Abstract
The buildings sector, being a leading energy consumer, would need to lead in conservation efforts as well. There is a growing consensus that variability in indoor conditions can be acceptable to occupants, improve comfort perception, and lower building energy consumption. This work endeavours to scrutinise and summarise studies that examined human thermal and comfort perception to such variations in the indoor environment: spatial transients, non-uniformities, and temperature drifts. We also briefly discuss personalised comfort systems since they work on an occupant's micro-climate and create non-uniformities in the indoors. Perusal of works done on effect of non-thermal factors on thermal comfort, point to the need for synchronizing the overall indoor environment's quality – in terms of décor, air quality, lighting etc. – to improve occupant thermal comfort. Essence of the overall discussions come out to be that indoor thermal environment can be variable and still agreeable, implying existence of energy saving avenues, hitherto precluded from earnest consideration.
Highlights
Introduction building energy and comfortAbout 40% of our society's energy demands stem from buildings [1,2]
Thermal comfort standards have a role to play and at present they are in a transitional period with foreseeable further rapid modifications
The thermal comfort standards had in mind mechanically conditioned buildings, with temperatures held within narrow limits
Summary
One continuing conundrum of the built environment is that we live in the same houses, with unchanged expectations of thermal comfort, while the outdoors are undergoing staggering changes, be it diurnal or seasonal. This section briefly digresses into literature regarding differences among occupants in terms of thermal perception, effect of availability of occupant control, and role of alliesthesia in personalising comfort. Such discussions are based on findings in literature and aim to better explain comfort perceptions and/or thermal sensation. These discussions are kept brief and we refrain from positing independent positions as physiology and psychology are not our forte. We do not explore the field of thermophysiological models for thermal comfort prediction, which has been analysed and summarised by works such as [10e12]
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