Letter to THE TIMES, 15 July
Cooler homes
Sir, Your leading article (“Not a Fan”, Jul 14) risks overheating your readers: you say “insulation, poor ventilation and triple-glazed windows are all designed to actively trap heat”. But triple glazing is cleverer than that: it has a lower g-value than double and single glazing, which means less light gets through (so is not converted to heat on hitting a surface) and a lower u-value, meaning less heat gets through than with double and single glazing. This means that triple glazing is better at keeping heat out in a heatwave and is to be applauded, not vilified. Good insulation also delays the intrusion of heatwave heat. Only poor ventilation is a scourge. When cooler evening air arrives, open the window.
Nick Owens, Hassocks
The original Times leader article (see below) gets some facts wrong about glazing and insulation and fails to address the impact on the net zero strategy of adding in another major energy load.
Insulate first is a better strategy – keeps homes at a stable, comfortable temperature at lower running cost.
Likely, maximum AC demand will tend to occur at times of peak solar generation, so is partially offset.
Britain is getting hot. Few who endured the uncomfortably sticky evenings of the latest heatwave will have failed to notice that the UK’s summer temperatures are now regularly topping 30C. In 2022, they hit 40C for the first time. And by the 2030s, government analysis predicts that every seventh night could see bedroom temperatures exceeding 26C, the threshold at which heat begins to seriously disrupt the quality of sleep.
In the style of a Victorian gentleman stoically overdressed for a sweltering summer sojourn, Britain risks becoming a hot country trapped in the stifling accoutrements befitting a colder climate.
Fewer than a fifth of UK homes have air conditioning, compared with 61 per cent in Italy and 84 per cent in Japan.
Worse, the insulation, poor ventilation and triple-glazed windows of UK houses are all designed to actively trap heat [untrue -see letter above].
However, though Britain remains a country in which debates over winter heating benefits can lead to deep political ructions, air con is still dismissively treated as just that, a con: an expensive, environmentally damaging, luxury. That myopic view fails to appreciate air conditioning for the life-enhancing, sometimes life-saving, technology it is. In too-hot climates, data shows that everything,
from mortality and GDP, to students’ exam performance and the severity of judicial sentencing, is badly affected. A&E visits spike, as does violence in prisons. Air con is an efficiency gain. But at present, Britain’s pathologically intrusive planning regulations effectively block the installation of air con in all but the most luxurious new-builds. Those regulations should be scrapped.
The government should also extend its £7,500 heat pump subsidy to split systems that can cool the air as well as heat it: a technology that is a staple of most Japanese homes. When it comes to AC, Britain shouldn’t maintain its breezy indifference.