Managing overheating in public sector buildings – Net Zero Go
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Managing overheating in public sector buildings

A practical guide for local authorities on managing the growing overheating risk in their buildings. It outlines steps for protecting occupants, maintaining essential services, and planning further improvements, with priority given to passive measures first and the deployment of mechanical cooling only where necessary.

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Foundation
Guide
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Provided by: North West Net Zero Hub

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Management case Operational models Planning considerations Project risks, opportunities, constraints and dependencies Building decarbonisation and retrofit Climate adaptation and resilience Leisure centre Non-domestic energy efficiency Schools and educational institutions Strategy development

Net Zero Go says:

This report reframes overheating as a service continuity, health, and estate resilience issue, not simply occupant comfort. It sets out a practical hierarchy: reduce solar and internal heat gains, optimise controls and ventilation, improve passive performance, and use targeted mechanical cooling only where residual risk remains.

For local authorities, its strength is turning adaptation into manageable estate action. Teams can triage and monitor high-risk buildings, prioritise vulnerable settings, build overheating into maintenance and Net Zero programmes, and develop multi-year adaptation pathways rather than relying on reactive portable cooling.

Managing overheating in public sector buildings

A practical guide for local authorities on managing the growing overheating risk in their buildings. It highlights that building overheating poses not just a comfort risk, but a service delivery risk too. Local authorities will need funded, portfolio-level adaptation plans so that estate resilience keeps pace with increasing overheating risk.

The guide outlines a proportionate hierarchy of steps to protect occupants, maintain essential services, and plan further improvements, prioritising passive measures and preventing avoidable heat gains first, with the deployment of mechanical, targeted cooling only where evidence shows that passive and operational measures cannot maintain safe, workable conditions.

The report also provides details on the challenges, interventions, outcomes, limitations, and key takeaways of the following five case studies:

  • Camden apartment solar-shading trial: Internal and external shading combined with a controlled night-time window-opening strategy.
  • Buntingford First School: Passive-first design supported by targeted cooling of incoming ventilation air.
  • Victoria Care Centre: Diagnosis and prioritisation of operational, passive, and active overheating measures.
  • Addenbrooke’s Rosie Maternity Unit: Comparison of mechanical, natural, hybrid, and passive-downdraught cooling refurbishment options.
  • Central Park Primary School: Nine new playground trees, habitat mapping, and proposals for further green infrastructure.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © NWNZH. You may use this content (including commercially) under the Open Government Licence v3.0, provided you credit the NWNZH and include the licence link.

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