International standards provide thermal comfort requirements that office building spaces must comply with. These are based on a model developed by Prof. Paul Ole Fanger of the Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy, Denmark. Nowadays, 40 years of research show an evolution in those indicators. This research study consists of the development of tools to evaluate the thermal comfort of working environments of office buildings. A methodology was devised on the basis of on-site measurements and a questionnaire to users. For the field survey, a mobile unit equipped with sensors was used, whereas the questionnaire was concerned with the thermal quality of the work environment. The thermal conditions of thirty office buildings located in Germany presenting different acclimatization systems have been investigated. The correlation between objective and subjective data allows developing a formula that shows the thermal discomfort level for a given environment as a function of local aspects. For the sample of buildings analysed, the resulting comfortable temperature was 23.3 ºC, and the minimum percentage of dissatisfied users was 7%, being 2.3 K (Kelvin) less than Fanger's model, and significant for the energy balance of buildings located in central European climate.
Fieldwork; Thermal discomfort index; Neutral temperature; Thermal sensation; Thermal preference
