On a July afternoon in Devon last year, I watched the tarmac on a village lane soften and shine, as if the road itself were sweating. Two months later, in the very same county, a week of relentless rain turned a gentle stream into a furious brown river that licked hungrily at cottage doorsteps.
This is the new rhythm of life in the UK: heat that feels oddly foreign, followed by rain that feels strangely biblical.
If you own or rent a home here, climate change is no longer an abstract headline—it’s the drip under the skirting board, the stifling bedroom at midnight, the garden that swings from parched to flooded in a fortnight. The good news? There is a lot you can do, quietly and systematically, to make your home more resilient, more comfortable, and often more energy-efficient along the way.
Start with your specific risk: what’s likely where you live?
Before you start buying sandbags or solar shades, pause. Climate change doesn’t hit every UK home in the same way. A Victorian terrace in York has a different risk profile to a coastal bungalow in Norfolk or a new-build flat in Birmingham.
Begin with a simple bit of homework:
- Flood risk maps: Check the UK government’s flood risk services (for England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). See whether you’re at risk from rivers, sea, surface water, or groundwater.
- Overheating zones: Look for local authority documents about “overheating risk” or “urban heat islands”. Dense urban areas, top-floor flats, and south- or west-facing rooms are especially vulnerable.
- Local anecdotes: Ask neighbours: Has this street ever flooded? Which rooms get unbearably hot in summer? Sometimes the most useful data sits in someone’s memory, not in an official PDF.
Once you know your main threats—heat, flooding, or both—you can start to prepare with far more intention.
Keeping your home cool in UK heatwaves
British homes were built to keep heat in, not out. That made sense when “summer” meant a fortnight of mild sunshine and a faintly disappointing barbecue. Now, our brick boxes and heavily insulated lofts can become slow-cooking ovens.
Staying cool is less about blasting energy-hungry air conditioning and more about working intelligently with shade, ventilation, and thermal mass.
Cool the sun before it hits the glass
Once sunlight comes through a window, the heat is already inside. The trick is to stop or soften it before it enters.
- External shading: Awnings, external blinds, or shutters are dramatically more effective than internal curtains. They also protect window frames from UV damage and can look beautifully Mediterranean in the right setting.
- Plant-based shade: Consider deciduous trees or climbing plants on pergolas. In summer, the leaves provide shade; in winter, they fall, letting the low sun warm your rooms. Wisteria and grapevine have cooled many a stone cottage long before “climate resilience” was a phrase.
- Solar control films: For south- and west-facing windows you can’t shade externally, high-quality window films can reflect part of the solar radiation while preserving daylight.
Walk around your home at 3pm on a hot day and simply note: which windows feel like radiators? That’s where you start.
Embrace night cooling and smart ventilation
In many parts of the UK, even on hot days, nights are still relatively cool. Your job is to invite that cooler air in and trap it.
- Night purging: On summer nights when it’s cooler outside than inside, open windows on opposite sides of the home to create cross-ventilation. Internal doors slightly ajar help air thread its way through.
- Stack effect: If you have an upstairs or a loft hatch, open higher windows or vents to let hot air escape, drawing in cooler air below.
- Secure ventilation: For ground-floor or street-side windows, consider secure night-vent positions or window restrictors so you can ventilate without inviting in the wrong kind of visitor.
A simple routine—shades down by mid-morning, windows closed during the worst heat, then everything flung open at night—can keep internal temperatures several degrees lower than outdoors.
Materials that buffer heat instead of amplifying it
Not all walls are equal. A thick stone cottage in Northumberland behaves very differently in a heatwave compared to a lightweight timber-framed new build in Milton Keynes.
- Thermal mass: Heavy materials (stone, brick, concrete) absorb heat during the day and release it slowly at night. If you have them, expose some internally—uncovered brick walls, tiled floors—rather than covering everything with lightweight stud walls and carpets.
- Breathable, natural materials: Lime plasters, wood fibre boards, and natural insulation (sheep wool, cellulose) can help regulate humidity and temperature, avoiding that clammy, sealed-box feeling.
