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The recent development of affordable and quite accurate temperature sensors and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) sensors has led to a growing interest in continuous indoor climate monitoring. Not just amongst scientists and engineers but also amongst building owners, developers and e.g. architects interested in boosting our buildings’ health and comfort qualities.
The introduction of advanced Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) sensor networks would allow us to better analyse the performance of ventilation systems both in new and existing buildings. However, to successfully deploy IEQ sensor networks in buildings one needs more than just accurate sensors. More important is to develop an overall view on what to measure, where, how, how often, etcetera. Apart from that, a general methodology has to be developed that allows to analyse and present the enormous amount of IEQ data that will be gathered in a way that building users and decision makers can relate to.
This position paper addresses a couple of rather fundamental questions that need to be answered to assure the successful introduction of IEQ sensor networks at a larger scale. The paper presents a first attempt to answer these questions, based upon a review of the literature and the authors’ experience with several kinds of IEQ sensor networks. Recommendation are illustrated with practical examples from some ongoing pilot projects. Some relevant standards and platforms that have been developed lately are described.
The results presented in this paper can be used to further develop IEQ sensor networks both for more academic and more practical purposes, e.g. the application of sensor networks in the context of PPP/DBFMO contracts.