Speaking to the University’s new Experts in Health podcast, Dr Ben Roberts, a Lecturer in Building Energy in the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, said that the UK’s overheating problem is severe.
“It's a problem that's going to be getting worse due to more frequent heat waves that last longer and are more intense. In 2022, we saw the first 40-degree heat in this country, so this is a problem that isn't going away unless we deal with it.
“We can learn from Mediterranean countries as there's more of a cultural knowledge around how you adapt to heat in hotter parts of the world. In this country, you will often see people with their windows open on a really hot day, however, go for a walk in a Mediterranean country and you'll see the windows will be shut during high temperatures. That's because when the outdoor temperature is higher than indoors, you want to keep the building sealed up and then reopen it at night when the outdoor temperature is cooler.
“So, in an older house in England, which has got quite thick walls, you can use that night ventilation to cool the walls down at night. They hold that cool and then in the day you shut your windows up and you've almost got a cool battery in your house. In the Mediterranean, you’ll see lots of houses have big stone walls which store that cool from the night. So, I think there's certainly a lot of scope for better education around how we in the UK operate our homes.”
“I also do a lot of work in Africa, specifically Ghana, and in some communities, they have compound houses which involve a lot of small rooms around a central courtyard. They’ll use different rooms at different times of the day depending on where the sun is – always seeking the coolest spot. This is a great example of where good building design has that cultural impact. For instance, some research we undertook found people in Ghana have a vastly differing sleep pattern to people here – with many using the hottest times of the day to sleep – carrying out work in the early and late hours of the day when it’s cooler. These are adaptations which perhaps the rigid society in the UK wouldn't necessarily accept but is something to bear in mind.”
Speaking to podcast host, Dr Chris McLeod, in one of the University’s four test houses, Dr Roberts revealed he doesn’t believe air conditioning is necessarily the answer to coping with increasing temperatures; “There are a number of problems with air conditioning. Firstly, it increases the demand on electricity consumption – something we’re trying to move away from. They also dehumidify the air and that can cause dry eyes and dry skin. Over time people become less accepting of higher temperatures when they leave that air-conditioned environment. This, alongside some issues around air quality is why we need to really avoid it if possible.”
During the recording, Dr Roberts also touches on Loughborough University’s test houses and how they’re being used, as well as how future work in this space can impact air quality policy.
Experts in Health is a podcast that highlights the latest research and trends in health.
Season one welcomes seven guests across a host of different disciplines and can be viewed in full on the Loughborough University YouTube channel.
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