Heatwaves are hell in my new-build nightmare flat
'Whew, it's like stepping off a plane in a hot country,' said a friend last weekend as she entered the corridor that leads to my flat. I commonly have to reassure guests before we've even arrived at my front door that I don't live in an actual oven.
What I actually live in is a new one-bedroom flat in southeast London. It has much to recommend it, not least its energy efficiency. My flat is so well-insulated that I haven't turned the heating on since I moved in seven years ago, saving me thousands of pounds in energy bills.
There's just one sweltering downside: summer. The flats were not built with summer in mind, particularly not the kind of 25C-30C days that we're sweating our way through.
• Best tips on how to sleep in the heat
Millions of us are in the same boat. Ask anyone who lives in a house or flat built in the past 20 years and they will tell you that between June and August, they may as well live on Mercury.
Through a combination of building regulations, net-zero goals and property developers packing in as many flats as they can, new homes are significantly hotter and harder to ventilate than older properties.
The flora is suffering. I tried to keep a basil plant this summer, for sprinkling elegantly on tomato salads, but it died in two days. Sadly it seems only succulents will survive. A stalk emerged from one of my succulents recently, which I sent proudly to a green-fingered friend. 'You must be keeping it in an optimal climate,' she said. I looked it up, and the plant in question is native to north Africa.
I had an impromptu summit about the problem in the lift the other day, when I squeezed in alongside two clammy neighbours. 'It's never less than 30C in my flat,' one of them dead-panned.
'I think I've acclimatised and I don't feel anything any more,' the other said. (She's got a point about acclimatising — everyone else's homes feel freezing to me now.)
This is all a trade-off. Most people don't believe me when I say that I've never had to turn the heating on, but it's true. In fact my flat is so well-insulated that I've never heard the newborn babies who apparently live either side of me. But with the number of days in which the temperature reaches above 28C doubling since 1990, this trade-off is becoming a rather sweaty one.
Annie Moore, 33, and her partner used to own a new two-bedroom flat that overheated in the summer. This meant 'essentially not wearing many clothes, we rarely had the duvet on, and there was lots of standing in the fridge with the door open'.
• Heatwaves above 40C are the future, says Met Office
While most office workers were reluctant to return after Covid, Moore was desperate to be back in to take advantage of the air conditioning. Two years ago, she moved to a draughty Victorian terraced house and prefers being cooler and spending more on heating. 'We often think of the people who bought our old flat on hot days like this and feel very bad,' she says.
Ventilation is another big problem with new builds. Cramming as many flats as possible into buildings means a lot of them are single aspect like mine (with windows only on one side) so it's impossible to create a through-draught of air to cool the place down.
This is the reason the majority of new builds are fitted with MVHR systems (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery), in which pipes circulate air flow through the flat. This, however, does not keep you cool on the hottest days.
And that wave of hot air that knocks you out in the corridors? This is down to communal heating pipework that is usually run down the centre of the building. The prevalence of glass on new buildings can also create a greenhouse effect that contributes towards the high temperatures inside.
A friend who is also in her thirties, Ophelia Oakham, bought her new flat in 2017. 'By the summer of 2018, it felt like we were living in a slow-cooking oven,' she says. 'We tried everything. Fans that just blew hot air around, damp paper towels, cold flannels in front of the fan, blackout curtains kept shut all day; you name it. The building's design meant no breeze ever got in.'
So what can be done to cool these furnaces down? Air conditioning is one option. But it costs. Portable units (units in more ways than one) are between £400 and £600 for a good one. Because air conditioning is so energy intensive (and expensive to install), many new blocks such as mine aren't built with it.
Blocking out the morning sun is the most important remedy, especially if you're east-facing as I am. Owners of flats usually can't install external blinds, so instead I have good quality blackout curtains that I don't open until around midday when the sun is above the building, not in front. Reflective window film is a good buy too.
Invest in a decent fan. I have an 18in chrome contraption in the lounge that knocks paintings off the wall on its strongest setting. In the bedroom, there's a Dreo silent tower fan that has eight speeds and a silent mode on a timer at night.
I do think it's great that we're pushing for energy efficiency in our building regulations. But if we're going to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years, as the government assures us that we are, then we need to make sure they are ready for a warming climate too.
• Rising humidity is making heatwaves worse
In 2023, my friend Ophelia caved and moved into a Victorian house. 'These new-build flats must come with proper cooling,' she says. 'Insulation is great in winter, but in summer it's unbearable. People can't sleep, everyone's miserable, and the world is only getting hotter. I feel very passionate about this. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity.'
Melissa York is assistant property editor of The Times and Sunday Times
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