Thermal comfort and air quality: one-year measurement, analysis and feed back to users of an educational building

Whereas thermal comfort and air quality in buildings are often measured locally and over a short-term period, the complaints of user may occur everywhere in the building regardless the time of the day or the season. The dynamic nature of indoor environments make it hard to closely assess and compare the comfort conditions in the day-to-day life within all the spaces of a building over time. In this study, thermal comfort and air quality have been measured in four teaching rooms in a university building located in Belgium. The analysis gives a letter (A-B-C or D) for the comfort and the air quality for each room. The computed level of thermal comfort and air-quality is shown to users on a yearly and monthly basis via the TV screen located in the building. The vulgarisation, or sharing of the results with the building occupants makes the users aware of their own impact on comfort conditions and the options available for them to improve them through their own actions. The whole year gathered data illustrates the various occupancy patterns and highlights the opportunities to improve comfort:. On the one hand, the results shown a low air quality, the CO2 thresholds have been modified. On the other hand, the summer comfort, was found to be poor in two rooms. This argues with the landlord to do something to improve the comfort especially in these rooms.