicted to become the norm (so more Dordogne than Derbyshire) perhaps there should be as much emphasis on houses which remain cool as well keeping the cold out?
Jon in Sweden explains how his heat pumps run so that for every £10 spent on energy, £30 to £44 heat comes out of them. With ever-increasing %s of renewables in Grid supplies and increasing attention on improving the thermal performance of older housing, fossil fuel consumption for space heating will fall hugely.
As
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/ ... g-the-cold suggests, many modern homes are poorly built, leaky and energy inefficient. I detest waste and pollution, but if we're being Puritan about this perhaps we should be looking a little more closely at the use of plastics and other petrochemical products? Polyisocyanurate boarding (Celotex and similar) is many times more polluting and harmful to the planet than natural alternatives, but this is where the profit lies so this is what is made and what most use.
A large percentage of the UK housing stock just needs to be demolished and rebuilt
These old buildings are largely unfixable
However maintaining a comfortable temperature in their bedrooms in the summer is impossible and a/c is being considered. Those Georgians knew a thing or two and we have no such problems with our 11 ft ceilings, and 9ft sliding sashes
I'm not advocating that all older buildings should be demolished, only that we need to really think long and hard about what is actually worth preserving.
Air conditioning is going to become a reality of life in the UK. It's mad that we don't have it in a more widespread fashion. Each year, the majority of people in the UK suffer badly through the various heatwaves as internal temperatures exceed 25c, 30c and more.
About 4 days before we moved in, we had the air/air heat pump installed in our main living space. It doubles up as an AC unit in summer. For the first four weeks after we moved in, the average daily high here was a smidge under 30c. There was no let up and it doesn't matter what your house is made of, if you want sub 25c temperatures, you need artificial cooling.
But you can have AC, guilt free. Simply install solar panels. When the summer heat is at it's fiercest, you can use you AC with reckless abandon safe in the knowledge that you're drawing nothing from the grid.
We just need to install it upstairs now too.
For reference, this is what our house looks like. Very normal for these parts, albeit we have a higher than average number of brick built houses in our village compared to the Swedish average.