Thermal comfort in the climatic conditions of southern Italy

This paper presents the results of four thermal comfort surveys conducted in naturally ventilated and air-conditioned buildings located in Bari, in southern Italy, during winter and summer seasons. The buildings were of different types, including offices, lecture rooms, and library reading rooms. The
sample of subjects consisted mostly of students. A total of 20 rooms were analyzed by measuring indoor climatic parameters. During the measurements, the subjects located near the probes were asked to fill in a questionnaire to rate the thermal environment at that moment. A total of 1840 valid questionnaires were collected during the four surveys. Clothing insulation levels were 0.45 clo in summer and 0.90 clo in winter. Metabolic rate was assumed equal to 1.2 met. Thermal neutrality,
according to the ASHRAE seven-point scale, occurred at 24.4C and 26.3C in summer and at 20.7C and 20.6C in winter, respectively in naturally ventilated (NV) and air-conditioned
(AC) buildings. Preferred temperature, based on the McIntyre preference scale, was cooler in summer (24.2C and 25.6C in NV and AC buildings, respectively) and warmer in winter (23.1C and 21.2C in NV and AC buildings, respectively). Thermal acceptability was investigated by means of all
the available scales, showing that the indirect estimation of acceptability (based on the three central categories of the ASHRAE scale) only provides partial information about occupants conditions. Finally, the whole set of data was analyzed in order to propose an adaptive algorithm for this climatic zone. The resulting equation (Tc = 17.82 + 0.315 Trm), where Tc is the comfort temperature and Trm is the running mean outdoor air temperature, proved to be in good agreement with other
studies.