SOLUTIONS TO OVERHEATING IN HOMES - EVIDENCE REVIEW

Therefore heat gain will result in a change in temperature, but in a building the resulting change is often a complex function of heat transfer between different parts of the building and the internal air depending on the thermal properties of the materials. [...] Cooling the structure of the building may also be achieved through night ventilation to effectively store ‘coolth’ in the thermal mass of the building to offset the peaks in temperature of the following day. [...] It is this potential to achieve clearly measurable changes in both the local air tempera- ture and the temperature of the shaded surfaces that makes the ‘greening’ of the urban environment a very promising tool in the efforts to limit the UHI effect. [...] The actual effect on the local climate and the extent of cooling of the air due to the transpiration of the plants may well be limited compared to a dense foliage cover, but the reduction in heat gains is very significant. [...] The importance of green infrastructure to address the UHI effect is captured under the heading of City- wide management and contains the following paragraph: At all geographic scales, the key factor in determining the intensity of the urban heat Island is the proportion of green space to urban land cover.