With the UK set to record its warmest summer on record, the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) is calling for urgent action to tackle the growing number of buildings that overheat.
The Association says the rising number of deaths linked to longer and more intense heatwaves makes this a serious building safety issue with larger parts of the population now vulnerable to heat-related health problems. Researchers from Imperial College London estimated there were 263 excess deaths due to heat in the capital during June alone.
BESA’s technical director Kevin Morrissey said: “2022 might have seen more dramatic temperature peaks but this year seems to mark a move into much longer and more relentless periods of heat stress. This is significant because it suggests we are experiencing a new long-term weather pattern which calls for a more concerted effort to adapt our built environment.”
This issue has direct implications for hospitals, care homes and other healthcare estates, which contain some of the most vulnerable people in society. Research has shown that more than 1,000 hospitals and thousands of care settings are in areas already suffering from heat stress, underlining the urgent need for mitigation measures.
BESA believes overheating should now form part of the wider building safety regime. It pointed out that the addition of fire-resistant insulation was making many more homes and healthcare buildings liable to overheat, so this needed to be offset by better ventilation and cooling.
“Overheating is the most overlooked building safety issue,” said Kevin Morrissey. “Improving insulation to reduce heat loss and protect occupants from fire is extremely important, but in many cases, this is exacerbating growing health problems caused by poor indoor air quality (IAQ) and condensation by raising temperature and humidity and reducing air change rates.”
The Association said there were multiple technical solutions available, including both passive and mechanical cooling systems.
Kevin Morrissey added: “To ensure these reach the most vulnerable in our society, cooling must now become a central part of the UK’s push to decarbonise the built environment, which continues to focus primarily on how we heat buildings. Adapting the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) to support wider adoption of heat pumps that provide cooling in summer as well as heating would be a positive and easy first step.”
BESA, which manages the UK’s largest refrigeration and air conditioning registration scheme REFCOM, said that the UK’s increasingly intense summers were fuelling growth in demand for residential and commercial air conditioning. While this is a positive development for health and comfort, it must be managed carefully to ensure installations meet legal and technical standards.
“There is always a risk with any growth market that it attracts the wrong kind of commercial interest,” Morrissey warned. “We are seeing a surge in demand for heat pumps and for domestic cooling systems, but these need to be properly designed and appropriate for each project. People need to be appropriately qualified and registered to handle refrigerant gas and to install cooling equipment. There is a ‘cowboy’ element out there who could do untold damage to this industry and put both the environment and the public at risk of harm, if regulations are not properly enforced.”
He added that the Building Safety Act 'is beginning to make its presence felt' and is 'driving more responsible behaviour across the construction sector'.
