The top floor of my Victorian house has reached over 30 degrees this week and even at night it’s still above 29 degrees.
This will be an increasing issue for UK homes in the summer. It could become a greater priority for people than decarbonising their winter home heating. On my commute into London, I’m already seeing many homes that have added air conditioning units.
As I’m on the verge of putting in a ASHP I’ve been exploring the options.
The most basic solution is to keep the windows and curtains closed during the day and open the windows at night. We’re already doing this, but the thermal mass of the house is winning the battle and it’s not enough.
Air conditioning and air to air heat pumps are covered by the BUS grants. But this would mean fitting extensive pipework or ducting and fan units in every room. Looking at the London homes it looks like simple units have been put into the main bedroom and living space rather than a whole home solution.
I could install the ASHP and get it to run in reverse, ie running cold water through the radiators and drawing heat from inside the house and pushing it outside. The coldest the water can be is about 15 degrees as below this condensation forms and I could end up with a damp problem. These systems weren’t really designed to work like this, but with a helpful engineer I think I could get this working.
Better insulation in the loft would keep us warmer in the winter and provide a buffer to the summer heat, but unless the rooms are cooled eventually the heat will win.
The system used by Europeans for centuries has been shading and shuttering. The grape vines over the veranda, the cute little men holding closed the window shutters, or a tree lined avenue all work very effectively. Over 50% of the heat coming in comes through the windows.
A more radical option is to install a sprinkler system on my roof. A scientific paper I read suggested that temperature reductions of between 5-10 degrees are possible. Copilot tells me that I would use about 60 litres of water a day, which would cist 16p per day, and the nozzles and pump would be around a £200 one off cost. Unfortunately we took down scaffolding that would have been ideal for putting this in place a few weeks ago.
All suggestions and comments are welcome…!
