Building and Envi ronment 58 (2012) 172e178

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Building and Environment

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w.e l s e v i e r.c o m / l o c a t e / b u i l d e n v

Human health and thermal comfort of ofce workers in Singapore

Ailu Chen, Victor W.-C. Chang*
Division of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

a r t i c l e i n f
o
Article history:
Received 26 April 2012
Received in revised form
18 June 2012
Accepted 10 July 2012
Keywords:
Ofces
Air conditioning
Sick building syndrome
Thermal comfort
Human behavioral adjustment

a b s t r a c t
Poorly operated air conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV) system might cause signicant Sick
Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms and thermal discomfort in the hot and humid climate. This study
presents our investigations on the prevalence of SBS symptoms and thermal comfort in ofces in
Singapore via two approaches including: (1) the onsite objective monitoring and questionnaire-based
investigation under normal ACMV practices, and (2) the online survey with occupants in controlled
indoor temperatures. The results indicate that the prevalence of individual SBS symptoms is lower than
the similar studies in other geographic regions. Overcooling seems to be the domineering complaint in
the local context and the occupants seem to prefer higher indoor temperature. As such, human
behavioral adjustments such as adding clothing happen quite frequently. Moreover, the data also
suggests that cultural traits might skew the survey results, especially in certain subjective aspects
regarding the satisfactory level and comfort. To sum up, the prevalence of SBS symptoms are generally
acceptable in current local context. However, due to the hot and humid ambient environment,
traditional ACMV system with vapor compression refrigerant tends to trigger the overcooling issue in
relation to the sensible and latent heat. It is invaluable to advance our understanding of the
relationships between the ACMV system, human behavioral adjustments, and building energy
consumptions in the tropical region.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Singapore is a city-state located in the hot and humid tropical
region. The outdoor air temperature varies from 23 to 34 C with
a mean relative humidity around 90% in the morning and 60% in
the afternoon. In such a climate, the air-conditioning and
mechanical ventilation (ACMV) systems serve close to all local
commercial and institutional buildings. With a high building
density in the urban environment, the Sick Building Syndrome
(SBS) symptoms and thermal comfort level
have become
important concerns, from both the building operation and
occupants health/productivity points of view.
Chamber experiment, modeling simulation, and eld investigation are the three typical approaches to study both the prevalence of SBS symptom and thermal comfort. Chamber experiments
are traditionally carried out in climate-controlled environment,
with stringently controlled conditions and human behaviors to
exam the impacts of targeted variables [1e3]. Previously established numerical methods form the basis of the modeling studies,
with less attention to the uniqueness of specic environmental
conditions and/or individual subjects [3e5]. Filed investigation is
the most challenging approach, because of the uncontrollable and
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 65 6790 4773; fax: 65 67921650.
E-mail address: wcchang@ntu.edu.sg (V.W.-C. Chang).

0360-1323/$ e see front matter

2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2012.07.0 04

unquantiable variables in the actual industry practices [1,6,7].

However, this method may render the most convincing results as it
provides the direct feedbacks from the occupants.
There are limited numbers of eld studies relating to SBS
symptoms and thermal comfort in ACMV ofces in Singapore, and
a number of issues are still unresolved given the uniqueness of
local indoor/outdoor climates. For example, Ooi et al. [8e10]
investigated the occurrence of SBS symptoms among 2856 ofce
workers in 56 buildings; the results showed that the SBS
frequencies were lower than those reported in
temperate
regions. SBS symptoms were found to be associated with a group
of factors, such as stress level and indoor air quality (IAQ).
However, the study did not explore the factors that contributed to
the lower SBS frequencies. In addition, local ofce environments
and workers desire/perception might have varied over the last
two decades. Therefore, to understand the current state of the SBS
symptoms, more studies are needed.
Though local eld studies have reported the phenomenon of
overcooling in ACMV ofces for decades, little is known about the
occupants reactions to overcooling and the potential energy efciency impact. Foo and Poon [11] found that 60% of the occupants
worked in ACMV ofces with air temperatures less than 24

C,

and they suggested that an air temperature of 27

C might be
good enough to satisfy more than 80% of the occupants. de Dear et
al. [12] studied 235 respondents thermal comfort levels in ACMV
ofces. Their
results indicated that the mean thermal
comfort vote

