Sian Taylor: Team Green Architects co-founder on the calls to address overheating in townhouses

There's growing demand for changes to building regulations to prevent new-build townhouses from overheating in the summer.

Homeowners from across the nation have seen their townhouses reach temperatures exceeding 50C.

Team Green Architects co-founder Sian Taylor says many townhouse windows aren't built with external shading - adding to summer heat issues.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you followed the news in the last couple of decades,
you'll know we've had real problems in this country with
houses that are too cold in the winter. Well, it
looks like you can't quite catch a break. Now we've
got townhouses that are too hot in the summer, and
these are new townhouses. A renter in christ Church says
the temperature in his bedroom has reached fifty degrees celsius

(00:22):
a few times this month. Can you imagine. Sean Taylor
is the owner of Team Green Architects, and she's with
me to explain how this could be happening. Sean, Welcome
to the show. Hi, thank you for being with me.
Why are we having this problem? What is it that
we're doing wrong?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Look, it's hard to say, but I think it's a
combination of there being more and more townses being built,
which is something that we need because we need to
dance by our ceties, and this is happening quite quickly.
But often they're being built with large walls of glazing,
and if you have large large walls of glass facing

(01:05):
anywhere but sat, they're basically going to overheat if they're
not shaded externally.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
So is nothing to do with insulation. We're not over
insulating to try and compensate for the winter and then
having the opposite effect in summer.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
No, it's nothing to do with that. That's a really
that's been a misconception that's come out recently. It's something
that I've heard and Minister talk about, and it's completely false.
I live in a house that's as highly insulated as
it could possibly be. It's a passive house, and it
basically stays the same temperature throughout the year, within a

(01:43):
really good temperature range, and when we're basically lovely and
cool in the summer and lovely and warm in the winter.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So the problem is big windows.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
The problem is big windows that are not externally shaded.
So if you're designing in a way that you're basically
creating greenhouse, which is what's happening, because we're getting all
these townhouses which might be sort of muldiple townhouses in
a row that could be two or three stories high
with lots of glass, and then they're not properly ventilated,
so the windows don't open very much, and often they

(02:17):
might just have one air conditioning unit on the ground
floor and there's no external shades at all. And they
just overheat.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
We want the views, don't we Yeah, and with the windows,
I mean because they're second third floor. There's these weird rules,
aren't they. You know, window can only open like a crack.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, well, look it isn't. It isn't. It isn't a
weird rule. It's basically for safety. So if you have
a window that's all the way to the floor, you
don't want it opening that much. But essentially you still
need to design in such a way that you're not
bringing that heat in because what also happens is then
if you pull down say black Linds on the inside,

(03:03):
you actually trap that heat. So you bring the heat
into the building through the glass and then trap it
behind the blind and you can't get rid of it.
So as soon as you incorporate something like air conditioning,
it just fights it, but it doesn't actually stop the
building overheating.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
So what should we do then, if we're living in
one of these hot boxes?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I personally think firstly, we need to change the
building code, which doesn't resolve the people who've already living
in one, which is not great, but it does stop
things happening in the future because the way that we're
doing this. There's nothing in the building Code to basically say,

(03:46):
are you creating a comfortable internal environment? So building can
just be designed to either be too hot or too cold,
and that's what's been happening. And insulation levels have gone
up recently, which means that we've stopped them being too cold,
but we're not doing anything to stop them being too
hot because there's nothing to stop us doing that in
the in the building Code.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
So we actually need a limit at the other end
of the spectrum.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
We do. I look personally, I think we should be
energy modeling all of our buildings to show if they're
going to be suitable for human habitation, which they're not.
If they're hitting like fifty degrees, they're not definitely not comfortable.
They no one should be living in them.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Should we can we just put shutters on the outside
like they do.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yes, that that is definitely the best way to go.
And and you know, if you travel anywhere in Europe,
you've basically got shutters and on almost every building. And
you know, the Romans new how to design to avoid
too much sun, so did the Greeks. It's not new,
it's just it's actually comes down to really simple passive

(04:56):
principles and it doesn't cost anything. I just need to
design to stop the heat coming in when it's too hot.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Sean, thank you very much for that. Really interesting to
see how thick we've become. Sean Taylor, owner of Team
Green Architects, isn't been amazing what you learn and then unlearn.
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