Comfort Status in Naturally Ventilated Buildings of North-East India

A field study has been carried out to evaluate the thermal comfort perception of the occupants in naturally ventilated buildings at different bioclimatic zones of North-East India. The survey also examined the adaptive behavior of the occupants in the usage of climatic control such as windows and fans to modify the indoor environment. The survey was performed in naturally ventilated buildings during the winter, pre-summer season in 2008. There were 220 occupants from 75 vernacular buildings who participated in this study and 200 questionnaire responses were collected. This study is primarily concerns on human thermal comfort from the physiological, adaptive and social convention aspects. The data collected include temperature, humidity and lighting level, as well as results from questionnaires on the occupant’s sensations of thermal comfort. This study also looks into the occupants social and cultural requirements in the vernacular buildings. Thermal acceptability assessment reveals that the indoor environment in naturally ventilated buildings are widely varied across the three bio-climatic zones and also influenced by visual, social and cultural aspects of respective zones. The upper and lower range of acceptable temperatures in naturally ventilated buildings is varied by 2 0C from neutral vote for each climate zone in both winter and pre-summer. The study also attempts to define the comfort status and suggestions are made to improve the comfort status in naturally ventilated buildings of the region.