Indoor Air Quality of an Educational Building and its Effects on Occupants’ Comfort and Performance

Abstract

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) studies the air quality inside different types of environments and relates it to the health and comfort of occupants. Understanding and controlling common pollutants indoors can help in decreasing effects and the risks associated with these pollutants. Unhealthy indoor environment could lead to serious problems in people health and productivity. According to ASHRAE, 80–90% of personal time is spent indoors. As a result, indoor air pollution has gained a lot of interest and the number of studies on occupant health inside buildings grew very significantly in the last decades. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of indoor air quality inside an educational buildings on occupants’ comfort and performance. Various indoor pollutant such as, Carbon dioxide, Carbon monoxide, Volatile organic compounds, Particulates, and formaldehyde, are measured. The indoor air contaminants will be detected using IAQ measurement devices. The value of the pollutants is compared to maximum allowed values in ASHRAE standard 62.1. In addition, the occupant thermal comfort is reported using two indices which are Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD). The relationship between the performance and the indoor air quality is also discussed. The results will discover the sources of the indoor air pollutants and accordingly suggestions will be given toward improving the indoor air quality. The final results showed that the IAQ is generally in a good condition for the majority of classrooms except for the TVOC which was always at high concentrations. Also, for some classrooms, the CO2 level and the relative humidity were exceeding the maximum limit. Regarding the thermal comfort, all the classrooms do not comply with ASHRAE Standard 55-2013. Therefore, they are not thermally comfortable.