Insights into the thermal comfort of different naturally ventilated buildings of Darjeeling, India – Effect of gender, age and BMI

Abstract

The physiological factors like the age, gender and body mass index (BMI) of individuals have seen to affect the thermal comfort of occupants in indoor environment. However, very few studies aimed at determining the effect of these physiological factors on the factors of thermal comfort were conducted, especially in India. In this paper, the results of the field survey based thermal comfort with the objectives of studying the effect of these physiological factors on the thermal comfort factors of clothing insulation, thermal sensation votes, comfort temperature and preferred temperature of the subjects are presented. The mean clothing insulation for female subjects was lower (0.83 clo), than that for male subjects (0.87 clo), while the mean clo for senior subjects (0.94) was higher than mid aged (0.86) and young aged (0.85), respectively. A lower comfort temperature for the male subjects (11.1–35.7 °C) than for the female subjects (11.5–36.1 °C) was noted. Similarly the mean comfort temperature was seen to be higher in younger subjects (20.4 °C), than mid-aged subjects (17.5 °C) and senior aged subjects (16.7 °C), respectively. Likewise, the underweight subjects had a higher comfort temperature (mean 22.8 °C) than normal (mean 20.9 °C), overweight (20.3 °C) and obese subjects (mean 19.7 °C), respectively.