Impact of future climate change on UK building performance

Global demand for dwelling energy and implications of changing climatic conditions on buildings confront the built environment to build sustainable dwellings. This study investigates the variability of future climatic conditions on newly built detached dwellings in the UK. Series of energy modelling and simulations are performed on ten detached houses to evaluate and predict the impact of varying future climactic patterns on five building performance indicators. The study identifies and quantifies a consistent declining trend of building performance which is in consonance with current scientific knowledge of annual temperature change prediction in relations to long term climactic variation. The average percentage decrease for the annual energy consumption was predicted to be 2.80, 6.60 and 10.56 for 2020s, 2050s and 2080s time lines respectively. A similar declining trend in the case of annual natural gas consumption was 4.24, 9.98 and 16.1, and that for building emission rate and heating demand were 2.27, 5.49 and 8.72 and 7.82, 18.43 and 29.46 respectively. The study further analyses future heating and cooling demands of the three warmest months of the year and ascertains future variance in relative humidity and indoor temperature which might necessitate the use of room cooling systems to provide thermal comfort