Experts say that we should expect to see summer temperatures regularly topping 40 degrees C in the near future, so understanding heat gain and what you can do to counteract the effects will soon become essential for comfortable living.

Heat gain – which is also known as thermal or solar gain – is the transfer of heat into your house from a variety of different sources, with the main one being the sun. During the summer, solar radiation intensifies, so your buildings will absorb more heat, but there are numerous ways in which you can reduce the impact of this.

The majority of homes in the UK don’t have air-conditioning units installed (although this may well change in the future), but you can use plantation shutters or similar to particularly good effect if you’re keen to keep your home cool in summertime.

A huge percentage of thermal gain comes through your windows, so your choice of window treatment is paramount. Shutters are a particularly good choice because it’s very easy to control the amount of light that comes into the room, but you could also go for blinds, curtains or even window film, depending on your budget.

Other ways to help keep your home cool and make it more energy-efficient include painting your external walls lighter colours, improving your property’s insulation and making your attic area better ventilated to help prevent the house from overheating.

There is no doubt having a big window beats a small one. With the latter, the option to let in more light simply isn’t there, but with a larger window, it is. Indeed, many will have been revelling in the extra light provided by the summertime (up to 16 and a half hours in late June), but will also benefit from maximising what little light there is in the winter (fewer than eight hours in December) a few months from now.

However, there is a very good case for having full height wooden shutters in place, because this permits complete flexibility in how you manage the amount of light you let in.

In summer, one drawback of long days is you can be woken up early by bright sunlight, disrupting your sleep. But that is not the only seasonal issue you can face. Another is that during spring and autumn, the sun can be low enough in the sky to get right in your eyeline.

This is occasionally being a problem in winter too, albeit for shorter time periods and less often because of frequent cloud, giving Brighton a December average of two hours a day of sunshine. However, the midwinter sun gets as low as 15.8 degrees, so it can dazzle if it’s in line with your window.

This is where full height shutters can be perfect for keeping out the worst if the sun. Because you don’t have to close them entirely like curtains, you can still allow a bit of light in if you wish, without being dazzled.

Full height shutters are also very stylish and perfect for a home with tall windows, so when you do have them closed at night you can give the room both a classy and cosy look. Book an appointment with us today and see how we can enhance your windows with great shutters.

Close The Shutters

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, closing your solid wood shutters is one of the best ways to keep a room cool, especially when the sun is at its highest.

The reason for this is the same reason a greenhouse is warmer inside than outside. Sunlight hits your windows, heats up the room and can actually make your room hotter than the outside temperature.

Closing the shutters and curtains will keep your room cool, and has the side effect of avoiding unsightly glare on your screen. Just make sure to take a break and enjoy the sun.

Use The Ice Fan Trick

In many countries, air conditioning is a standard part of every home, but this is not the case in the UK. However, there are ways to improvise.

Get your fan and pop a bowl of ice-cold water onto the bottom of it. This will create a super-cold breeze that will cool you down very quickly.

Stay Downstairs

Heat rises, so if you have the option, try to spend as much time downstairs as possible.

If you happen to live downstairs or can fashion a downstairs bed, sleeping downstairs can help improve your sleep considerably, rather than deal with intolerable heat upstairs, especially if you sleep in a loft conversion.

Whilst solid wood shutters are primarily known as a window accessory, they actually pre-date the use of glass in windows, making them a trusted, effective choice for providing privacy and blocking sunlight for thousands of years.

The first window openings date back to the 13th century BC, where small openings in the roof were made to allow light to enter the home during the day, and were typically covered with cloth or animal hide at night.

The first shutters were believed to have been created in Ancient Greece, and whilst wood and textiles do not survive that long, we do know that early shutters were made out of marble, although they were also known to have used wooden shutters in Ancient Greece as well.

The reason for the switch was obvious; whilst marble is an exceptionally beautiful and strong material, it is very difficult to make moving pieces out of marble, and so the louvres were solid and fixed to a single position.

Wooden louvres were much cheaper to make, much easier to fit due to being a lot lighter than marble, provided similar protection from sunlight and the tropical climate, and much later advances would enable the louvres to even move, allowing for as much or as little light in a room as you like.

Shutters would spread throughout the Mediterranean and were the standard covering for windows in the centuries before glass windows.

In Tudor England, you started to see glass windows, but as clear glass was expensive and fragile, solid shutters were used for the lower half of windowed openings.

By the time of King Louis XIV of France, window shutters had evolved from being a necessity to a royal accessory.

Given that shutters often need to be designed with particular needs in mind and are commonly made-to-measure, it is important to choose the right material that enhances your room, rather than causing design clashes or long term problems as they get older.

Unlike blinds, which have quite a wide choice of materials, solid wood shutters are the primary solution for most homes, with different types of woods having distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Hardwood is the traditional choice for window shutters going back as far as the era of Louis XIV, who allegedly had them installed into the Louvre palace as a way to watch people on his grounds.

As an older wood, hardwoods such as beech and oak are exceptionally strong, long-lasting and hard-wearing, but this strength also makes hardwood blinds more expensive than most other options.

However, an alternative, known as hybrawood, has also become an option, which provides the look of hardwood with a durable metal core and polyvinyl slats. This maintains the look of natural wood but also a long-lasting core.

Softwoods can on some occasions be used for indoor shutters and they can provide some particularly bright and beautiful textures, although they are also more damage-prone.

Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) used to be the primary material for low-price window shutters because the compacted concoction of hardwoods and softwoods was exceptionally durable for the price it costs.

Outside of wooden shutters, polyvinyl shutters do exist, as do metal ones, although both are primarily used for outdoor shutters.

Shutters are the ultimate option for light control and privacy. Tier on Tier style shutters allow for a versatile approach, which means you will be fully screened from outside view, while still being able to let in a good amount of daylight, and to have a view out of the window.

Full-height shutters can be fitted with separate louvre control, allowing you to close the lower section for maximum privacy, while the upper section can let in enough daylight to avoid having extra light sources.

Bespoke shutters will be designed to fit any window perfectly; in fact, this is one of their great advantages, because they enhance, rather than disguise the shape of the window, and maximise the space in the room. This is particularly effective for classic bay widows, or unusually shaped apertures.

The perfect fit of shutters means there are far fewer gaps for heat to escape from the room, so you may notice that you use less heating and save on energy bills. They are also very durable, not to mention stylish and contemporary!

Blinds are a more affordable solution in most cases, so may be better for those on a tight budget. They also give you more flexibility when it comes to styling, patterns, weight, and so on that will match the rest of your interior décor, and have a more softening effect.

In the end, there are no right or wrong choices; you may even decide to have shutters for some windows, and blinds for others.