Field investigations on thermal comfort in university classrooms in New South Wales, Australia

Ensuring thermal comfort in educational buildings is essential for improving students’ learning and productivity performance. This study aims to analyse the thermal comfort level of students and empirically define the preferred and neutral temperatures for higher education students in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Statistical analyses are carried out based on 154 student responses from three selected classrooms across the summer and winter seasons. Students were requested to complete the ASHRAE questionnaires about their thermal responses during the lecture time, and the indoor thermal conditions were recorded. The results indicate that the mean comfort votes by students were around slightly cool, with 76.9% of comfort votes ranging from -1 (slightly cool) to +1 (slightly warm). The regression analyses show that the neutral and preferred operative temperatures of NSW students were 27.5 °C and 23.7 °C, respectively. The preferred temperature of students is within the ASHRAE comfort range (20.0–26.0 °C). The findings show the applicability of the ASHRAE 55 standard to students in classrooms in climate zone 5, Australia. Increasing the ASHRAE’s minimum acceptable range from 20 °C to 23.7 °C can improve indoor thermal comfort and reduce building energy usage. This study contributes to a better understanding of acceptable indoor temperature in educational buildings in NSW, Australia.