Effects of thermal environment on elderly in urban and rural houses during heating season in a severe cold region of China

Abstract

In this study, field measurements on the indoor living environments of elderly people were conducted to assess residential forms, heating methods, physical parameters, and thermal sensations in five urban and ten rural houses in Heilongjiang Province, China, in January 2017. The results indicated that urban houses used regional centralized heating systems in all the functional rooms, whereas rural houses used decentralized heating systems in only bedrooms and kitchens. Rural houses were less airtight than urban houses. Urban houses had continuous centralized heating and, thus, were warmer with steadier indoor temperatures than rural houses with decentralized heating. Additionally, the elderly in rural areas frequently encountered large temperature differences (weekly average = 28.9 °C) between the indoors and outdoors, due to the outdoor toilet location. The daily amplitude of indoor temperature variations experienced by rural elderly was 8.0 °C, which was 2.2 °C higher than experienced by urban elderly. Moreover, most rural elderly did not express discomfort for indoor thermal environments despite living in colder rooms, since they wore thicker clothing and had lower comfort expectations. In addition, the rural elderly indicated strong adaptability to lower temperatures as suggested by their predicted mean vote, which was significantly lower than the thermal sensation vote.