Spot monitoring for determining thermal comfort in office buildings taking into account different ventilation and air-conditioning options

Compliance with thermal comfort criteria for work-spaces is becoming an increasingly important issue in the context of efforts to minimise energy consumption in new and existing office buildings. Current standards fail to take into account user adaptation, although empirical data suggest that this is a key factor for assessing thermal comfort, particularly in non-air-conditioned rooms. Spot monitoring is as short-term measurement technique for analysing thermal comfort. The technique for determining the neutral temperature was evaluated based on field tests in 30 office buildings with different levels of air-conditioning. The approach consists of short-term measurements during different seasons and in office spaces facing in different directions. In parallel with logging of the key parameters for determining the quality of the room climate (operative temperature, air velocity, etc.) user surveys were carried out with the aim of obtaining subjective assessments of the state of the room climate. The neutral temperature determined taking into account user sensation is proportional to the change in operational temperature and therefore not constant. The results indicate a significant effect of user adaptation on the assessment of thermal comfort in offices and other spaces.