LA-80-02-4 -- Assessing Environmental Conditions in Apartments of the Elderly

The Apartment Tower is a 12-story public housing facility located in Manhattan, Kansas. It was designed especially for senior citizens over 62 and was used for a study to sample thermal environmental conditions in apartments of the elderly and to determine their comfort response to those conditions.

Thirty-four residents (mean age of 74 yr) participated by making their apartments available and by casting a comfort vote describing their thermal sensation from conditions existing in their apartment at the time the test was conducted.

Comfort responses included feelings of slightly warm, neutral, and slightly cool. The environmental conditions which produced neutral votes had an average adjusted dry-bulb temperature of 25.3C. When a 25.3C line was constructed on the new ASHRAE Comfort Chart, it was found to bisect the KSU-ASHRAE Comfort Envelope which was developed with college student data. This finding further supports the now generally accepted fact that thermal comfort is relatively unaffected by age.

An unexpected finding was the low average clothing insulation of 0.49 clo for the ensembles worn by the subjects. This is in contrast to the 0.5 clo to 1.0 clo specification of ASHRAE Standard 55-74 and the recommended 0.6 clo to 0.8 clo for the KSU-ASHRAE Comfort Envelope.

Citation: ASHRAE Transactions, Volume 86, Part 1, Los Angeles, California



Product Code(s): D-LA-80-02-4