Climate change and heat waves: Their implications on care homes in the United Kingdom

With strong scientific evidence that climate change is a reality and that the average temperature within the coming century will increase by several degrees, it is essential to assess the extent to which this increase in temperature will affect the occurrence of summertime thermal discomfort and overheating in buildings in the United Kingdom. Although previous research has been carried out regarding the impacts of climate change on buildings, the studies generally considered the relationship between climate change and thermal discomfort. However, the catastrophic heatwave which occurred in France during the summer of 2003, which caused a very large number of deaths, a majority of these being amongst the elderly portion of the population who were residing in care home institutions, raised a number of questions and consequently, a need to relate projected future high temperatures with mortality. This report attempts to analyse how the building features and structure of care homes can be modified to better adapt to climate change, using passive means of cooling as far as possible. For this to be achieved, projected climatic data were created, based on existing data and the UKCIP02 climate change scenarios for the three future time-series: 2020's, 2050's and 2080's. These projected climate data files were then applied to a care home case-study model using TAS thermal simulation software so as to assess overheating in the future. The design features of the building were also considered to assess the extent to which they are related to summertime overheating, and how they can be improved to reduce or control overheating. Passive cooling strategies were then applied to the building with the aim of investigating their efficiency in reducing or controlling summertime overheating and preventing heat-related mortality from occurring in the future. Based on the results of the simulations, the percentage of time during which the temperatures can be maintained within safe limits via passive methods was estimated