Influence of specific characteristics of subjects and environmental conditions on comfort level during showering

Abstract

In systems that do not store domestic hot water (DHW), temperature fluctuations occur in the hot water temperature at the outlet when the DHW load changes. If these temperature fluctuations arrive at the tapping point, they influence the users’ perception of comfort. Especially in the shower these temperature fluctuations can lead to a loss of comfort. Unlike in the field of air conditioning, there have been relatively few studies on the perception of comfort in the shower, and these used only males as test subjects. Therefore, we started a study with 120 persons with the aim to involve a representative variety of test subjects. In our test facility a temperature profile with varying rates of change was imprinted and the test subjects provided feedback on whether they noticed temperature changes or found them uncomfortable. In this study, results on the comfort perception of the participants in the shower are examined in relation to individual factors such as gender, age or Body-Mass-Index (BMI), and the outside temperature. We cannot determine a specific impact of these factors on the comfort perception of a group of test subjects. Neither was an influence on the desired temperatures, which ranged between 33 °C and 45 °C, detected.