Cool Living
ed. Hot Dry
TECHNICAL
The 'Hot Dry' Climate
Arid/ ‘hot dry’ are areas that have little rain (arid <250mm rain & semi arid <350mm rain1) and high temperatures in summer. This covers about 70% of Australia. Australia is the direst inhabitated continent in the world.
The 'Hot Dry' climate zones cover the majority of Australia's land area and refers to the National Construction code (NCC):
This climate is a cooling dominated climate, where the cooling/heating percentages are:
Heating Required = 33% of the year
Shoulder season/intermittent heating & cooling = 17% of the year (4 months)
Cooling Required = 50% of the year
There is a large seasonal and diurnal (day vs. night) variation in temperature which makes it a difficult climate to design for. It is understood there are must be 'trade offs' to achieve maximum passive performance in summer, meaning the house will often be too cold in cooler periods.
NCC Zones 3 & 4 cover much of remote and very remote Australia. We know that a changing climate and poor housing stock will disproportionately effect Aboriginal people.