- Cool roofs: In loft conversions, consider light-coloured or reflective roofing materials and high-spec insulation with proper ventilation gaps. A badly detailed loft can become the hottest room in the house.
Think of your home as a living organism: it needs to breathe, to buffer, to adapt. Materials matter more than we often realise.
Small, low-energy cooling helpers
Before you surrender to air conditioning units, try a few simpler allies:
- Ceiling and pedestal fans: Air movement dramatically improves comfort, even at the same temperature. A fan uses a fraction of the electricity of an AC unit.
- Evaporative tricks: In very dry heat (more common inland), a slightly damp cloth in front of a fan can make a surprising difference. In humid conditions, focus instead on dehumidification and shade.
- Heat-generating appliances: Avoid using ovens, tumble dryers, and halogen lights during the hottest hours. Batch cook in the morning, or lean into salads and no-cook dinners during heatwaves.
Comfort isn’t just a number on a thermostat. It’s moving air, lower humidity, and the psychological relief of a shaded corner where your body can breathe.
Preparing for heavier rain and flooding
Then the weather flips. The ground, baked hard by weeks of sun, suddenly resists water like pottery. Rain races off roofs and pavements into drains that can’t cope. Rivers swell, and the quiet stream you used to ignore on your way to the shop becomes something else entirely.
In the UK, we’re seeing more intense downpours and “surface water” flooding—when drains and sewers simply cannot swallow the deluge. For some, there’s also the risk from rivers and the sea. Here’s how to put your home on higher metaphorical ground.
Know your entry points: water’s favourite paths
Floodwater is an opportunist. It will find any gap, crack, or low point it can.
- Doors and thresholds: Check the condition of external doors and frames. Are there visible gaps? Consider flood-resistant doors or demountable flood barriers for the most at-risk properties.
- Air bricks and vents: Traditional air bricks can be flood pathways. Replace with “flood-resistant” versions or use covers that can be quickly fitted when a warning is issued.
- Drains and toilets: In severe events, sewers can backflow. Non-return valves on drains and toilet outlets reduce the risk of sewage coming back the wrong way.
- Basements and cellars: If you have them, they are often the first to suffer. Sump pumps, waterproofing, and moving valuables and electrics higher are essential defences.
A rainy Sunday with a notepad and a slow circuit of your property—front, sides, rear, roofline—can reveal vulnerabilities long before the weather does.
Design your garden as a sponge, not a bathtub
A garden can either help absorb excess water or rush it towards your door and the street drains.
- Permeable surfaces: Replace impermeable drives and patios (solid concrete, tarmac) with permeable alternatives: gravel, permeable block paving, or reinforced grass systems.
- Rain gardens: Create shallow planted depressions designed to temporarily hold rainwater. Fill them with plants that tolerate both occasional flooding and drought—sedges, iris, certain grasses.
- Swales and channels: Gentle, planted channels can guide overflow away from your home towards safer soakaway areas.
- Rainwater harvesting: Water butts on downpipes are simple, cheap, and give you stored water for drier spells. In larger projects, consider underground tanks.
The irony is pleasing: by planning for heavy rain, you also prepare better for drought. Stored rainwater, healthier soil, and shaded planting help you across the entire climate spectrum.
Make the building itself more water-resilient
If you are in a higher-risk flood area, it’s worth going beyond “keeping water out” to planning for “what if it gets in anyway?”. This is the mindset of flood resilience.
- Raise critical services: Lift electrical sockets, fuse boxes, and boiler controls higher up the wall, above likely flood levels.
- Flood-resilient finishes: Use tiled floors or treated concrete rather than fitted carpets at ground level. Choose lime-based or water-resistant plasters that cope better with getting wet and drying out.
- Detachable elements: Keep kitchen units on raised legs with removable kickboards, so you can dry underneath. Freestanding furniture is often easier to move than built-ins.
- Storage strategies: Store important documents, treasured photos, and irreplaceable items upstairs or in waterproof containers.
