Understanding summer temperatures and mitigating their impact
Today’s new-build housing schemes must combat the UK’s notoriously changeable weather patterns, which now increasingly includes regular and severe heatwaves. Air temperatures often exceeding 30 degrees over a number of consecutive days, means heat will build up inside modern homes, which are mostly designed to keep warmth inside during the winter months. Air conditioning is a viable option, but widespread introduction has big consequences for energy supply and a knock-on effect for emissions.
Architects and housebuilders therefore need to recognise this when creating designs for new housing schemes, and can incorporate more passive measures to mitigate the impacts of heatwaves in a few different ways:
Development planning and building orientation
Grouping buildings around shaded spaces using permeable paving, vegetation or water features helps to create cooler areas within the development. Arranging the longest sides of buildings along an East-West path helps to minimise the low morning and evening sun on the East and West facades.
Planting
Mature deciduous trees close to South and West facing windows provide shade during the peak summer months, and then drop their leaves to allow winter solar gain.
Envelope
Deep overhangs such as structural cantilevers or balconies, and shading using fixed external shutters or shades shield South and West facing glass from the summer sun.
Window Strategy
Dual-aspect floor plans with windows on opposite sides allows cross ventilation. Stack effects can be achieved to exhaust the warm air through the top of the building by utilising a combination of windows and skylights. This works especially well within open stairwells, drawing warm air up and out through high level windows or rooflights, and pulling cooler morning and evening air in from ground-level. Habitable rooms should be provided with at least 2no. opening windows or doors and the use of large, fixed lights limited. And finally, consider the use of specialist solar control coatings on windows or screens to South and West facing facades – these can reduce the level of solar heat entering the rooms by up to 60%, so make a significant contribution to managing heat with relatively low cost.
Got a project coming up you’d like to discuss?
VELFAC has a range of windows that can provide different aesthetic solutions to all types of project, from modern through to country style or traditional. We can also offer opening windows to big sizes e.g. side hung up to 1.8m in height, and top hung at up to 1.8m in width. This means you can achieve the required level of ventilation without compromising on internal natural lighting and the overall feeling of space.
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