Abstract
Upgrading the thermal insulation of UK houses to improve wintertime energy efficiency raises concerns about potential summertime overheating risk. To address these concerns, experiments were conducted in a pair of thermally matched, solid walled houses, located in the UK. One of the pair was retrofitted with internal wall insulation, while the other remained uninsulated; both houses were monitored for four weeks during the summer of 2015. Operative temperatures in the living room and main bedroom were observed to be higher in the internally insulated house in comparison to the uninsulated house. The houses were again monitored for a further three weeks with a simple overheating mitigation strategy applied consisting of night ventilation and shading using internal blinds. The data were normalised for variations in external weather conditions using a linear regression model, with the exponentially-weighted outdoor running mean air temperature as the predictor variable of indoor operative temperature. The results showed that the mitigation strategy was effective at reducing the internal temperature in the internally insulated house to a level similar to that observed in the uninsulated house. The marginal increase in overheating risk should not be considered a barrier to the uptake of IWI in this type of house and location, at this time. Shading devices and secure noise attenuating vents for existing dwellings may be needed as part of a package of refurbishment in the future. It could become a requirement within the Building Regulations [1] to reduce overheating risk when retrofitting existing homes.
Highlights
This paper contributes new evidence on the impact of internal wall insulation on summertime overheating risk in UK solid walled houses
The Energy Follow-Up Survey (EFUS), which is based upon the earlier 2010/11 English Housing Survey (EHS), reports that occupants of pre-1919 dwellings are the least likely to report a problem with overheating, while more energy efficient dwellings are more likely to experience overheating than less efficient dwellings [3]
The results from this test demonstrated that the thermal behaviours of the two uninsulated houses were similar
Summary
This paper contributes new evidence on the impact of internal wall insulation on summertime overheating risk in UK solid walled houses. The work presented is based on measurements taken in a unique test facility comprised of a matched pair of semi-detached solid wall houses, and employs an innovative method for comparing short term test results carried out under different weather conditions. It is the first time, to the authors' knowledge, that tests and analyses of this nature have been undertaken. A large monitoring study of 207 dwellings conducted across England recorded bedroom and living room temperatures during the cool summer of 2007, finding that the lowest bedroom temperatures occurred in pre1919 properties [4].
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