17

A. Chen,
A. Chen,
V.W.-C.
V.W.-C.
Chang
Chang
/ Building
/ Building
andand
Environment
Environment
58 (2012)
58 (2012)

172e178
172e178
was
0.34, which deviated slightly from
neutrality in the cool
side. Cheong et al. [13] investigated thermal comfort of college
students in an ACMV lecture theater. The results revealed that the
occupants were slightly uncomfortable and dissatised with
overcooling. All these studies mainly aimed to understand human
thermal comfort states assuming that the subjects were
passive sensors of the thermal conditions. However, the fact is,
as indicated by Nicol and Humphreys, that people are active
adaptors to environmental stimuli [3].
To ll up the missing gaps mentioned above, the main
objectives of the study are: (1) to investigate the current
prevalence of SBS symptoms in local ACMV ofce building and
evaluate the potential associations between ventilation, energy
consumption and these symptoms; (2) to study the human
adaptive behaviors and the associated impacts on thermal
comfort level in ACMV buildings.

2. Materials and methods

There were two major eld investigations in this study. The
rst one involved onsite indoor environmental monitoring and
occu- pants lling in a one-time paper-based survey regarding
thermal comfort and SBS symptoms. For the onsite investigation
and moni- toring, the procedure is similar to the previous eld
studies by de Dear et al. and Cheong et al. in Singapore [12,13], and
by Chan et al. in Hong Kong [14]. Based on the measured
environmental parameters and collected personal variables, the
predicted mean vote (PMV) value for the individual occupants
was calculated by the on-line calculator by de Dear and Brager
[15]. The second eld investiga- tion was a three-week online
survey where the variations of indoor temperature were
intentionally controlled but un-disclosed to the occupants. The
questionnaire was designed based on the ISO stan- dard 7730. All
the data and questionnaire results were analyzed using SPSS 18.0
(IBM Inc.) with a signicant level of 0.05.
2.1. Basic information
The onsite investigations and monitoring were carried out in
18 randomly chosen ofces located in 6 different buildings at a
local university. All the ofces were served by central ACMV
systems with variable air volume (VAV) controls. The fresh air
ratio was generally xed at 5% and the upper threshold of
indoor CO2 concentration was set at 800 ppm. Primary and
secondary lters of the ACMV system were replaced every 3
months, and the cooling
coils were cleaned at a 3-month interval. Blinds or curtains were
used as interior shading to prevent sunlight from penetrating into
the indoor spaces. All the ofces were equipped with
conventional ofce facilities such as ofce furniture, desktops,
printers and photocopiers.
In the online survey, one oor in an ofce building was
separated into three sections for the three-week controlled
experiment. Each section was served by an individual airhandling unit (AHU). The basic information about the ofce
building and its ACMV system was similar with that in the onsite
investigation. An online questionnaire along with single-blind
method was employed to
study the occu- pants overall
sensitivity to the temperature uctuations. During the three
weeks, the occupants were asked to make responses on their
thermal sensation levels for each week, without knowing the
temperature adjustment information.
2.2. Indoor parameters
The concerned indoor parameters include temperature (T, C),
relative humidity (RH, %), carbon dioxide (CO2, ppm), ventilation

17

rates (L/s-person), indoor air velocity (m/s), mean radiant temperature (MRT, C). Temperature, RH and CO2 were monitored and

17

A. Chen,
A. Chen,
V.W.-C.
V.W.-C.
Chang
Chang
/ Building
/ Building
andand
Environment
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58 (2012)
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172e178
recorded at a 5-min interval by the IQM172e178
60
Indoor Air Monitors
(Aeroqual Inc., Auckland, New Zealand). Three IQMs were placed
within the human activity zones about 1.1 m above the oor in
each ofce. The sampling period was typically over 24 h.
Ventilation rate was measured by tracer gas dilution method
[16]
with Sulfur hexauoride (SF6) as the tracer gas. Decay
proles of SF6 concen- tration were recorded by an InfraRan
Specic Vapor Analyzer (Wilks Enterprise, Inc., East Norwalk,

