Adaptive Thermal Comfort

Thermal comfort is hard to define and even harder to achieve. The most common complaint about workplace environments is that they are too cold. This would be a fairly simple problem to fix if the second most common complaint weren’t that the same spaces are too hot.

According to ASHRAE Standard 55, which defines thermal comfort in commercial buildings, success means that a building meets the needs of 80% of occupants. The conventional way to meet that threshold is to create a highly predictable, controlled environment using energy-intensive mechanical equipment.