Good thermal comfort in office buildings without air conditioning: the importance of a adaptive model of thermal comfort.

A secondary analysis of the Dutch prevalence study by Zweers et al shows that office buildingswithout artificial cooling and with operable windows have a lower risk for health symptoms andcomfort complaints than office buildings with artificial cooling and sealed windows. Temperature ,simulations of various office buildings show that in the Dutch climate zone thermal comfortduring summer conditions is secured without the use of artificial cooling if a number of essentialdesign criteria are met. Ftiermore a financial analysis is presented in this paper which showsthat construction costs, maintenance costs and energy costs of an office building without artificialcooling are lower than that of an airconditioned building.However it is often not considered feasible to implement these measures consistently.Furthermore there is a tendency to reduce temperature transgressions more than would benecessary to comply with the Dutch thermal comfort standard for various (inadequate)assumptions. As a result of this most new office buildings in the Netherlands are designed withartificial cooling.The ASHRAE Transaction Technical Paper Developing an adaptive model of thermal comfortand preference by De Dear and Brager shows that the static PMV model predicts thermalcomfort judgments in HVAC buildings accurately enough, but that occupants in naturallyventilated buildings me tolerant of significantly higher temperatures than the PMV modelpredicts.A new thermal comfort standard based on the results of De Dear and Brager will result in lessreliance on artificial cooling, thus reducing complaint rates and reducing constriction costs,maintenance costs and energy costs.