We are in yet another heatwave and there are lots of discussions going around about Retrofit and overheating.
Just to state that Retrofit does NOT cause Overheating, there are lots of factors that need to be considered but I hope we can all agree that the Overheating is due to our WARMING climate as a result of climate change not due to Retrofit.
To dispel some of the myths or just explain our own approach I will say that for the most part overheating has had a secondary position to keeping our homes warm in the Winter but now it has become apparent that these heatwaves are not simple just one offs but a significant sign of things to come and this may be the COOLEST summer we will experience.
Our house when we bought it just over 3 years ago, a standard 1950’s semi cavity construction, brick and blockwork with some retrofitted fluffy cavity insulation and very poorly performing aluminium frame glazing. The front ground floor living room was noticeably hot in the summer and absolutely freezing in the winter.
It had a very old and inefficient gas system boiler with radiatiors and we made the decision early on to cap of the gas and move to an all electric home.
It took us a while to obtain the necessary planning permissions for the work we were proposing including a large rear single story extension, reconfiguration of the general layout so for the first year or so we lived with no heating, minimal cooking facilities and rooms which were either exceptionally cold or boiling hot, even before this summer of heat waves we identified vulnerabilities in the house.
This lead us onto a decision about space heating and hot water and how we were going to navigate this and the options available.
Since we knew the works would be quite protracted but we wanted to be able to install a system suited for us we decided to uncouple our heating from our hot water.
The hot water system we installed was a Dimplex Edel, Heat pump HW cylinder- great with the solar and very cost efficient.
Space heating ( and Cooling)
The Heating /Cooling system we chose is a multi split Daikin 9KW Unit that can have up to 5 indoor wall units , each unit can run independently and as we have discovered is very efficient in both heating and cooling modes.
Also as we were gradually doing the house up it’s a much simpler system to retrofit using small bore copper pipe to carry refrigerant and a 22mm pipe for condensate.The syem has been installed in phases with the pipework being put in as we go through the house and then the unit can be installed once the room is ready.
Combining with Solar PV and battery is a dream, it costs very little to run if anything as the electricity generated by the solar more than covers the energy consumption of the unit. In fact so far in July we are in credit as far as energy consumption due to the combination of the PV with the battery- win win!
BUT;
I would always advocate education and passive measures in the first instance with overheating and indeed we have created our own brise soleil at the front of the house to keep the front room cooler ; see the photos below which showed that the front room with the curtains closed and the brise soleil kept the room at a comfortable 22 degrees C ( when outside was over 30 degrees C) but in our son’s room directly above it was a balmy 30 degrees C as we had not yet got round to putting his blind up!
We overheard a conversation last week where someone was talking about their top floor flat and that the living room was uninhabitable due to the heat, this was a modern new build construction, what happened to part O?
A really interesting podcast with Zoe De Grussa, well worth listening too here
https://zeroambitions.transistor.fm/129
So, yes absolutely consider passive measures, external shading, awnings, behavioural changes and consider how air flows through your home , optimising ventilation too.