At present, the studies of thermal comfort of occupants and indoor air quality are mainly not conducted in an apartment unit, but in a single room. Meanwhile, some factors are not taken into account in the research. Additionally, the energy is in short supply all over the world. So, it is necessary to study the distributions of microclimate primary factors of an apartment with view to energy conservation. The object of our study was to study the thermal comfort of occupants and indoor air quality in an apartment unit.
Due to the fact that more and more people are spending a considerable amount of time in an indoor environment it is important to minimise (or control) the amount of pollution that a person is exposed to. Sources of indoor air pollution are building materials, furniture, equipment and people. This work concentrates on personal exposure in a mixing ventilated room. The aim of this work is to investigate the exposure of a person due to pollution from another person in a mixing ventilated room.
We made a series of subjective experiments to grasp individual behaviours and thermal sensation of the occupants in as actual environmental conditions as possible by observation using video cameras. The use of video cameras allows us to have the time-series of scenes of the occupants participating in the experiment; it also allows us to avoid disturbing their natural behaviours and sensations.
The results of indoor air quality surveys have showed that it was quite easy to fulfil the requirements of indoor climate standards and recommendations, even in office buildings where the workers experienced sick building symptoms, and complained that the reason for their symptoms was poor indoor air quality (1, 2). Many researchers consider that psychosocial factors may serve as moderators or mediators in the sick building syndrome process, either increasing or decreasing the vulnerability of the individual to environmental exposures (3, 4).
We analyzed 1994 sick leave for 3,720 hourly employees of a large Massachusetts manufacturer, in 40 buildings with 115 independently ventilated work areas. Corporate records identified building characteristics and IEQ complaints.
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