A study on the thermal environment in Greek primary schools based on questionnaires and concurent measurements

The present study investigates the indoor thermal comfort perceived by students through a questionnaire survey conducted during spring 2013 in naturally ventilated primary schools in Athens. Thermal environment parameters such as air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity and mean radiant temperature were simultaneously measured. Then, Fanger’s indices of Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Percentage of People Dissatisfied (PPD) were calculated by using clothing and metabolic rates. The main purpose of this work is the evaluation of the ability of the answers from students to be sufficient to assess the thermal environment of classrooms. The possible associations between subjective thermal sensation votes and objective measurements are examined by comparing students’ answers based on the seven point thermal sensation scale and the results taken by the calculated indices of PMV and PPD.