U.S.A.). Indoor air velocity was measured by TSI VelociCalc

Air
Velocity Meter (Model 9555, TSI Inc. Shoreview, U.S.A). MRT was
recorded by Quest Temp 36 Heat Stress Monitor (Quest Tech.,
Singapore). All the monitors, specic vapor analyzer and air
velocity meters were calibrated or stabilized before and after each
sampling run. As all the surveys were con- ducted during the
ofce hour, the occupants were assumed to be in sedimentary
level with metabolic rate at 1.1 met based on the observation.
2.3. Paper-based questionnaire investigations
The paper-based questionnaire used on the on-site
investigation involves two major portions to address the issues on
the occupants SBS symptoms and thermal levels. The portion
regarding SBS symptoms is similar with the questions
recommended by the Institute of Environmental Epidemiology of
Singapore [17]. Onset of two or more symptoms at least twice
weekly while in the building was taken as the criteria to
dene a case of SBS, which was compatible with the previous
study [10]. The questions to investi- gate the occupants
subjective perceptions of
indoor thermal condition were
designed based on the ISO standard 10551: 2001 [18].
The
insulation values of the respondents garment were calculated
based on the recommended values in ASHRAE 55-2010 [19].
Compared to other questionnaires, the survey also includes
some customized questions to explore some other potential inu-

17

ential factors such as the occupants exercise habits, their

residence history and stress levels.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Basic information of the respondents
In the onsite investigation, 210 occupants, including 76 females
and 124 males, responded to the questionnaires. Most of the
respondents were between 20 and 40 years old and about 90% of
them were Chinese-origins with the balance to be Malays, Indians,
or others.
Ninety-eight occupants (53 females and 45 males) were invited
to participate in the online survey. Eighty-seven responses were
received in the rst week, and the number decreased to 71 and
55 in the second and third week, respectively. The majority of
the occupants were between 30 and 50 years old.
3.2. Indoor thermal conditions
Table 1 shows the statistical results of the indoor parameters in
the onsite investigations. The indoor air temperatures ranged from
23 to 26 C with mean at 24.4 C. The indoor RHs ranged from 50%
to 70% with mean at 62%. The air velocities were around 0.1 m/s in
all of the ofces. The temperature is comparable with the other
studies in Singapore [10,12,13] and Hong Kong [14,20], but is
about
1.1
C lower than that in Taiwan [21]. The RH value is also
compa- rable with those reported locally and in Taiwan, but is
about 10% higher than those in Hong Kong and about 10% lower
than that in Hunan, China [22]. Based on these data, we can see
that the indoor mean air temperature and RH varied within the
thermal comfort ranges (23e26
C) suggested by ASHRAE
Standard 55-2010 [19].

Table 1
Summary of the indoor parameters in the ofces (95% CI).
Room no.

No. of workers

Air temperature ( C)

Mean radiant

RH (%)

CO2 (ppm)

Air velocity (m/s)

Ventilation
rates (L/s-person)

64
70
68
67
68
66
68
67
69
58
57
58
55
53
51
68
49
63

785
666
711
706
656
985
760
634
1000
619
603
853
663
642
619
663
765
638

0.09
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.09
0.08
0.08
0.09
0.09
0.10
0.09
0.10
0.08
0.08
0.09
0.12
0.11
0.10

56
35
36
42
47
49
59
78
5
23
24
26
9
27
10
24
77
29

temperature ( C)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

12
6
5
9
6
11
4
7
10
29
12
22
14
11
11
15
5
21

25.1
24.5
23.3
23.7
23.2
23.7
23.8
24.5
24.4
25.9
25.6
26.0
24.3
24.2
23.5
23.5
24.6
24.9

25.6
24.4
24.0
24.4
24.5
23.6
23.8
25.0
24.6
25.7
25.7
26.2
24.1
24.7
24.2
23.4
24.8
25.3

Indoor air velocities were in the lower range of recommended

values in international standards.
Indoor mean radiant temperatures (MRT,
C) also varied

and human attire further inuences the neutral and preferred

temperature in the indoor environment signicantly.

within a larger range between 23.4

C and 26.2
C, which
appeared to be compatible with the indoor air temperatures. The
window curtain/ blinds operation in the local ofce culture might
be the main reason for this phenomenon. It was found that
most of the ofces, although with the option of engaging
sunlight via windows, tended to draw down the window blinds
and rely on uorescent lights for illumination.
Compared to the 30
C typical ambient temperature during

