Tips to prevent indoor heat stress

In view of increas­ingly hot sum­mers, liv­ing spaces need to be pro­tec­ted from excess­ive tem­per­at­ures. Our expert will tell you what meas­ures you can take to avoid over­heat­ing and thus do some­thing for your health.

Tip 1: Analyze the current status and identify weak points

When plan­ning a new build­ing, it makes sense to con­sider a roof over­hang. In sum­mer, when the sun is high in the sky, the over­hang helps to keep the heat out­side. In winter, the low sun can gen­er­ate sol­ar heat gains. Bal­conies can have a sim­il­ar effect. In the case of exist­ing build­ings, the issue of heat pro­tec­tion can be tackled via thermal insu­la­tion. Homeown­ers should ask them­selves wheth­er the roof and the facade are suf­fi­ciently insu­lated. How old are the win­dows and doors? Are there fold­ing shut­ters, roller shut­ters or blinds to provide enough shad­ing?

Tip 2: Choose the right measures

A well-insu­lated build­ing envel­ope helps pre­vent the build­ing interi­or from heat­ing up too much in sum­mer. Insu­lat­ing the facade, the roof or at least the top floor ceil­ing has a pos­it­ive effect on the indoor 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. Glass sur­faces should be pro­tec­ted from too much sun­light by roller shut­ters, fold­ing shut­ters, Vene­tian blinds or awn­ings. This is par­tic­u­larly import­ant for roof win­dows. Please note that extern­ally installed sun pro­tec­tion is most effect­ive. These days, shad­ing devices can be con­veni­ently lowered and raised with the help of drives and auto­mat­ic timers. Mod­ern sol­ar drives also help to save elec­tri­city.

Tip 3: Ensure good ventilation

Prop­er vent­il­a­tion con­trib­utes sig­ni­fic­antly to a good room cli­mate. If you open win­dows and doors manu­ally, you should do this in the early hours of the morn­ing on hot days, 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. Decent­ral­ized vent­il­a­tion sys­tems are ideal for refur­bish­ment pro­jects, where­as cent­ral­ized sys­tems are usu­ally installed in new-builds.

Tip 4: Only use low-emission products

Wheth­er new-build or old build­ing: When upgrad­ing the energy effi­ciency of a build­ing, espe­cially when provid­ing for heat pro­tec­tion in sum­mer, a large vari­ety of mater­i­als are used, includ­ing thermal insu­la­tion mater­i­als, vapor bar­ri­ers, joint seal­ants, seal­ing tapes and many more. In the course of refur­bish­ment pro­jects, also wall and floor cov­er­ings are often replaced. These pro­jects involve, among oth­ers, the use of par­quet and tile adhes­ives, grouts, plasters and paints. Many of these build­ing mater­i­als have a dir­ect impact on the indoor cli­mate and thus on the res­id­ents’ health. No mat­ter what the product group: When select­ing the required mater­i­als, con­sumers should pay spe­cial atten­tion to products that are harm­less to human health in order to avoid the emis­sion of pol­lut­ants into indoor air. They should also address this point in good time to the crafts­men hired to do the job.
A cer­ti­fic­ate that con­sumers can rely on is the EMICODE^® EC1 seal on the product pack­aging. The organ­iz­a­tion behind this seal is the GEV, the “Asso­ci­ation for the Con­trol of Emis­sions in Products for Floor­ing Install­a­tion, Adhes­ives and Build­ing Mater­i­als”. Products that have been awar­ded the EMICODE^® label were tested for harm­ful VOC emis­sions by inde­pend­ent labor­at­or­ies in spe­cial test cham­bers. To ensure long-term com­pli­ance with the pre­defined lim­it val­ues, the ini­tial test is fol­lowed by reg­u­lar spot checks car­ried out by neut­ral experts and test­ing insti­tutes without pri­or noti­fic­a­tion.