Over the years there have been a few references and questions relating to overheating. As the planet warms up this will become an increasingly important topic and it must surely be better to act now, or at least very soon, rather than wait until the problem in your home becomes unbearable or even dangerous, hence this thread.
I will start off with a recent document on the topic published by RIBA. In the past RIBA has justifiably been criticised for its carbuncles and energy wasting buildings but it does seem to be coming round to a more sensible approach.
The article is very generalised for a learned journal but does at least give ideas and a useful link.
See also
Overheating is the reason we’re glad we’ve not acted on our initial wants for our home , which included roof lights for the kitchen.
Living in the house for a few years we soon realised the rooms prone to overheating and the rooms which are most temperate and comfortable.
We acted on this and moved into our middle room from the front after realising the front room is colder in winter and uncomfortably hot in the summer- it does have a beautiful bay window , which of course lets lots of light and heat and cold in. The sun rises on the front too.
The middle room being nestled is protected from the elements and is snug in winter and cool in summer. The pay off is a lot less light.
The kitchen at the back of the house is dark and pretty much always cool - the sun sets at the back.
However, we’ve noticed that the kitchen roof (plastic tiles) offer no protection from the heat and it penetrates through around mid afternoon. We need an insulation solution for this, but as with everything it’s money.
Upstairs, our daughters room on the front corner of the house is unbearably hot in the height of summer.
Insulation via lime plaster, new double glazed window and possibly a brise soleil in the future to deflect the sunshine rays away from the room.
The overall aim for us is to be as temperate and comfortable as possible, without relying too much on air con systems and heating. It’s more about the fabric of the building first.
It looks as though your orientation is similar to ours. I have plans to shade the rear ground floor over the spring but the room that overheats most is my daughter’s first floor rear facing WSW bedroom. It has a bay window with flat roof and no eaves.
Fairly recently I increased the very thin insulation in the ceiling of the bay with a lot more, which more or less stops heat loss or gain in that direction. The sun blasting down on the roof used to make the ceiling there noticably warmer than elsewhere in summer and it lost heat in winter. At the same time I resealed the window frames to their surrounds, using foam and BlowerProof.
The walls below the window have 4” glass wool IWI that I fitted in the late 1980s or early 90s, long before she was born. The remaining problem is direct insolation. As there are no eaves there is no inbuilt shading. There is also nothing to fix the shading to. UPVC frames cannot support heavy fixings and anyway the fixings would cause thermal bridging.
I have seen a micro louvred screen that can be stuck to the outsides of frames but
a) it would shade at times that insolation was wanted
b) maintenance would be a real problem if they started to peal off
c) that aspect is very exposed to the prevailing wind and rain, which could rip off anything resisting free air movement.
I haven’t looked into price.
I am open to suggestions.
Edit: I should have mentioned that the windows are triple glazed with low emissivity glass, so internal shading is pretty pointless.
I’m currently pondering external thermal roller shutters, which are common on the continent, such as:
For solar shading you don’t need the added expense of insulation. If the shutters are also to keep in winter heat then that is another matter.
Unfortunately I don’t have a suitable substrate to attach such blinds.