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| Building thermal insulation. |
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| Miyuki:
I have an over a hundred years old house And our ancestors have a smart solution to summer heat/sun heating The roof overhang is designed so it shades windows during summer but allow all the sun to pass during winter months I have added 24cm of styrofoam insulation on the northern wall and about 20cm is planned on other walls to keep both cold and heat outside and stable temperature inside. As the house is built from stone and full bricks with walls 50-60cm thick, this provides massive thermal mass. |
| PlainName:
Our house is basically uninsulated, and we have a huge south-facing kitchen window (frame is metal and dating from the 40's or something). On Monday we closed the (thin, red) blind on the window about 3/4 (too many plants on the windowsill to go the whole way) and kept the doors and windows shut. It was 37C outside and I didn't measure the kitchen but it was pleasantly cool. Even chilled, although that might be the contrast with outside. I belatedly noticed that someone was baking bread in the combioven! Yesterday it was 40C in the shade and the same measures taken (less the bread baking). Bit warmer in the kitchen since the overnight temperature had been 23C, so it wasn't going to be cooler than that. Still pleasantly cool. In contrast, my office has aircon which I set to 30C, translating to 27C actual, and that was noticeably warmer than the kitchen. Summary: the trick of getting cool air in early then shutting out the heat and sunlight works very well. I think insulation would only show its worth if you had to use energy for cooling/heating (aircon, radiators), which would show up as reduced bills. But it's not necessary to combat extremes in the short term. |
| Benta:
This might interest you: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/britain-worst-built-homes-europe-extreme-weather-upgrade |
| Gyro:
--- Quote ---The 21-metre rule is, according to the Stirling prize-winning architect Annalie Riches, a bizarre hangover from 1902, originally intended to protect the modesty of Edwardian women. The urban designers Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker walked apart in a field until they could no longer see each other’s nipples through their shirts. The two men measured the distance between them to be 70ft (21 metres), and this became the distance that is still used today, 120 years later, to dictate how far apart many British homes should be built. --- End quote --- :-DD |
| Zero999:
--- Quote from: Someone on July 19, 2022, 11:44:04 pm --- --- Quote from: Zero999 on July 19, 2022, 07:58:05 pm ---Yes, it's not nice being here when during a heatwave. To those who say it's nothing, temperatures today have been 10oC hotter than the usual hottest summer day and over 18oC hotter than average. Overnight lows have been between 20oC and 25oC, 7oC to 13oC above normal. --- End quote --- Its not "nothing" but its not a dire emergency, you can say its blah degrees more than normal but thats only what you are acclimatized to. The overnight minimum is a good measure as thats the best case possible with perfect insulation and no air-con, and often most disruptive (preventing sleep/rest). Australian city highest overnight minimums in the last 10 years (just the south east, no tropics): Melbourne: 28 Adelaide: 34 Canberra: 27 Sydney: 25 All these places see daily maximums over 40 C routinely, yet air-conditioning is not universal: Adelaide 90%, others 70%. Yes, heat is a bigger threat to life than cold, but that seems to have some strong acclimatization or behavioral content that London does poorly with: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment So the rest of the world will rightly point to the UK (London) and say learn to adapt with high and low temperature extremes, everyone else seems to survive better. --- End quote --- I question whether it's true that heat kills more, than cold in the UK. Look at the average temperatures for London and compare them to the graphs in the link. According to those graphs, our winters are consistently below the temperature which results in increased excess deaths, yet much less so in summer. Now look at the extreme heat we had yesterday, compared to normal. A high of 40°C, 17°C above average. A low of 25.8 °C, 11.6°C above average and warmer than Sydney's record low. The hottest night of the year in London is normally around 18°C and there are only 2.5 days on average above 30°C. You're right the hot night was more of a problem, bearing in mind it was only <26°C for a short time before dawn and buildings wouldn't have reached anywhere thermal equilibrium, even with all the windows open. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/record-temperatures-2022-a-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Climate --- Quote from: Benta on July 20, 2022, 08:30:35 pm ---This might interest you: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/britain-worst-built-homes-europe-extreme-weather-upgrade --- End quote --- It really isn't that bad. People need to invest on improving insulation. My parent's house is >70 years old and they fixed the insulation. The added the following: extra fibreglass was laid down in the loft, expanding foam cavity, double glazing and a conservatory which helps add another barrier. Their house is now nearly as good as mine, built about 65 years later. Anyway, the weather is now back to normal. It's 18°C and pouring with rain. |
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