Why is thermal comfort important?

Thermal comfort is important for health and well-being as well as productivity. Thermal comfort is critical inside office spaces, restaurants, public buildings including airports, rail stations, movie halls, libraries, classrooms, and other conditioned occupied spaces.

Link to Energy

Together residential and commercial buildings make up 40% of the US energy usage via heating, water heating, cooling and ventilation, lighting and electronic equipment, and refrigeration. A big part of the heating and cooling energy goes to maintaining Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) for occupants in buildings. Building energy management must balance IEQ (thermal comfort, acoustics, lighting, and air quality) with energy usage. The challenge is maintaining this balance while trying to reduce energy usage and costs.

In mechanically conditioned spaces, air temperature and humidity are controlled by set points within the space. Airspeed can be controlled by the mechanical system operation as well as the placement and design of diffusers. Radiant temperature can be somewhat controlled by shading windows, and window and surface treatments. All these controls use energy and cost money. And in many cases, the drive to reduce energy is at odds with the need to maintain thermal comfort. 

Effects on Cal Poly and Students

Cal Poly has a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, with an action plan to design new buildings to exceed CA Title 24 by 20%. However, constructing new buildings alone will not be enough to meet our goal. If we are able to understand how energy is used in all buildings, track it over time, and institute controls in older buildings, we can make additional progress toward our energy goals. While ASHRAE Standards and Title 24 have guidelines that aid in design and system control, we all know of buildings and spaces that are not comfortable and people are either too cold or too hot. When people are not comfortable and if they have access to a thermostat, most will adjust it without thought for the overall building energy usage.

When there is little control over room condition, which is usually the case in educational settings, student focus can suffer and affect their academic success. Specifically, we need to understand how students perceive thermal comfort in different situations so that we can use this information to predict thermal comfort, improve student success, and save energy.