3.3. Ventilation rates

the daytime, there is an approximately 6.5

C difference
between indoor and outdoor environments. This signicant
difference might be one of the reasons that lead to the overcooling
issue discussed in Section 3.5. The ambient temperature has
shaped the local resi- dents thermal sensitivities, expectations
and clothing habits over the long-term exposure. As a result, local
people might accept, or even prefer, slightly higher temperature
range than that suggested by ASHRAE. For example, although air
conditioning is available in many apartments, most of the
residents still mainly depend on electrical fans or naturally
ventilation for cooling in their house- holds. Local government
also encourages the residents to use mechanical ventilation
instead of air-conditioning at home. Given the nighttime ambient
temperature between 25 and 28 C with RH between 80 and 90%
all year round, long-term exposure would make the occupants
acclimatize to the prevailing environmental condition. The
indoor temperature
that lowers than this range would
consequently result in the overcooling issue. In addition, the local
climate affects the residents basic clothing ensemble. In order to
be comfortable in the hot and humid environment, most people
would dress with low insulation value such as short-sleeves,
T-shirt, thin straight trousers, or even shorts. In the ACMV ofces
without stringent dress codes, the ensemble might not be able to
provide enough insulation, and further contribute to the overcooling issue. This also leads to the self-clothing adjustment
behavior discussed in Section 3.5. A study in China also substantiated this hypothesis to a certain level [22]. It reported that in hot
and humid summer when the daytime mean temperature was
around 36
C, the mean clothing insulation value in airconditioned buildings was 0.32
clo and the attire was a
combination of short- sleeves, T-shirt and thin pants. The
occupants preferred higher indoor temperature with neutral
and preferred temperatures of
27.7 and 27.3 C, respectively. It can be found that in the hot
and humid region, the ambient temperature inuences human
attire

As shown in Table 1, the mean ventilation rate was 36 L/sperson (95% CI: 27e47 L/s-person), which was much higher than
the rec- ommended value in local standards (10 L/s-person)
[23]. This indicates that most of the ofces in this study were
over-ventilated. In the industry practice, ventilation rate is a
good approach to control CO2 concentration. Most of the indoor
CO2 concentrations in this study were found to be lower than 800
ppm, except for the other two ofces with 985 ppm and 1000
ppm. However, excessive
ventilation might also imply the unnecessary energy consumption
in the air-handling unit (AHU). This impact will be discussed
further in Section 3.5.
There are several important factors that contribute to the
occurrence of over-ventilation. The ventilation is dened as
intentionally movement of air into and out of a building by ASHRAE Handbook [24]. This ventilation concern is usually addressed
by the ventilation rate, which is dened as liter of fresh air
provided per second per person. In the industry practice, however,
the AHUs are mainly operated based on the damper openings
which require at least 5% of fresh air in the supply. The ventilation
rate focuses on the number of occupants, while the AHUs
operate on
the indoor volume or air exchange rate. This
sometimes leads to signicant bias in the indoor environment.
As the capacity of local ofces is
commonly designed using 10 m2 of oor space per occupant, the
ACMV systems are very likely to over-supply the fresh air if the
assumption of maximum occupancy level is not met. In this study,
some ofces were not constantly fully occupied due to the work
nature, with the lowest occupancy level at only 30%. This observation explains why the over-ventilation occured at a high
frequency.
3.4. SBS symptoms
Table 2 tabulates the frequencies of individual SBS symptoms
and the comparisons with other similar studies in different
geographic regions. There was a high percentage of occupants who
complained of wide varying SBS symptoms. More than half of the
respondents complained that at least one of the symptoms
happened more than 2 times per week, and 39.4% of the respondents reported that they were suffering from at least two individual
symptoms for more than 2 times per week. However, if we look
into

Table 2
Prevalence of SBS symptoms in different studies.
County/region Building
types
Singapore
Singapore
Sweden
Hong Kong
Brazil
India
Sweden
U.S
U.S.
South Africa
France
UK

Headache Fatigue Drowsiness Dizziness Nausea /

Shortness
Stuffy
Dry
Skin rash/
Eye
Ref.
Vomiting (%) of breath (%) nose (%) throat (%) itchiness (%) irritation (%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)

