Assessing indoor air temperature settings in residential buildings during the COVID-19 era

Abstract

While comfort models provide reliable evidence for designing building thermal environments, they may not be adequate for assessing building energy consumption due to factors beyond comfort. These factors influence occupants' actual control of their thermal environment. This study assessed how residential building occupants control indoor air temperature to maintain their comfort during the COVID-19 era. A dataset established from the ‘Donate Your Data’ program administered by Ecobee Inc. was utilised. The dataset was collected from 86,658 thermostats belonging to 65,535 users in the United States over multiple years, along with metadata that includes characteristics of the users and their homes. Statistical analysis was performed to suggest an indoor temperature range at which 90 % of collected data falls when the prevailing mean outdoor air temperature is between −10 °C and 37 °C, which effectively covers a wide variety of climate conditions. The estimated range of indoor air temperatures was 6.3 K before the pandemic, but it decreased by 1 K–5.3 K during the pandemic, implying that occupants used more energy to maintain a comfortable indoor air temperature during the pandemic. Our model can be useful in designing indoor temperature settings in residential buildings based on outdoor temperature.