CIBSE TM59

This 40-minute course introduces TM59 Overheating Assessment in Better Buildings, a sophisticated methodology for evaluating thermal comfort and overheating risk in residential buildings. It covers the UK-developed standard now widely adopted in New Zealand and other international markets, focusing on the platform's comprehensive approach to adaptive comfort analysis and natural ventilation modelling.

Course Structure

This course establishes TM59's critical importance in contemporary high-performance building design, explaining its development for apartment buildings and broader residential application as buildings become better insulated with high-performance glazing systems. You'll understand the increasing global adoption of this methodology and master the fundamental dual-criteria approach including Section 4.2 criteria for living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms (delta T ≥1K threshold for ≤3% of occupied hours) and bedroom-specific operative temperature requirements (≤26°C for ≤1% of annual hours between 10pm-7am) that form the foundation of effective overheating risk assessment.

You'll gain practical experience through systematic space type specification using Better Building's comprehensive TM59 2017 template library, learning to apply studio, one-bedroom, and multi-bedroom apartment configurations with pre-configured occupancy profiles, equipment loads, lighting schedules, and internal gain assumptions per TM59 Section 5 requirements. The course teaches strategic space tagging for bedrooms and living/kitchen areas to ensure accurate application of TM59-compliant assumptions whilst mastering sophisticated airflow network configuration essential for assessment accuracy. You'll learn to configure automated window operability with discharge coefficients and opening percentages, set up door opening schedules for bedroom ventilation during non-occupancy periods, model infiltration through building surfaces with standardised leakage rates, and establish temperature-controlled window operation with 22°C thresholds.

The course extensively covers comprehensive results interpretation and compliance demonstration, teaching you to analyse adaptive comfort results for living spaces with delta T distribution assessment, evaluate operative temperature analysis for bedroom spaces during critical sleep periods, and utilise sophisticated results visualisation including temperature bins and zone-by-zone performance comparison. You'll conduct sensitivity analysis demonstrating the critical relationship between window operability and thermal comfort compliance whilst learning advanced airflow network results analysis and design optimisation strategies for achieving TM59 compliance. The course emphasises the critical selection of design summer year (DSY) climate files from NIWA 2024 datasets for accurate overheating assessment and provides practical workflows for demonstrating compliance achievement in high-performance residential buildings.

Key Learning Outcomes

Participants will gain comprehensive expertise in executing TM59 overheating assessments, interpreting complex thermal comfort results, understanding the critical role of natural ventilation in thermal comfort performance, and providing professional recommendations for overheating mitigation strategies in high-performance residential buildings.

Course Completion

A Certificate of Competency will be awarded upon achieving an 80% pass mark on the final quiz.

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