Ofces
210 2.82
Ofces
2462 7.1
Computer
355 24.5
classrooms
Library
253 e
Ofces
967 55.5
Ofces
144 54.2
e
2154 12.8
Ofces
301 26
Ofces
4326 15
Ofces
624 17.7
Ofces
425 e
Ofces
477 39.5

33.33
12.3
42.7

18.78
8.3
e

6.57
2.8
e

0.94
0.5
6.7

40
58.5
52.3
33.5
25
15
42.2
49.2
52.5

e
e
e
11.8
22
e
e
e
e

e
e
e
2.5
e
3
4.65
e
e

e
e
e
0.7
e
3
4.34
e
e

2.82
2.3
8.7
e
20
e
1.5
e
2
e
32.3
2.9

10.33
8.7
16.8

18.31
10.9
17.4

e
37.3
31.4
5.2
27
13
21
65.6
17.2

36
51.8
40.2
3.3
e
7
6.9
51.6
e

9.86
4.8
4.6
34
25.8
30.8
22.5
e
5
31.5
e
9.9

15.96
9.1
16.5

This study
[10]
[25]

36
33.3
35.8
8.7
24
22
25.7
49.5
e

[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
[31]
[32]
[33]
[34]

All the numbers were rounded to the nearest tent.

the individual symptom, most of them were of lower frequencies

except fatigue (33%) which exceeded the general guideline of
more than 20% complains. This phenomenon might be due to the
diver- sity of the individual respondents expectations and
sensitivities to indoor environments. It also highlights, to certain
extent, the dif- culty to satisfy everybody with different
backgrounds and needs.
It is recommended that adequate ventilation and proper maintenance of ACMV systems might reduce the occurrence of SBS
symptoms. In the reviews by Fisk et al. [35] and Sundell et al.
[36], the authors concluded that high ventilation rates up to about
25 L/ s-person in ofces were associated with decreased
occurrences of SBS symptoms. Wargocki et al. [37] also reported
decreased prev- alence of SBS symptoms along with increased
ventilation rate to
30 L/s-person. In the current study, the ventilation rates in most
of the ofces were higher than 25 L/s-person which rendered an
over- ventilation phenomenon. However, given the signicant
frequen- cies of individual symptoms, we might postulate
that over- ventilation cannot help to eliminate the occurrence of
SBS symp- toms. Contaminated or poorly maintained ACMV
system might act as pollutant sources and consequently induce
the SBS symptoms [38]. In this study, the lters and the cooling
coil were maintained every 3 months. However, the data showed
that the SBS symptoms still remained. This might suggest that the
SBS symptoms might be induced by
some unquantiable
psychological or
psychosocial factors other than the
environmental or technical factors.
3.5. Thermal sensation vote
The thermal sensation votes (TSV) is the occupants actual
thermal sensations collected during eld studies. Fig. 1(a) shows
the distributions of the respondents thermal sensation votes
(TSV) in the onsite investigation. About 23% of the respondents
consid- ered the indoor thermal conditions to be cold ( 3); 20%
of them responded that the indoor temperatures were cool ( 2).
Only 56% of the respondents replied with neutral (0, 23%), slightly
cool ( 1,
29%) or slightly warm (1, 4%), This value is noticeably lower than
the value recommended by ASHRAE 55-2010 standard [19] which
indicates that atleast 80% of occupants should have thermal
sensation between slightly cool ( 1) and slightly warm (1).
The predicted mean votes (PMV) [39] is a widely used model to
predict human thermal comfort. Many previous studies have
indicated the inherent difference between PMV and TSV. In our
study, the overall PMV value is 0.16
0.31 (mean
SD, 95%
CI); while the overall TSV value is 1.34
1.28. The difference,
w1.5, implies that the comfort temperature predicted by the PMV
model is lower than the one indicated by the TSV. The average

