Heat stress resistant residential buildings — YRD
  1. Schedule
  2. Hot in the City 2: Designing Spaces (Speed Talk)
  3. Heat stress resistant residential buildings

Heat stress resistant residential buildings (2646)

Gertrud Ms Hatvani-Kovacs 1 , Martin Dr Belusko 2 , John Dr Pockett 2 , John Prof Boland 3
  1. School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA, Australia
  2. Barbara Hardy Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA
  3. Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Mawson Lakes, SA

As both the intensity and frequency of heatwaves are predicted to increase due to climate change and urban heat islands, the risk of indoor overheating will increase. The heat stress resistance of the built environment has to improve to provide acceptable indoor comfort even during electricity blackouts and to decrease the reliance on air-conditioning. Nevertheless, building code requirements currently address only energy efficiency and neglect heat stress resistance.

 An energy efficient home is not necessarily heat stress resistant since it minimises only the annual energy consumption. A typical residential home was simulated with AccuRate to show that an increase in star rating does not necessarily result in the decrease of cooling demand and numbers of hours with discomfort.

 The benefits of heat stress resistant building features are discussed based on the findings of a representative online survey about heat stress resilience in Adelaide. Having heat stress resistant features at home increased adaptation and decreased problems of wellbeing during heatwaves. In contrast, air-conditioning did not prevent health problems in all cases, decreased the use of other passive adaptation options and its availability increased the reliance upon it. The proliferation of heat stress resistant features in our residential building stock is, nevertheless, very limited.

 To conclude, building regulations addressing energy efficiency should set requirements for heat stress resistance. Furthermore, the introduction of the Energy Performance Certificate could increase the heat stress resistance and the general knowledge of the built environment.