With climate change predictions suggesting wind speeds could increase by up to 10 percent in some parts of the country, WSP researchers set out to understand how this could impact the design and construction of houses and timber-framed buildings.
A four-strong team of technical experts analysed the effect of increasing wind speeds by five, ten and fifteen percent on design solutions from several key building standards.
Results showed minimal design changes at five and ten percent. This is because most of the building design standards used in New Zealand are conservatively designed for use in all wind zones. It’s only at fifteen percent that some changes to building design may be needed. Even then, those would be relatively minor, inexpensive changes in the dimensions or sizes of some building components.
Changes would be more costly if designs needed specific engineering input where wind speeds increase to levels that exceed the extra high wind zone. However, only 3.4 percent of buildings are currently estimated to be in this wind zone.
WSP Principal Research Engineer Nick Locke says the built environment, including housing, needs to be adaptable enough to cope with what is coming down the track with climate change.
“It’s comforting to know that higher wind speeds caused by climate change won’t be an issue for the design of New Zealand’s housing stock, but more research is needed on how our timber framed buildings will cope with other climate impacts such as increases in temperature and rainfall.
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