Assessment of Thermal Comfort in the Intelligent Building – Differences in Room Users' Perceptions

The article discusses possible differences in subjective assessment of thermal sensations of people in the intelligent building "Energis" of Kielce University of Technology with a focus on the impact of gender. The measurements took place in 52 educational rooms, during which 1143 questionnaire forms were collected from the respondents. Thermal sensation, acceptability, and preference votes were analyzed. The results indicate that women and men might perceive the indoor environment differently. Generally speaking, men seemed to rate colder environments as warmer, while hotter environments as cooler than female responses. However, the dependence of thermal preference vs. thermal sensation votes was almost identical for both genders, indicating the same character of perception of both parameters when they are considered together. Similarly, the highest thermal acceptability rating was recorded for the same range of thermal sensation votes from about -0.25 to +0.25 for both women and men.