In Japan, there are many residential houses built before 1980 and many houses with low thermal insulation performance do not meet current energy-saving standards. Low insulation performance results in lower temperatures during winter, which may adversely affect health. In fact, health damage caused by cold houses is a continuing issue, with heat shock responses, sleeping disorders, etc. becoming a social problem. In order to improve this situation, it is desirable to present information on the improvement effect of the winter thermal environment accompanying the improvement of heat insulation / airtight performance to residents. In addition, to improve the living environment that supports the health of residents, it is necessary to encourage renovation of houses to include insulation and laying of heating devices in non-living rooms.
Given this background, Serikawa et al. proposed a thermal environment evaluation method utilizing the CASBEE Housing Health Checklist. Using this method, the operative temperature, floor temperature, and room operative temperature difference calculated by a thermal environmental simulation tool are converted into “Score on the Warmth” of houses in winter.
However, this method of evaluation has not been verified to be consistent by other subjective experiments. The purpose of this research is to confirm whether the "Score on the Warmth" matches the actual human physiological and psychological response.
Subjective experiments were carried out under five conditions with a combination of air temperature controlled by floor heating / air conditioner and floor temperature. Further, considering the movement between rooms, a series of procedures of moving from room A controlled at an air temperature of 23 Degree Celsius or 25 Degree Celsius, to room B at 10 Degree Celsius or 17 Degree Celsius, simulating a cold room and returning to room A Stepping. A total of 32 subjects, 8 males and 24 females, reported thermal sensation and satisfaction in each condition and scored the thermal environment over a score of 100 points. Also, in order to see the physiological response, skin temperature, blood flow rate, and blood pressure of each person were measured. The results of the experiment are as follows.
It is shown that the living environment is accurately evaluated as compared with the PMV which assumes a uniform environment. “Score on the Warmth” is considered useful as an index to evaluate the comfort and satisfaction of residents against living environment in Japan. It was shown that the coldness of a non-living room reduces the average skin temperature of occupants. The reduced average skin temperature does not return to its original state even if a person returns to a comfortable room. Therefore, it can be said that adjusting the temperature for a non-living room, such as a toilet and a dressing room, to a warm environment is important for maintaining and improving the health of residents.
When the comfort declaration exceeds 80%, the warmth of the room is 2.8 points, and the score of warmth when it exceeds 90% was 3.0 points. In conclusion, it is possible to predict the risk of developing colds in winter houses by using “Score on the Warmth”. In this study, the usefulness of the evaluation method for 5 items, excluding the coldness of the bedroom and the drying of the bedroom was verified. It is expected that it will be a more useful evaluation method each time the question on the warmth of the CASBEE Housing health checklist and the relationship between various diseases become clear.
