A Home For All Seasons
23rd July 2025
Jenny Danson
You can’t help but notice that it has been a little warm of late these last couple of months. Whilst temperatures have risen outside, for so many of us, our own homes have become uncomfortable and have been overheating.
Our focus in the social housing sector is to build, maintain and operate better homes for our residents. Better homes that are cheaper to heat, improve the health of our residents and improve the environment we live in.
Better homes need to operate all year round.
A lot of our focus and terminology used when talking about the energy efficiency of our homes is around warmth – how do we keep our homes warm in the winter. The government’s policy initiative in this area is called the Warm Homes Plan. There is nothing wrong in this. For too long now we have had the situation where too many people have had the awful choice of whether to heat their home or eat. We rightly need to address this.
But a true healthy home is one that is not just warm in the winter but is also safe and cool in the summer. We need homes that are fit for all seasons.
Homes should be dynamic. They are lived in resources and need to respond to the changing climate. We need a real focus on the quality of ventilation in our homes. We can’t ignore air quality. Homes need to be able to react when moisture levels rise and when stale air needs refreshing.
Fabric and insultation are also part of the solution but should not be our sole design focus. The home needs to be designed to react to how residents live their lives. It is important that we design homes that save energy, but it is probably more important that we design homes that help people live better healthier lives. Neither approach is mutually exclusive.
Homes that cannot cope with damp, mould, cold and heatwaves are homes that can’t protect lives.
Overheating is not just a discomfort issue. It is also a health issue. Poor ventilation, inappropriate glazing, and the drive for air tightness without considering heat mitigation risk turning our homes into ovens.
The solutions we create have to put the resident and their health front and centre.
Therefore, we need to design homes that cool as well as insulate. We need to create neighbourhoods that breathe. We need to deliver retrofit that protects health and is not just about meeting technical standards. We also need to undertake climate adaptation that prioritises place and people equally.
It is not about choosing either better warmth in the winter, or cooler buildings in the summer. We need to do both. Because at both extremes each is a health issue that needs to be addressed.
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