After a really cold spring, you might be inclined to the view that installing air conditioning to cool your house down is not exactly at the top of your list of must-do jobs. However, climate-change predictions might persuade you to change that view.
41C in London – Possible Climate-Change Scenario
A recent report in the Guardian described a scenario in which London temperatures could reach 41C in the hottest months of the year.
The problem for older people, and those more vulnerable to over-heating, lies in a prolonged spell of very hot weather. If nights are hot – and this is much more likely in cities, where buildings and streets store hot air during the day and release it at night – people don’t get a chance to cool down before facing the next day’s heat, and this can be dangerous.
Kitchens are always hotspots and are sometimes located in basements, so kitchen extraction systems from companies such as http://www.envirogroup-ni.co.uk/duct-cleaning/kitchen-extraction-ductwork.html are important.
Cooling Our Houses
Some insulation methods, such as roof insulation, may actually make the building hotter, since it’s difficult for the hot air to escape as it rises upwards. So it’s possible in future that the money we save on heating through insulation might be spent on cooling as a result of that insulation.
Anyone who has sat sweltering at an office desk in front of an electric desk fan can testify to the fact that these fans don’t actually cool the air – they just rearrange it slightly. The best approach to air conditioning in Belfast is a combination of new and old methods to stop the building getting warm in the first place, but then to cool it efficiently if it does become too hot.
Shutters are used in hot countries to keep the sun out and prevent it warming the air in the room. We may not want to fit shutters in our homes, but blinds and curtains can be used in the same way. Air-conditioning units don’t have to be power-consuming monsters either, and solar-powered units are now being developed. Air-conditioning units that use evaporation technology are often more energy-efficient than ones that use refrigeration techniques – it all depends on which is most suitable for your requirements.
