Occupant comfort in UK offices—How adaptive comfort theories might influence future low energy office refurbishment strategies

Abstract

With the UK commercial sector replacing buildings at 1–1.5% per year adaptations to existing buildings are needed to maintain comfort levels, while reducing energy use and carbon emissions. In this study, occupants of a refurbished office recorded their thermal sensations, assessment of lighting and air movement, perceptions of comfort and their reactions to adaptive opportunities. The observed mean thermal sensation votes and the overall comfort votes correlated best with mean diurnal internal and external temperatures, respectively. The results appear to indicate heat balance models not fully explaining surveyed responses as occupants reported higher discomfort levels than predicted by the PMV model using on-site temperature and air velocity measurements. In the study opening windows was voted to be the most favourite adaptive opportunity followed by controlling solar glare, turning lights off locally and controlling solar gain. Occupants also expressed desires to intervene with heating and ventilation currently operated centrally. An interesting result of the survey was that the occupants generally did not change their clothing during the day. The study concluded that both passive and active adaptive opportunities are important in future low energy office refurbishment strategies.