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Brotas, Luisa and Nicol, Fergus (2016) The problem of overheating in European dwellings. In: 9th International Windsor Conference 2016, 7th - 10th April 2016, Windsor Park, UK.
The awareness of climate change and the increasingly urgent need to reduce carbon emissions in buildings and cities is growing in parallel with concerns with the comfort of occupants due to the rising temperatures. Recent comfort theories have acknowledged the interaction between people and their surrounding environment. BS15251 and TM52 have suggested a methodology that addresses comfort and overheating in naturally ventilated buildings. However, criteria need to be easily applied, overheating should be easily quantifiable. This paper looks at the criteria from CIBSE TM 52 and discusses their applicability to a typical archetype located in a set of cities in Europe. This follows work assessing the energy performance and thermal comfort of dwellings for morphed climates for the year 2020, 2050 and 2080. However, there are a set of variables that can significantly modify the results of an overheating assessment. In particular, the occupancy profile can significantly influence criterion 1 of TM 52 because it is couched in terms of occupied hours. Likewise, criterion 2 due to its weighted calculations on a daily basis is deemed to be difficult to apply. There is a danger that simplifications are made and criterion 1 prevails as the sole criterion to apply. A clear set of profiles may minimize this deficiency. An attempt to suggest a weekly profile for criterion 2 is also discussed.
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