Are 'class A' temperature requirements realistic or desirable?

Edward Arens*, Michael A. Humphreys, Richard de Dear, Hui Zhang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

214 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

It requires more energy to maintain a narrow indoor temperature range than a broader range, in which the building may be allowed to float with reduced conditioning for longer periods of time. A narrow range should presumably be preferable to the building occupants to justify its increased energy cost. At what widths are temperature ranges detected, preferred, or judged unacceptable? Three databases of occupant satisfaction in buildings are used to examine the acceptability of three classes of temperature range currently employed in the ISO and European standards, and proposed for the ASHRAE standard. These are alternatively identified as class A, B, and C, or category I, II, and III, but their specifications are identical. The A class (I category) is found to confer no relative satisfaction benefit to individuals or to realistic building occupancies. In addition, the differences in B and C class satisfaction are small.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4-10
Number of pages7
JournalBuilding and Environment
Volume45
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2010

Keywords

  • Acceptability
  • Category
  • Class A
  • PMV
  • Setpoint temperature
  • Standard

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