So per usual, the UK Government incompetently went for the easy solution of treating the symptom rather than the problem, switching to a cheaper (at the time) fuel source rather than enforcing more energy efficient homes, and now the people are literally paying the price for it…
Sounds about right. Why do it the expensive way once, when you can do it the cheap way many times over.
And yet some UK politicians still suggest the solution is more of the same, instead of finally fixing the insulation and so on. They hide the attempts to make people keep paying more, over and over again, under buzz phrases like “abandoning Net Zero” or “stopping the war on gas”.
I’m a brit living in Germany, and I am so used to cold UK houses that I keep my flat at 17C… suspiciously close to the 16.6 UK average! My German flat is much, much more comfortable than my UK one, on so many levels. I just don’t understand why Brits keep accepting such crappy, tiny builds.
Its kinda insane having lived in four different countries over the years. In Ireland the weather is very oceanic which means its very mild but quite cold all year round. We would be suprised of it went below 0 during summer and it never went above 30 during summer. They put basically zero insulation in houses. This meant during summer it was in the twennies but during winter it was really cold for being inside. Next one was hungary. Kinda the opposite of ireland being very continental. Most houses have good insulation and ac’s as well or if its an older house at least a fireplace which provides really good warmth. During the summers some parts of the house would become quite unbearable even with ac. My grandmas place was quite something in 40 degrees with no ac. Then spain. They have hot summers as well so every house has ac but the winters are short and very mild, not going below 5 degrees evem during winter where i lived. This meant they had very little insulation and it got quite cold in a lot of apartments but i think houses generally had better insulation. Lastly sweden, the summers are mild here as well which means no ac but opening a window is always enough to cool down a room. As for the winters, the insulation is excellent and its quite hot inside. Even tho sweden gets a good 15-20c colder here than where i lived in ireland, it feels warmer just because of the good heating inside. It makes a huge difference.
Good heating, isolation (thick walls), flowing water, and a lots of shadow in the form of plants and gardens works wonders to moderate temperature. Also the orientation of windows, how many windows - single panes, double, HR++ or triple?. The triple’s mostly useful for noise reduction.
