Edinburgh Napier University

  Research relating to the potential impacts of climate change on UK housing has increased in recent years. The future performance of dwellings that are currently considered sustainable may change under a changing climate. For example, well insulated, air tight homes that are energy efficient and comfortable now may be at risk of overheating in the future. Decision-making for sustainable house designs may become more challenging regarding dwellings that will perform well now and be resilient to climate change risks, such as overheating, in the future. This study evaluates the effect of overheating risk and future climatic uncertainty in designing UK dwellings. The main focus of the research is on the thermal performance of the external building envelope. The foremost aim is to future proof current designs in order to provide the best possible thermal comfort under likely warmer weather conditions produced by climate change. This research examines a number of constructional design options to reduce energy consumption and improve thermal comfort on the basis of climate change predictions up to 2080. The study develops a methodology by means of computer simulations to assess and predict the performance (in terms of total energy input, both heating and cooling, required to maintain thermal comfort) in a range of current, ‘high performance’ construction systems used on simple and typical UK house models in London and Manchester. The findings of this study show that UK sustainable homes, in their present format, are susceptible to a future overheating risk. It is argued that the substantial part of the overheating risk can be alleviated by the integration of modern smart materials and conventional design solutions, such as shading devices and earth-to-air heat exchangers (EAHE). The research also proposes a new method of integrating phase change materials into the building envelope to reduce domestic cooling loads and overheating hours in the coming decades.