Retrofitting Passive Cooling Strategies to a Brisbane School: A Case Study of the Physical and Social Aspects

Abstract

In subtropical southeast Queensland, a common approach to improving thermal comfort in existing school classrooms is to use air--conditioners. However, increasing reliance on air--conditioners in schools adds to energy costs and increases carbon emissions. Greater understanding of low energy approaches to improving thermal comfort is needed to address this problem. The purpose of this research was to firstly, evaluate the impact of four passive cooling strategies retrofitted to existing Results indicate that the duration of high classroom temperatures decreased following each intervention. However, the reduction in classroom temperature was not enough to be within an acceptable comfort range for summer months, particularly during hot and humid weather. Common adaptive behaviours exhibited by teachers included the use of windows and ceiling fans to increase air movement, and scheduling more intense teaching in the cooler, morning session. The research identified times in the school year when classrooms with passive, retrofitted interventions were within an acceptable comfort range. However, a significant finding was that air--conditioning some classrooms and not others was seen to be an equity issue. The research makes an important contribution to the information available to schools on low energy approaches to improving thermal comfort. These approaches include reducing heat load in existing classrooms by retrofitting passive cooling strategies, increasing awareness amongst school communities of the environmental impact of mechanical cooling and heating, and increasing awareness amongst teachers of the potential for adaptive behaviours to decrease the use of mechanical cooling and heating.ii

Passive cooling designs to improve heat resilience of homes in underserved and vulnerable communities

“…Many case studies compare the efficacies of alternative passive cooling measures in a specific location, such as Algiers [149], Australia [102,150,151], Brazil [32], Canada [152], China [153][154][155], Egypt [105,[156][157][158], England [126,159,160], Greece [105,161], Hong Kong [26,162,163], India [164][165][166], Indonesia [167], Iran [106,168,169], Italy [26,156], Japan [170], Kenya [164], Malaysia [171,172], Mexico [30], Morocco [86,173], New Zealand [174], Oman [175], Poland [176], Portugal [26,164], Saudi Arabia [26,177], Singapore [26], South Africa [178], Spain [156,…”