I have been heat-proofing my home, bit by bit, for the last 16 years. I didn’t start because I had a Spidey Sense about an increasing frequency and intensity of UK heatwaves, I started because I moved into a south-facing house.
I met my husband when I was 27 and he owned a Victorian end-of-terrace house in Kentish Town. With a garden! Sold. But it was a dump, unchanged since the previous owners did it up on the cheap in 1992. Shabby blue carpet abounded. There was a moth infestation.
I moved in, threw everything away and set about modernising the place. But I didn’t really know what I was doing, which is why it has taken me 16 years. All I did know was that the front of the house was blasted by sun and light from April to October and it was boiling.
Shorts
A report published this week by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) concluded that British homes will need air conditioning to survive predicted levels of global heating in the next 10 years. Recommending that it should also be installed in care homes, hospitals and schools.
