ABSTRACT
Resilient comfort involves the mental and physical health of populations that can be severely affected by lack of a good night’s sleep. Recently, rising temperatures have increased the risk of heat stroke risk in Japan where half of heat stroke deaths occur in houses. The average number of tropical nights on which the minimum temperature remains higher than 25°C rose to 44 during 2010–2017. Typical households possess 2–3 air conditioners. Governments advise people to use air conditioners to prevent heat stroke, but one survey has revealed that only in 25.5% of homes were air conditioners used all night. 14.2% of people in the sample slept with natural ventilation all night and 12.2% used air conditioners partially during sleep. This study reports on responses and measurements from 142 apartment residents during 616 nights over four years. All-night use and partial use of cooling were compared, based on different outdoor and indoor thermal environments, with evaluations made of thermal sensations and subjective sleep quality, cooling energy use, resident attributes and dwelling attributes. Causes and effects of partial cooling use during sleep were investigated, to understand how to improve summer sleep patterns in Japanese homes and enhance the population’s thermal resilience.
