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Investigating Recommended Temperature Zones and Clothing Assumptions in the Assessment of Classrooms’ Thermal Environment

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Cold Climate HVAC 2018 (CCC 2018)

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Abstract

There has been a lot of research over recent years on children’s thermal comfort, which highlighted the different needs of young children compared to adults. These findings pose a challenge to designers on how to best meet these needs. This paper focuses on recommended temperature zones and assumptions used in standards through a case study in a grade school in Gothenburg, Sweden. Six classrooms were investigated in three buildings of the same school. The indoor temperature was measured using small-scale data loggers programmed to log at 5-minute intervals for a period of 5 months (mid-December to early-June). Thermal comfort questionnaires were also distributed to children throughout the monitoring period. A total of 45,000 temperature readings corresponding to assumed occupied hours and approximately 2000 thermal sensation votes and clothing insulation values are used in the analysis. Results indicate that assumed occupancy schedules may differ to real use, leading to overestimation of time when indoor environmental parameters are outside recommended ranges. Children’s clothing insulation was found to be lower than assumed in standards in both winter and summer. Omitting to account for such differences may lead to misinterpretation of indoor environment assessments and design solutions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the teachers and children who participated in this study. This work has been performed with support from VINNOVA (Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems), the Profile ‘Energy in Urban Development’ within the Area of Advance ‘Energy’ at Chalmers University of Technology and the Sustainable Energy Research Group (www.energy.soton.ac.uk) at the University of Southampton.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Building Services, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96, Göteborg, Sweden

    Despoina Teli & Jan-Olof Dalenbäck

  2. Division of Energy and Climate Change, Sustainable Energy Research Group, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK

    Despoina Teli

Authors
  1. Despoina Teli
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  2. Jan-Olof Dalenbäck
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Despoina Teli .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Building Services, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Dennis Johansson

  2. Division of Building Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Hans Bagge

  3. Division of Building Services, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Åsa Wahlström

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Teli, D., Dalenbäck, JO. (2019). Investigating Recommended Temperature Zones and Clothing Assumptions in the Assessment of Classrooms’ Thermal Environment. In: Johansson, D., Bagge, H., Wahlström, Å. (eds) Cold Climate HVAC 2018. CCC 2018. Springer Proceedings in Energy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00662-4_69

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00662-4_69

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00661-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-00662-4

  • eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)

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