Relating occupant perceived control and thermal comfort: Statistical analysis on the ASHRAE RP-884 database.

Recent literature has suggested that a building occupant's level of perceived control over their thermal environment plays a significant role in determining their thermal comfort response. The ASHRAE RP-884 report, which led to an optional Adaptive Comfort Standard for use in naturally ventilated office buildings, was a key attempt to identify relationships between perceived control levels and comfort across a large database of occupant responses in the field. Though the study found no conclusive evidence of these relationships, the authors acknowledged that their analytical process involved many questionable assumptions and generalizations, which may have compromised their findings. This study improves upon the RP-884 analysis by taking a more detailed look at three HVAC building studies from within the RP-884 database. Each of these studies contains direct occupant ratings of both perceived control and thermal comfort—ratings that were not available for many of the other RP-884 buildings. Statistical analysis shows that given this detailed focus, significant correlations do indeed appear between key comfort and perceived control variables within the datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]