TM59 Overheating Analysis for Residential Buildings


L2 Energy Consulting have been providing TM59 Overheating Analysis for residential buildings since its inception in 2017, this gives us significant experience and the ability to advise on remedies if calculations fall short of the requirements. In December 2021 the UK Government introduced Building Regulation Approved Document O for Overheating making the consideration of overheating a requirement by law

TM59 Compliance Criteria

Homes that are predominantly naturally ventilated, including homes that have mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (mvhr), with good opportunities for natural ventilation in the summer should assess overheating using the adaptive method based on CIBSE TM52 (2013).

In order to allow the occupants to ‘adapt’, each habitable room needs operable windows with a minimum free area that satisfies the purge ventilation criteria set in Part F of the Building Regulations for England (NBS, 2010), i.e. the window opening area should be at least 1/20th of the floor area of the room (different conditions exist for windows with restricted openings, and the same requirement applies for external doors). Control of overheating may require accessible, secure, quiet ventilation with a significant openable area

Homes that are predominantly mechanically ventilated because they have either no opportunity or extremely limited opportunities for opening windows (e.g. due to noise levels or air quality) should be assessed for overheating using the fixed temperature method based on CIBSE Guide A (2015a).

Criteria for homes predominantly naturally ventilated

Compliance is based on passing both of the following two criteria:

  1. For living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms: the number of hours during which DT is greater than or equal to one degree (K) during the period May to September inclusive shall not be more than 3 per cent of occupied hours. (CIBSE TM52 Criterion 1: Hours of exceedance).

  2. For bedrooms only: to guarantee comfort during the sleeping hours the operative temperature in the bedroom from 10 pm to 7 am shall not exceed 26 °C for more than 1% of annual hours. (Note: 1% of the annual hours between 22:00 and 07:00 for bedrooms is 32 hours, so 33 or more hours above 26 °C will be recorded as a fail).

Criteria for homes predominantly mechanically ventilated

For homes with restricted window openings, the CIBSE fixed temperature test must be followed, i.e. all occupied rooms should not exceed an operative temperature of 26 ˚C for more than 3% of the annual occupied annual hours (CIBSE Guide A (2015a)).