Continuous IEQ monitoring system: Performance specifications and thermal comfort classification

Abstract

The quality of buildings can be assessed in terms of the indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting quality, acoustic comfort afforded the occupants, collectively referred to as Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). A major barrier to a more thoroughly representative audit of actual IEQ performance are the expense and complexity of the measurement instrumentation required. Rapid developments in sensor technology in recent years present the opportunity for continuous and pervasive IEQ monitoring to deliver truly representative characterisations of building performance at a modest cost. The last remaining obstacle to realising these developments seems to be a concern about instrument accuracy. In this paper we test the performance of a low-cost IEQ monitoring system (SAMBA) introduced in an earlier paper. Calibration data from 100 devices was analysed to calculate the standard error of the estimate as a measure of equipment accuracy. Those performance specifications were used in a Monte Carlo simulation based on measurements of thermal comfort parameters from 24 office buildings. Performance measures suggests the low-cost system, whilst not as accurate as laboratory equipment, is more than sufficient for building IEQ diagnostics and compliance assessments. Furthermore, the results of the Monte Carlo simulation show that continuous monitoring systems are better at characterising long-term performance than ad hoc measurement strategies using precision equipment. Low-cost pervasive monitoring

Performance assessment of low-cost environmental monitors and single sensors under variable indoor air quality and thermal conditions

“…formaldehyde and acetaldehyde), which makes the detection and monitoring of VOCs a challenge, along with exposure quantification. Several studies examined sensor performance that in addition to air quality include other parameters of indoor environment, such as thermal comfort [34][35][36]. Moreno-Rangel et al [37] evaluated five "Foobot" monitors in measuring residential air temperature, relative humidity, PM 2.5 , CO 2, and TVOC; the study found a sufficient accuracy for all sensors except for CO 2 that was not recorded by a dedicated sensor but derived through an algorithm from the TVOC data.…”

Targeted occupant surveys: A novel method to effectively relate occupant feedback with environmental conditions

“…Improvements in measurement technologies have led to sensors becoming inexpensive, increasingly accurate, easy-to-use, smaller, and more portable. This sensor revolution has driven the development of continuous IEQ monitoring systems designed to be permanently distributed throughout an indoor environment (Brager, Paliaga, and de Dear 2004;Goto et al 2007;Cheung et al 2017;de Dear, Kim, and Parkinson 2018;Kim et al 2019;Liu et al 2019;Parkinson, Parkinson, and de Dear 2019).…”

The Spatial and Temporal Variability of the Indoor Environmental Quality during Three Simulated Office Studies at a Living Lab

“…While a large community of scientists are tackling issues of low-cost air quality sensor calibration and operation, much less focus has been placed on improving low-cost sensor accuracy and availability for other IEQ factors. A recent publication series describes the design and performance of the SAMBA environmental monitoring platform, including reference instrument comparisons of air temperature, humidity, globe temperature, air velocity, CO 2 , carbon monoxide, particulate matter, formaldehyde, sound level, and illuminance [80,81]. Such comparisons are essential for validating IEQ measurement techniques.…”