The aim is to reduce the damage, the drying time, and the emotional punch if flooding does occur. Being able to clean, dry, and reoccupy quickly is a quiet, powerful form of resilience.
Insulation, airtightness, and ventilation in a changing climate
There’s a delicate dance between staying warm in winter, cool in summer, and mould-free all year. Many UK homes are still under-insulated; at the same time, poorly executed retrofits can trap moisture or worsen summertime overheating.
- Insulate thoughtfully: Roof and loft insulation remain the best value-for-money upgrades. On hot days, that insulation also slows heat entering from a sun-baked roof. Just ensure good ventilation gaps in pitched roofs.
- External vs internal insulation: External wall insulation often performs better thermally and helps reduce overheating by wrapping the building. Internal systems must be designed carefully to avoid condensation in solid-wall homes.
- Mechanical ventilation: If your home is very airtight (or becoming so through renovations), consider mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) or at least extract fans with humidity controls in kitchens and bathrooms. In summer, many MVHR systems can bypass heat recovery to bring in cooler air.
- Moisture-aware design: Use breathable materials where possible in older buildings. Removing every hint of draught without adding proper ventilation is an invitation to mould.
Treat your home as a system. Each change—new windows, extra insulation, blocked-up fireplace—echoes elsewhere. When in doubt, seek advice from professionals familiar with both energy efficiency and heritage or solid-wall construction.
Power resilience: keeping the essentials running
As storms intensify, power cuts may become more frequent in some areas. At the same time, we’re electrifying our homes—heat pumps, induction hobs, EV chargers. Resilience is about more than comfort; for some, it’s about medical equipment, refrigeration, or simply the ability to stay informed.
- Portable battery backups: Small battery units can keep phones, lights, routers, and a laptop running through a cut. Some can be charged via portable solar panels.
- Solar PV with battery: A rooftop solar system paired with a home battery offers both carbon savings and a measure of independence. In some setups you can island part of your home during outages.
- Low-energy lighting and appliances: LED lighting and efficient fridges/freezers reduce overall demand, making any backup solutions more effective.
- Simple preparedness: Torches (ideally wind-up or rechargeable), a battery or hand-crank radio, and a small stash of shelf-stable food and drinking water are old-fashioned but quietly reassuring.
The future of home energy in the UK will likely be far more local, flexible, and digital. The steps you take now for resilience also tend to align with lower bills and lower emissions.
Emotional resilience and community: you’re not a fortress
Climate preparedness is rarely just about bricks, tiles, and drainage channels. It’s also about the invisible networks around your home:
- Neighbourhood connections: Swap numbers with the people next door. Who might need help in a heatwave? Who could store valuables for someone in a flood warning area?
- Local groups: Community flood groups, mutual aid networks, and gardening clubs experimenting with drought-tolerant planting can all be rich sources of practical knowledge.
- Household plans: Agree in advance: What will you do during a red heat warning? Where is your grab bag if you have to leave quickly in a flood? Who checks on older relatives or friends?
In many ways, the most powerful adaptation strategy is a caring, connected community. Storms feel different when you know which door to knock on.
Turning adaptation into an everyday practice
Preparing your home for climate change in the UK doesn’t have to be an apocalyptic project or a single, grand renovation. It can be a series of small, deliberate adjustments layered over time:
- One year, it’s adding external shading to that blazing south-facing window.
- The next, you re-pave the drive with permeable blocks and install a rain garden.
- Later, you upgrade the loft insulation and add controlled ventilation.
- Along the way, you plant a tree whose shade your future self will quietly thank you for.
Some changes you’ll see and feel within days—the bedroom that finally cools enough to sleep, the garden that holds onto rain a little longer in August. Others will sit quietly in the background, waiting, like a good umbrella in the hall, for the day they’re needed.
We can’t individually rewrite the climate, but we can rewrite how our homes meet it—brick by brick, room by room, habit by habit. And in doing so, we discover that resilience is not just about surviving heatwaves and floods; it’s about shaping spaces that feel calm, generous, and livable in a warming, shifting world.
