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The Impact of Climate Change
The consensus on climate change in the UK seems to suggest that we are in for more extreme variations of what weather we already have – hot days will be hotter and more humid, and winters will see greater precipitation.
The implications for our future housing stock therefore seem to suggest that we will need homes:
- designed to the highest possible thermal efficiency (to keep warm in winter and overcome the severe problems associated with fuel poverty),
- with excellent ventilation (especially night-time ventilation to prevent overheating in summer)
- and built in areas that are well protected from the risk of flooding.
Timber frame homes are proven to perform well in even some of the most extreme climates – including hot and humid countries such as Malaysia, and the freezing conditions of Scandinavia in winter.
Keeping our homes comfortable in summer
Traditionally, making buildings more energy efficient has been about using less energy to heat homes by insulating them and making them more airtight. However, there is increasing awareness of the risk of such well insulated homes overheating in summer, especially as our climate starts to get hotter.
Rather than specify air conditioning in all new homes (which of course consumes vast amounts of energy and makes global warming worse), the emphasis is now on better design solutions to enable homes to get an appropriate balance between heat losses and heat gains. Low energy (and therefore, low carbon) strategies are being developed that will ensure summer comfort without affecting winter performance.
There are interesting ideas about thermal mass and the potential use of heavyweight building materials to store heat in homes. Unfortunately, the issue is complicated. For example, in current climate conditions, heavyweight homes consume 10% more energy than lightweight ones for winter heating and may therefore be contributing to the climate change problem more than they are helping it.
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