Listening - An environmental scientist talks about heat loss from houses/Prompts
From OER in Education
Questions - Discussion prompts - Heat loss from houses
How houses lose heat, introduced by Nicola Terry. Ray Galvin, an environmental scientist specialising in home insulation policy talks about ways that we can reduce heat lost from our houses. After talking about the ways a house loses heat, Ray suggests that we might look at dehumidifiers and heat pumps to reduce our energy bill.
- Sketch a house and label the ways that it loses heat
- Why and how do the outside walls and roof lose heat?
- Write about the materials used to insulate a house [Big question]
- What is Ray’s caution about the wires in the loft? [More on this at the end of the recording]
- Why doesn’t the air already in the loft help to insulate a loft? Or does it?
- Ray used the word 'radiation' once when he meant 'conduction'. Check with your teacher on this error.
- Why does hot air get to the loft?
- What is Ray’s caution about the wood in the loft?
- What causes the loss of heat through windows? How is this prevented in modern windows?
- Does more or less heat leave via the windows compared to the walls
- What is a thermal bridge and how can this ‘problem’ be avoided?
- What is a downside of sealing moisture in the house? What is a dehumidifier? Does it heat a house?
- What does a heat pump do?
