I expected this month’s blogs to be about good insulation and getting your home ready for winter, not about keeping cool during a heatwave. But here we are. The UK is currently enjoying an almost unparalleled spell of hot weather at a time when the season is normally drawing in.
British homes are built to retain heat, not to stay cool, and it can quickly get stifling and stuffy in a house on a hot day. So, what is the best way to keep cool and comfortable in the home when the thermometer is high? Should you keep your windows and internal doors wide open, or close your windows and allow the natural insulation of your home to lower the internal temperature, aided by a plug-in electric fan?
In our experience, there isn’t a hard and fast answer to this conundrum. However, in general the best way to lower the temperature in your home is to sustain good air circulation. The following few tips may help you to do this, helping you and your family keep cool and comfortable:
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Open internal doors: during the heat of the day, try and open as many internal doors as possible, so that fresh air circulates from room to room.
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Use electric fans to create a cross breeze: placing 2 to 3 electric fans in strategic locations around your home can help lower temperatures by distributing cool air around the house, and preventing pockets of stale warm air raising the temperature in individual rooms. A fan placed by an open door will help blow cool air into a room, while a fan placed by a window facing outwards will help divert hot air away.
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Close curtains or blinds: when it is hotter outside than indoors, we recommend closing your curtains and pulling down any shades. This will prevent a localised greenhouse effect in your home, in which heat from the sun penetrates your window but is unable to escape.
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Keep sun-facing windows closed: it is extremely tempting to throw open all your windows on a hot day, but this can actually lead to higher internal temperatures as hot air pours in, even if there is a pleasant breeze outside. Some people advocate closing all the windows during a heatwave, as you would in a car on a hot day when you have the air conditioning on. This might work if you have an air-conditioning unit in your home, or new and efficient double-glazed windows that exclude a lot of the heat coming in, but for other homes it may be sufficient to keep sun-facing windows closed during the day, while opening the windows on the shadier sides of the house.
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Focus your efforts: it may not be possible to keep your entire house cool, so focus your efforts on the rooms that are most used during the hottest part of the day. A special effort should be taken to keep your home office cool if you are working from home, and to sustain a safe and comfortable temperature in children’s playrooms and rooms in which babies are sleeping.
Efficient Windows And Doors From Harvey’s Windows
Ultimately, how easy it is to keep your house cool in the summer and warm in the winter rests on its thermal efficiency, i.e. how well it excludes unwanted heat from outside and retains beneficial heat inside the home! The most cost-effective way of increasing your home’s thermal efficiency is to invest in high quality windows and doors. These will help prevent heat loss in the winter (and on chilly summer nights) and maximise the efficiency of your central heating, and will also help block excess solar radiation from raising internal temperatures during the summer.
To find out more, please contact Harvey’s Windows today by calling 0116 233 4441.
