A field study of the thermal comfort in residential buildings in Harbin

This field study was performed during the winter of 2000-2001 in order to investigate the thermal environment and thermal comfort in residential buildings in Harbin, northeast of China. A total of 1 20 participants provided 120 sets of physical data and subjective questionnaires. An indoor climate analyzer and a thermal comfort meter made in Denmark were used to collect the measured parameters of the indoor environment, the Predicted Mean Vote and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied. The conclusions are as follows: The Harbin Males are less sensitive to the temperature variations than the Harbin females. The neutral operative temperature of the Harbin males is 1 degrees C lower than that of the Harbin females. The Harbin subjects are as sensitive to the temperature variations as the Beijing and Tianjin subjects. The minimum value of PPD (3%) is close to the Tianjin occupants. Both the sensitivity and the minimum value of PPD are lower than those of the foreign field studies.