Your article says that many older buildings will have to be retrofitted (‘A lot of challenges’: can housing industry build homes habitable in high temperatures?, 19 July). Yet my Victorian terrace house is good at remaining cool, largely because of its orientation at the back, facing north-west, and its use of organic materials. Ivy, too, will help regulate a house’s temperature, but is discouraged by surveyors who fear what lies beneath.
Friends’ loft extensions, which comply with inadequate building regulations, are sweltering. Without improved regulations, we are left in the hands of the major housebuilders that dominate the market, creating tomorrow’s abandoned slums as cheaply as possible, often in areas that will flood in the next 20 years.
Another problem is that the insurance industry blames cracking houses on trees, even though this happens anyway in dry periods. Until recently, a tree on the street cooled my house when it was blasted by sun. Solutions can often be simple and involve trees, plants and natural materials. But these make less money for the market, so we are lumbered with poor buildings.
Madeleine Worrall
London
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