Reeking rooms

Windows for fresh air

Have you ever heard the phrase “daylight robbery”? It is thought this phrase goes back all the way to 1696, when King William III introduced a window tax in the United Kingdom. A similar tax also happened in France.

Naughty kid farting on their sibling, who desperately opens the curtains to find the window bricked up

What is a window tax?

If a house had more than 10 windows, the owner had to pay a tax. A tax is money that you pay to the government. So, you had to pay for having windows.

Have you ever walked past an old building that had bricks in the wall where it looks like there should have been a window? If so, that is probably because the person who lived there didn’t want to pay the tax. They probably planned to put the window back once the tax didn’t exist. But the tax had to be paid annually until 1851, over 150 years later.

Ground-level arched windows bricked up with newer red bricks, on a street with sett paving
Pretty flowers outside old stone houses on Cecily Hill Cirencester. Some windows blocked up to avoid 18th century window tax.

More than a hole in the wall!

Windows are important for our health and wellbeing. Obviously, they help you see outside and let light into a room, but they have an even more important role – ventilation!

Why do we need ventilation?

Windows allow fresh air into a building – fresh air keeps a building cool and dry, and stops it getting smelly.

In the built environment, ventilation is really important. When we’re developing buildings, we need to think about how the air moves through them.

Counting windows

In 1766, things got worse and people were taxed if they had 7 windows or more! Even more buildings were impacted. It became known as a “tax on light and air”!

Count the number of windows in the building you’re in. How could you reduce the number of windows without compromising the need for light and ventilation?

Did you know...

termites have inspired new ventilation systems?!

termite
the inside of a termite mound showing air passing through the tunnels and leaving through the central chamber.

Hot air rises and cold air sinks. 

This is how termite mounds keep cool and ventilated. They use a large central chimney and a series of connected thin supporting tubes, which creates an airflow system. 

During the day, air in the thin tubes warm up quicker than the main chimney, so the warm air pushes up and cold air fills the chambers. At night, the opposite happens.

The Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe used a termite mound inspired design to develop a “passively cooled” building. How cool is that!

Check out Activities4Home and the lesson plan for more activities.

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