Montazami, A and Nicol, F (2013) Overheating in schools: Comparing existing and new guidelines. Building Research & Information, 41(3), pp. 317-329. ISSN 0961-3218
Abstract
Providing thermal comfort in schools has a significant impact on students- performance and health. Climate change may result in an increased risk of overheating. A clear understanding and definition of overheating in schools is needed. Overheating can occur for various reasons. In order to deal with the problem realistically, it is necessary to have the correct design benchmarks. The UK government has recently published new overheating guidelines for schools. A comparison is made between the existing and new overheating guidelines. This is based on an analysis of recorded temperature data from 140 classrooms in 18 naturally ventilated primary schools in London, UK, which is then compared with records of occupants- thermal comfort responses to indoor temperature. It was found that the old guidelines were too lenient, thereby allowing some overheating to occur. The new guideline is more stringent, but needs further development to reflect occupants- perceptions more accurately.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | adaptive thermal comfort; benchmarks; overheating; overheating guideline; school classrooms; thermal benchmark |
| Index terms: | climate change, school classroom, London, classroom, thermal comfort, overheating, indoor temperature |
| Subjects: | Geography, environmental engineering, thermal systems, climate science, construction type, environmental science |
| Topics: | Geographical Context, Construction Technology, Sustainability |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here