User behavior in relation to his short- and long-term thermal background

So-called energy saving measures have been implementedin new and existing buildings over the last years so that the energy demand in those buildings should have decreased significantly. But the fact is, for examplelooking at the annual rate of energy use in Germany,that the demand does not necessarily decrease as ex- pected. There seem to be other factors counteractingthe technical progress. One of those factors has to be found in the user behavior in buildings. The studies focusing on the optimal thermal conditions for human beings within the built environment have been mainly conducted within laboratory settings and the focus lies thereby on thermal perception and the resulting comfort under steady-state condition. This paper describes the results of a primary investigation on the cooling behaviorof inhabitants resulting out of different indoor and outdoor thermal conditions in a familiar setting in order to define more effective education tools about sustainablebehavior in buildings.In an international student dormitory in Tokyo/Japan, the inhabitants behavior according to the usage of air-conditioning systems and natural ventilation was observedby collecting 24h-indoor/outdoor temperature and humidity in ten single private rooms, with a size of 10 m2 and one air-conditioning unit each. Additional survey was conducted to know about cultural and climaticbackground of the inhabitants. The collected data was analyzed qualitative in a manner that the users behaviorwas set in relation to the indoor and outdoor conditionsas well as the human body exergy consumptionmodel (Saito and Shukuya, 2000).The outcome of this study shows that the inhabitants behavior is strongly related to the outdoor conditions and his/her personal background. It also shows that, in case the inhabitants are able to adjust their own indoor climate, they accept their thermal conditions beyond the conventional standardized scales of thermal environmentalconditions for human occupancy.