Field study was conducted in naturally ventilated primary school buildings in a warm and humid environment in Imo State, Nigeria to determine the thermal comfort perception of young children (aged 7–12 years) and to understand the thermal conditions in the classrooms. The comfort temperature was investigated in two types of classroom buildings during the rainy and dry seasons from October 2017 to May 2018. Approximately 7050 completed valid questionnaires were collected from 330 young children repeatedly surveyed twice a day. The children answered comfort questions at the same time the indoor and outdoor thermal variables were being measured. Results indicated that the combined ‘open-space’ classrooms produced a neutral temperature of 28.8°C with comfort range, 25.2–32.3°C. The neutral temperature of the combined ‘enclosed-plan’ classrooms is 28.1°C with 25.8–30.5°C as the comfort range. The differences in the comfort perceptions may be attributed to the differences in the architectural characteristics of both categories of classroom buildings. High temperature tolerance was shown by the participating children in the study area. This article, therefore, suggests that installing air conditioning in primary schools in the warm humid environment in Nigeria may not be necessary as it could lead to unnecessary energy consumption and carbon emission. Practical application: This work is part of the main research work that pioneers research on thermal comfort in public primary school classrooms in Nigeria. The findings from this study on the acceptable indoor temperatures in naturally ventilated classrooms in the warm and humid climate in Nigeria are important information for building services engineers and architects. The young children in these classrooms can accept high indoor temperatures. The intention of this information is to discourage high energy usage in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system in primary school buildings in the study area, while maintaining the acceptable thermal comfort levels.
An experiment was conducted on a poultry farm at the Faculty of Agriculture Alex Ekwueme Federal University in Alike-Ikwo Abakaliki, Nigeria to evaluate the effect of heat stress on the performance and the adaptive actions of 0–8 Weeks broiler birds. During the experiment, the birds were exposed to environmental variables; air temperature, relative humidity, and airflow in two seasons. After the experiment, a strong correlation was found between the ambient temperature, the mortality, and the adaptive behavior of the birds. However, a higher correlation was found during the dry season (.88) compared to the correlation found during the rainy season (.60). Higher mortality of the birds was recorded when the mean indoor ambient temperature hovered around 30.0oC. Feed efficiency was generally lower during the dry season compared to the rainy season, attributed to the higher mean indoor ambient temperature recorded during the dry season. This study suggests the provision of well-ventilated spaces and the planting of trees around poultry houses to enhance the thermal comfort of the birds.
PurposeThe paper aims to determine the thermal comfort perception of schoolchildren from a warm and humid environment. There is a concern about the effect of high temperature on the health and academic performance of schoolchildren.Design/methodology/approachObjective and subjective methodological approaches were adopted to collect data during the fieldwork in the selected primary schools. ASHRAE adaptive comfort model was adopted to analyze the data.FindingsThe paper provided empirical results about the comfort requirements of schoolchildren from the warm and humid environment. During the occupied school time, the studied schoolchildren were found to tolerate temperatures higher than the upper limit temperature recommended by ASHRAE Standard 55. The paper recommends that the studied children may not need any active ventilator to be thermally comfortable during the occupied school hoursOriginality/valueThe paper found the range of temperatures that schoolchildren from the warm and humid environment can adapt to. The information may be useful to architects, engineers and facility managers
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