Sajjadian, Seyed Masoud (2015) Future proofing UK sustainable homes under conditions of climatic uncertainty. University of Liverpool, Doctoral Thesis, 279pp.
Abstract
Research relating to the potential impacts of climate change on UK housing hasincreased in recent years. The future performance of dwellings that are currentlyconsidered sustainable may change under a changing climate. For example, wellinsulated, air tight homes that are energy efficient and comfortable now may be at riskof overheating in the future. Decision-making for sustainable house designs maybecome more challenging regarding dwellings that will perform well now and beresilient to climate change risks, such as overheating, in the future.This study evaluates the effect of overheating risk and future climatic uncertainty indesigning UK dwellings. The main focus of the research is on the thermal performanceof the external building envelope. The foremost aim is to future proof current designs inorder to provide the best possible thermal comfort under likely warmer weatherconditions produced by climate change. This research examines a number ofconstructional design options to reduce energy consumption and improve thermalcomfort on the basis of climate change predictions up to 2080. The study develops amethodology by means of computer simulations to assess and predict the performance(in terms of total energy input, both heating and cooling, required to maintain thermalcomfort) in a range of current, ‘high performance’ construction systems used on simpleand typical UK house models in London and Manchester.The findings of this study show that UK sustainable homes, in their present format, aresusceptible to a future overheating risk. It is argued that the substantial part of theoverheating risk can be alleviated by the integration of modern smart materials andconventional design solutions, such as shading devices and earth-to-air heat exchangers(EAHE). The research also proposes a new method of integrating phase changematerials into the building envelope to reduce domestic cooling loads and overheatinghours in the coming decades.
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