For 3 consecutive days and today, I opened my front door and walked out into an oven. Today was the hottest. 40 degrees C according to the supermarket display. Indoors I have sweated just sitting still and last night my bedroom fan needed to be on for several hours with both windows wide open while I slept. Not a problem but it’s seriously hot down my way, Dept 17.
We’re coping fine in the Lot Valley (12) despite temps c.C36 early evening, the house remains cool (air to air dehumidifiers) but tonight we’ll sleep without these aids -just an open window and a slight breeze off the Lot. Things don’t get bad here until it gets into the low forties, but even then this 600 year old house remains cool.
Of course, it was built in the so-called Dark Ages’…
37 outside today, but house remains cool. Unfortunately had a 160km round trip to hospital appointment - drive was fine, but waiting around not so much.
But it has now broken and have just had seriously impressive lightening, wind and massive hail. Not what one wants when beans in flower. Went to get cushions in and was soaked in seconds.
It would have to be twice that age or more to qualify as ‘dark ages’, which in itself is a misnomer, invented by Victorian historians, mainly because they didn’t know anything about the people that lived in what is now the UK between the fall of the Roman Empire and the migration of the Angles and Saxons into that land.
The same applied to most of continental Europ.
From what I understand, ancient stone walled houses with metre thick walls are very good in the summer as they have a high thermal mass. Modern class A energy houses do a great job keeping out the cold in the winter, but heat up in hot weather very rapidly unless one is very careful not to allow in any sunshine.
I believe the best solution is a highly insulated house with lots of thermal mass inside. I’ve not seen such a house but I imagine some solid concrete internal walls would do the job.
The term Dark Ages rightfully doesn’t get used much today. Certainly apart from their enduring architectural magnificence, Chartres and Notre Dame and their ilk were the product of a mediaeval aesthetic of light (see Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middlle Ages,
But this expansion of historical periods isn’t confined to the Middle Ages, traditionally the Renaissance ran from around 1488 (Medici’s proto-art academy) to either 1520 (death of Raphael) or 1527 (the Sack of Rome). However today the concept of the Northern Renaissance has extended the term for a further century or more.
Mine certainly are! Beautifully fresh indoors at the mo…
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this hot weather is not good for our pets…
As I walked down the road (hugging the shady side) I saw one lady (a jogger), sitting on a low wall profiting from a little shade-giving tree… swigging from a bottle… and chatting on her phone
Her dog was leashed and sitting in the sun, on the tarmac at her feet… then moving to find a cooler spot… then sitting… then moving again… but without a chance of a drink… OK the owner had not locked the dog in a car, but was (to my mind) just as thoughtless…
it seemed to me that the dog was not comfortable, it was panting, but the owner was too engrossed in on-line/phone stuff to notice…
“TUESDAY ADVICE | With the intense heat, let’s also think of animals! Never leave them alone in a car in the sun. In addition to endangering them, it is a crime punishable by a fine of up to 45,000 euros and 3 years in prison.”
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What makes you think the insulation only works in one direction?
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Is the insulation one-way? Windows can let in a lot of heat that then can’t escape during cooler times of day.
Not only that, the hot tarmac/concrete can burn their little paws terribly. I only ever took my boy out at dawn and then dusk and even then, over the back fields behind my house to keep him off the roads and pavements.
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Bearing in mind this is supposed to be a class A house, windows would be positioned and treated to reflect most of the heat away if on the hot side of the building. Suitably shaded with an overhanging terraced or roof so low lying winter sun can enter but high sun in summer cannot. The ventilation system would also be replacing hot air with cooler.
Yes you are right. My old 600 year old house had metre thick granite walls and no windows on the north side and that was lovely in summer and kept in the heat in the winter but this new 2year old house is the opposite where I don’t need any heat in the winter (so far) but currenly I live like a mole in the dark with the shutters down all day and at night, up with the windows open to change the air inside but its still not cool outside. My winter electric bill is a lot lower than it was in the previous house so am not minding it.
May only be 2 years old but worrying never the less that the builders havent done such a great job. The new era of low energy houses need a newer type of builder who actually grasps the concepts of what is needed. 3 doors up from UK house they converted the roof into a new room. I watched as they fitted 120mm of foil faced insulation badly! Its not the bulk insulation but how its fitted if it is to work properly. Gaps around the insulation just reduce how effective it is which is why the latest regs state you must fit a compressable gasket to take up expansion and contraction. (Gapo tape)
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I need to read up on the subject but my current, somewhat uninformed thinking, is that lack of thermal mass in a building means everything tends to warm up rapidy if exposed to heat inside it. This could be from the sun or from hot air entering the building. I do realise that window openings tend to be a lot bigger in modern houses in France compared with older properties there. I’ve also read that even metre wide stone walls offer little insulation.
I recall a past conversation on here with an architect member who said adding thermal mass to a modern building would help prevent rapid warm up on hot days.
I would certainly agree with the architect that adding thermal mass will slow down the rapid warm up on hot days. Insulation also slows down the transfer of heat (properly done). It may be fine for those living in France as they will get some benefit of warming up the stone thermal mass as we get into the cooler months. We visitors however turn up to a usually very cold house in autumn and spend a few days/weeks heating the mass back up again which is often not so easy as fires need to be kept going. A modern properly insulated house could be warm in just hours. Since properly insulating most of our roof it has been transformative as far as keeping the temperature far more pleasant indoors. We had a freakesh few days when it was 37c outside and our bedroom stayed at 26-27 c. For me the biggest issue is paying to heat water with electricty whilst the roof tiles are around 56-58c and thats unwanted heat in the rooms in summer for most people if they are not incredibly well insulated under their roofs.
Indeed. That is the challenge we have with our modern house that is A rated to RT 2012. In the Summer, we have to shutter the South facing windows including a large double patio doors. Because of the large temperature gradient required between inside and outside it’s easier for heat to get in than to get out.
It doesn’t though. A VMC-A just extracts air inside the house through a vent in the attic space and relies on that being replaced by air coming in from outside tbrough window vents. A VMC-B is worse as the replacement air still comes from the outside, but a heat exchanger extracts the heat from the outgoing air and uses it to heat up the incoming air.
Actually, a high thermal mass is worse, as with our house. We have wet underfloor heating that has quite a large thermal mass by design. In summer it soaks up heat from the room and it takes three or four very cool days for it to release all it’s heat. If you walk in bare feet you can feel the floor is warm.
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The front of my house which gets the sun all day from midday until night has a 3m sliding window which is why I have to keep the shutter down at the moment from midday onwards but in winter, I keepit up all the time except when going out for long periods. At least I have no damp now unlike Bretagne where damp was everywhere, even in new builds as my neighbours found out with their new bungalow.
That’s interesting. Didn’t think of that. That’s the system that’s near top of our want list. Wonderful in the winter. We stay in a gite with wet underfloor heating.
We were looking at some rugs the other day. I imaging thicker rugs like the dhurrie would insulate the floor too much. We wondered whether thinner rugs would be okay. Not keen on large areas of uncovered tiles.
Wasn’t Gapo the Marx Brother who left the group to set up a building firm? 
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