Question du jour [Matthew's Journal]

You're viewing

emperor's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

←

→

Why don't we have shutters on British houses? They'd keep them a lot cooler in weather like this...

←

→

There are 13 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Maybe they tried once and the neighbours ripped them off and burned them as firewood?

[link] [reply]

’Cause we have weather like this for about two weeks every five years, and they’d be bloody annoying the rest of the time.

[link] [reply]

I've seen houses with shutters in Britain, though not very often. I would think that most of the reasons would relate to how we don't usually get much weather in Britain like this, whereas we do get a large amount of rain and frost, both of which make exterior wood something of a pain to care for.

Edited Date: 2015-07-01 10:57 pm (UTC)

[link] [reply]

It's like the way we get caught out by snow which people in actually snowy countries cope with perfectly all the time. I'd say it's the problem of being "in between", but for example the maximum recorded temperature in Moscow is higher than the maximum recorded temperature here in Cambridge, so that scotches that one.

[link] [parent] [reply]

It's not so much an 'in between' problem, but an issue that it's not worth preparing for relatively rare weather conditions. Moscow probably can't cope with the maximum temperature it reaches every couple of years. I was in Rome a few years ago when they had the heaviest snow in thirty years. It was only a couple of inches, but they responded as if the sky were falling.

[link] [parent] [reply]

It's not "in between" so much as Britain has an atypically (I may be using the wrong word here; it's quite possibly unique, I don't know enough climatology) small range of commonly experienced temperatures. Cambridge is at a similar latitude to Moscow (slightly further south - Moscow's about level with Edinburgh) but it doesn't get as hot because it's a 500 kilometres further inland, and it takes a lot more effort to warm up water than land (the specific heat capacity of dry soil is about a fifth of that of water). Cambridge doesn't even get as cold as a normal city with a maritime climate should in winter, because Britain's on the gulf stream which brings warm water up from the tropics.

So basically, the reason Britain seems pathetically bad at dealing with extreme weather than everybody else is because, historically, we got rather less of it than everybody else did. Global warming is now screwing with weather patterns and this may be less true in the next century...

[link] [parent] [reply]

We don't do interior shutters much anymore, either. I wish we had interior shutters here (to keep out light and heat, but let in air when it gets hot, and to keep viewers out of the lower half of the window while letting light in, without obscuring the top half all the time.

[link] [parent] [reply]

Here is the close bracket). And thanks to fivemack for the information that they are additional isulation. Also, extra security, if you bar them with iron (and have the solid kind rather than the louvred, I think).
But they are jolly expensive to put back.

[link] [parent] [reply]

In fairness, I find there are a number of weeks each summer where I think "I wish we had shutters". For example, it's a fairly sensible 18 degrees outside this morning, and it's already too hot in the (East-facing) computer room.

[link] [parent] [reply]

Because today has been the hottest July day ever recorded in the UK?

[link] [reply]

"They'd keep them a lot cooler in weather like this..."

Dingdingdingding we have a winner! :)

Sorry, couldn't resist. But now I'm suddenly not sure, what shutters do do? Is the idea they provide shade but airflow? Or just that you can leave your windows open but locked? And yes, maybe it's POSSIBLE but been needed before rarely or never, so it wasn't worth installing them (like with lots of snow equipment).

[link] [reply]

My parents have put rather elegant internal shutters in the living-room of their house off Chesterton Road, because Victorian sash windows cannot readily be double-glazed and the shutters provide useful extra insulation in the winter.

[link] [parent] [reply]

Also no fly screens. (We're getting fly screens.)

[link] [reply]

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25 1
26	27	28	29	30	31

Matthew's Journal

Question du jour

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

October