Luisa Brotas

Counting the costs of comfort

The recent Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Report on Climate Change states clearly that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal and, since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over periods from decades to millennia (IPCC, 2014). It highlights that the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and the sea level has risen. It gives clear evidence of the often devastating impacts caused by anthropogenic climate change on the natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans.

Estimating overheating in European dwellings

ABSTRACT In recent years, the urgent need to adapt our lifestyles and buildings to deal with a more extreme and a warming climate has become clear, not least through the increasing overheating of buildings. This is reflected in the rising concerns about the discomfort and heat stress to building occupants caused by the increasing indoor temperatures. European standard BS15251 and Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) guidance note TM52 are documents that address the issue. Both include a methodology predicting the probability of overheating in buildings. Despite this, many modern buildings overheat. This paper looks at the criteria from CIBSE TM52 and discusses their applicability to a single UK dwelling archetype. This was modelled and then located in a range of European cities to understand the causes of overheating and the means of reducing it. Results highlight some problems in practice using simulations tools to evaluate overheating and the fundamental assumptions on which they are based. Energy performance and thermal comfort of dwellings were assessed using morphed climates for each location for 2020, 2050 and 2080.

The globe thermometer in comfort and environmental studies in buildings

The reasons for the inferior performance of many existing buildings and associated energy systems are diverse, but an important part-cause is insufficient attention to the influence of occupant behaviour. In smart buildings it is necessary to allow for the integration of human behaviour in the HVAC system. In addition, many researchers are limited in their investigation by not having low cost tools that can provide information for their studies. This article is a review of the present state of art about the globe thermometer. It describes how to build your own globe temperature sensor and describes experiments that illustrate the feasibility of using a black globe thermometer with 40 mm diameter.