In this paper the author relates his experiment : while interviewing unhappy building occupants he realized that it was necessary to step back from the specific complaints and begin with the basics of proper ventilation, moisture control, temperature control before embarking on costly scientific investigations to solve the problem.
That study was performed in a call center. During nine consecutive weeks, temperature and outdoor air supply rate were combined and introduced to the occupants in a blind intervention approach.Those 2 variables had significant interaction effects on the workers' talk time.
This paper summarizes a series of 10 experiments made in offices in order to quantify the effects of indoor environmental factors on performance. It is possible that those effects of poor indoor air quality, have caused the reduction of performance in office work.
This series is extended to carry out field experiments on air quality in schools.
This paper presents the results of a field experiment made on 30 female office workers : they were investigated on their perception of environmental conditions and the intensity of the Sick Building Symptoms if any, at 3 levels of temperature and humidity, and 2 levels of ventilation rate.
The conclusion is that working conditions improved when subjects worked at slightly lower levels of air temperature and humidity.
New methods were used for that study, to evaluate the factors affecting productivity. Parameters of fatigue were investigated along with task performance.
This paper describes the evaluation and recalibration of the complaint prediction model developed by Federspiel (2000). We collected temperature time-series data and complaint data from six buildings ranging in size from 60,000 ft2 to 800,000 ft2 from three different geographical locations. Using these data, we found a low correlation between the observed number of complaint events and the Predicted Average Complaint Events (PACE) for the monitoring intervals and systematic underprediction of hot complaints.
An analysis was done to look at the differences in the way occupants perceive the office environment. The surveys were done in an office with multinational workers in Japan. The 406 returned questionnaires were grouped by nationality and gender. 26% reported a comfortable working environment. There was a significant neutral temperature difference of 3.1 deg. C between the Japanese female group and the non-Japanese male group. Japanese females reported the highest frequency of sick building syndrome of any of the groups.
Summarises a study that found a clear impact of activity and overall thermal sensation on human sensitivity to air movement, while no interaction effects of exposure to several local thermal discomfort factors were observed. States that current standards tend to consider only sedentary light activity and a neutral thermal sensation.
Presents a series of laboratory studies into thermal comfort requirements. Groups of 16 persons were used in two studies, to look at the effects of gender over three-hour exposures in simulated living room and office environments. Only small differences were found in the thermal comfort response of male and female subjects in identical clothing conditions, for neutral and slightly warm environments. In cool conditions, females felt the cold more than males. Behavioural studies were conducted for persons maintaining thermal comfort by adjusting their clothing. A temperature of 18 deg.
Discusses, in the context of the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) model, the representation and measurement of clothing parameters and metabolic rate. Identifies several problems and provides solutions to a few. Results showed the importance of the effects of body motion and air movement for clothing insulation, and suggests they should be incorporated into the model. The results also showed only small effect on dry heat exchange for stationary light work at low air movement. Suggests that algorithms for convective heat exchange in prediction models should be reconsidered.
Login