indoor temperature in this study, 24.5

the PMV

C, is roughly in-line with

model estimation, but is too cold as expressed by the occupants in

TSV. The possible reason might be the occupants acclimatization
to local climate, which has been discussed in Section 3.2.
Table 3 tabulates the temperature settings, number of occupants, number of respondents, and their thermal sensation levels in
the online survey. The results also suggest the occurrence of
over- cooling. The mean thermal sensation votes ranged from
1.2 to
1.5 without signicant difference, which indicates that
the occupants would complain about overcooling even
though at temperature of 25
C. Given the large number of
respondents and high response ratio, the results provide a
strong evidence that occupants in local ACMV buildings prefer
slightly warmer indoor temperature than that suggested by
ASHRAE. This nding also highlights the needs for further
investigation to
improve the current knowledge about the
thermal sensation in the tropics.
Overcooling appears to be a common phenomenon in local
ofces. Our ndings about overcooling are consistent with another
study by de Dear et al. [12], in which the authors reported that
one third of the respondents felt overcooling. Another study in
Hong Kong [14] also reported that many ofces (w60%) fell in the
cooler side
of the ASHRAE thermal comfort envelope.
Overcooling might cause thermal discomfort and energy wastage
in the building.
The mean temperature of 24.4 C seems to be ideal based on
the ASHREA recommendation. However, the results indicate

that the occupants seemed to disagree with this setting. One of

the possible reasons might be the ambient environment
climatization discussed in Section 3.1. From
the ACMV
operation point of view, local building operation guideline
indicates that the indoor RH should not exceed 70%. This would
require the ACMV system to remove signicant amount of water
vapor while cools the intake air, which leads to a high latent heat
load for the ACMV systems. The air that ows through the
cooling coil has to be cooled to a lower temperature to
condense excessive moisture. As no reheating is allowed in the
AHUs in Singapore, the indoor air temperature is usually in the
cooler margin of thermal comfort zone and results in the
complaints about overcooling [40]. From the design standpoint,
the developments of separated dehumidication might be a good
alternative for the current ACMV system.
The ndings about over-ventilation and overcooling suggest
that increasing indoor temperature setpoint and dynamic ventilation control might not only
be welcomed by the building
occupants, but also conserve the energy used by the ACMV
system. In a recent study conducted in Hong Kong, Fong and
coauthors suggested that increasing indoor air temperature from
24 C to 26.5 C might contribute to an annual energy saving of
12.9% [41]. In the review by Liddament and Orme [42], the
authors also pointed out that dynamic ventilation control could
conserve up to 75% of the energy

Fig. 1. Distributions of thermal sensation votes (TSA) and thermal comfort votes (TCV).

Table 3
Internet-based thermal sensation investigation results.
Section

Section A
Section B
Section C

Temperature,

Occupant number

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

23
24
23

24
25
24

25
23
25

48
26
24

without compromising the indoor air quality and thermal

comfort. Although it is difcult for us to quantify the exact
energy saving potential in the current study, it is worthwhile to
further explore the potential toward these directions.
3.6. Thermal comfort vote and self-clothing adjustment
It is worth noting that, as shown in Fig. 1(b), the majority of
the respondents were reasonably satised when it came to the
thermal comfort level, with 88% indicated between comfortable
and slightly uncomfortable range. These results contradict with
those of thermal sensation vote, as discussed in Section 3.4,
where 43% indicated overcooling. The self-clothing adjustment
behavior might ll up the gap between thermal sensation vote and
thermal comfort vote.
Clothing adjustment is an important nding of the present
study. Many occupants adjusted their clothing considerably to
overcome the overcooled thermal condition. As shown in Table 4,
1/3 of the respondents reported that they wore long sleeves as
typical attire. Among all the respondents, approximate 62% of
them had heavy clothing in the indoor environment. In addition,
14% of the respondents were dressed in long sleeves and light
jacket simultaneously. This clothing prole differs signicantly
from that

Response ratio (%)

Thermal sensation vote

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

94
81
88

75
69
71

56
54
58

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

1.27
1.47
1.38

1.39
1.44
1.24

1.33
1.50
1.36

in ambient environments, where light and thin materials are

predominant.
The adjustment behavior affects the occupants thermal comfort
levels considerably. Table 5 summarizes the respondents corresponding mean clothing insulation values. After putting on the
extra clothing, the mean garment insulation values for male and
female respondents were 0.57 clo and 0.61 clo, respectively. These
values are consistent with those reported by de Dear et al. after
conversion [12]; and are compatible with the values in Hong Kong,
which were
0.53 clo and 0.61 clo for males and females, respectively [14]. The
nding substantiates that people in ACMV buildings are still
active adaptors. In addition, other adjustment behaviors were
also observed, including opening windows, drinking hot water,
etc.
Given
the hot and humid ambient environment, with
signicant temperature difference between indoor and outdoor,
people tend
Table 4
Clothing conditions of the respondents.
Clothing type:

