Extract

The inability of the home environment to avoid overheating can result in discomfort and may have adverse effects on occupants’ health and wellbeing. Overheating is defined as the extent to which a space exceeds an upper threshold of an acceptable thermal condition. Although identified as a potential issue, assessing a house design for overheating is not required by the National Construction Code. This paper will present a novel methodology to assess overheating in the Darwin region based on extensive house monitoring of 58 dwellings over extended periods with over 7400 comfort assessments provided by 103 householders. The methodology characterises the overheating performance of houses operating as either Free-Running (FR) or Naturally Ventilated (NV) based on the adaptive comfort characteristics of the occupants. The estimation of effective temperature (ET*) is adopted as the index to assess the degree of overheating. This methodology is proposed to be used for the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) for the Darwin region.

Keywords: House overheating, Darwin, energy efficiency assessment.

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