All our new buildings trap the heat. The exteriors are almost always made of dark brick, which retains the heat, and never ever rendered white. Our roofs are

All our new buildings trap the heat. The exteriors are almost always made of dark brick, which retains the heat, and never ever rendered white. Our roofs are dark, high, pitched, and stuffed with insulation. So there's a huge pocket of hot air sat above the house as well. There was a TV programme recently where they were pointing thermal cameras at buildings and you could see the temperatures very much above "ambient" long into the evenings. It's something we should address in the UK but unfortunately the whole building industry in the UK is 100% in favour of maximising developer profits and minimising their costs. So rather than the old fashioned way of building thicker walls to stay warm in winter and cool in summer, we now have one skin of thin brick work, insulation (foam), breeze block, more insulation, steel/aluminium frame with insulation, covered in plasterboard (the final interior wall). Maximum profit, quick to build, cheap materials. Unless the government legislates, the UK is building a whole stock of housing that's going to be rather awful for future generations.