Percentage (%) CI 95%

Long sleeve:
Light jacket:
Long sleeve or light jacket:
Long sleeve & light jacket:

32.9 (26.3e39.5)
43.4 (36.3e50.0)
61.5 (58.9e63.6)
14.2 (9.9e18.9)

A. Chen,
A. Chen,
V.W.-C.
V.W.-C.
Chang
Chang
/ Building
/ Building
andand
Environment
Environment
58 (2012)
58 (2012)
172e178
172e178

17

17

Table 5
Indoor/outdoor parameters in air-conditioning seasons in different countries/regions.
Location

Indoor temperature (mean, CI 95%)

RH (%)

Indoor velocity (m/s)

Outdoor temperature

Clothing (clo)

Dt

Refer

Singapore
Singapore
Singapore
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Hunan
Singapore

24.4
0.4
23
23.5 (Operative temp)
21.8
23.6 (Neutral)
25.6 (Neutral)
28.7
0.2
22.1

62.1
3.2
64
55.5
50e60
50
7
50e85
72.4
62

0.093
0.005
0.1
0.10
0.1e0.15
0.27
0.05
0.19 (0.1e0.5)
0.13
0.14

31.0

0.3

6.5

30.3
30.3
31.5
32.3
29.5

0.7
0.7
0.9

M: 0.57, F: 0.61
N/A
0.44
M: 0.53; F: 0.61
N/A
N/A
0.35
N/A

This study
[10]
[12]
[14]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[43]

to have light clothing insulation on the regular basis with the

options to put on extra clothing when they are overcooled. This
type of behaviors might be one of the major reasons to explain
the gap between thermal sensation vote and thermal comfort
vote. From
the building operation point of view, these
adjustment behavoirs are also indicators for reviewing the
temperature setting and open up the opportunity to re-balance the
thermal comfort and building energy consumption.
3.7. Cultural masking effects
Other than the typical thermal sensation and comfort level
investigation, the questionnaire also asked for disclosure on the
stress level that the occupants were experiencing. The results
show that almost all the respondents indicated medium stress
level (w94%). This possibly mirrors the cultural cohesiveness
apparent in the East; A noncommittal reply would potentially be
given when a response concerning the environment is requested,
especially if other subjects might be affected. Yet, it is difcult for
researchers to quantify the effects of this type of psychosocial
factors.
4. Conclusions
Overcooling is a common phenomenon in ACMV ofces in the
tropics. The main contributors to this issue might include both
human acclimatization as well as the current design of ACMV
with VAV system. Long-term exposure to the hot and humid climate
might change human thermal preferences, and further affect the
typical clothing habits. Current design of ACMV systems needs to
introduce signicant amount of cool air in order to maintain
proper indoor RH level to prevent biological pollutants (e.g.
fungi and bacteria) from growing. This design will inevitably
introduce a 5e8
C difference between indoor and outdoor
environments. Given the combined effects from both aspects,
building occupants might feel overcooled, and thus put on extra
clothing for self-adjustment.
Intentional over-ventilation and proper maintenance of ACMV
system might help to reduce the occurrence of SBS symptoms, but
would not be able to eliminate them. Other unquantiable aspects,
such as social and psychosocial factors, might also play important
roles. As the building energy efciency and human thermal comfort
become important considerations, it is worthwhile to further
explore the potential to engage various ACMV designs such as
split dehumidication and dynamic ventilation control in the
tropical urban environment.
Finally, the cultural masking effect, of being collectivistic
orientated in the East, might produce biased subjective feedbacks
in the survey. Further understanding of the effect is still needed.
Acknowledgment
This study is supported by grant from the Ministry of National
Development Research Fund, Singapore (Contract No, M48780006).

7.3
5.9
3.6
7.4

We thank Lee Weiming, Allen and Nurjihan Binti Mohamed Noor

for their help in data collection.
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