How to keep a cool head in the heat

In the wake of cli­mate change, extreme sum­mer heat can have a ser­i­ous impact on people’s health. How­ever, there are quite a few meas­ures that can be taken to effect­ively pro­tect your home against over­heat­ing. But: Make sure to use only low-emis­­sion products inside your home.

Hot sum­mers have become the rule rather than the excep­tion. High tem­per­at­ures of more than 30 °C are not uncom­mon these days, and on the so-called “dog days” tem­per­at­ures soar to 35 °C and more. Extreme heat causes ser­i­ous prob­lems for many people and is harm­ful to their health in the long term. This is all the more true when homes and offices heat up to such a degree that stay­ing inside becomes almost unbear­able. Remedi­al action must be taken. Many people resort to fans or air-con­­di­­tion­ing sys­tems to alle­vi­ate the heat stress. Although these appli­ances provide a cer­tain cool­ing effect, they often cause colds and muscle ten­sion. Moreover, they con­sume a lot of elec­tri­city.

What are the altern­at­ives? It is not without reas­on that the legis­lat­or emphas­izes the import­ance of sum­mer heat pro­tec­tion in the Ger­man Energy Act for Build­ings (GEG): “Build­ings are to be erec­ted in such a way that the sun­’s entry is lim­ited by adequate struc­tur­al sum­mer heat pro­tec­tion in accord­ance with the recog­nized rules of tech­no­logy.” There are sev­er­al pos­sib­il­it­ies to pro­tect a build­ing from over­heat­ing. First of all, we should take a look at archi­tec­ture. Build­ings in the func­tion­al Bauhaus style with clean lines may be in vogue right now, but the good old roof over­hang still makes sense. In sum­mer, when the sun is high in the sky, it helps to keep the heat out­side. In winter, the low sun can gen­er­ate sol­ar heat gains. Bal­conies can also have a sim­il­ar effect.

In addi­tion, a well-insu­lated build­ing envel­ope helps to avoid heat stress. Insu­lat­ing the facade, the roof or at least the top floor ceil­ing has a pos­it­ive effect on the room cli­mate. Since the build­ing envel­ope can only be as good as its weak­est link, it is cru­cial that win­dows and doors are also well insu­lated. How­ever, win­dows and glass doors need fur­ther sup­port by shad­ing devices. Roller shut­ters, fold­ing shut­ters, Vene­tian blinds or awn­ings pro­tect them from too much sun­light. This is par­tic­u­larly import­ant for roof win­dows. Shad­ing devices can be con­veni­ently lowered and raised with the help of drives and auto­mat­ic timers. Mod­ern sol­ar drives help to save elec­tri­city.

Good vent­il­a­tion is also essen­tial on hot days. If you open win­dows and doors manu­ally, you should do this in the early hours of the morn­ing, prefer­ably before sun­rise, when tem­per­at­ures are at their low­est. But vent­il­a­tion can also be provided by con­trolled vent­il­a­tion sys­tems, which auto­mat­ic­ally exchange the room air.