ABSTRACT
Conventional thermal comfort criteria tend to underestimate the conditions at which people can still be comfortable. This paper summarises the first monitoring studies of the 1993 PASCOOL comfort task whose aim is to develop revised comfort criteria for assessing conditions in proposed free-running buildings, where conditions are more variable than in mechanically controlled buildings. The studies have been used to try to quantify some of the non-random "errors" that can lead to the discrepancy, due to occupant adaptation and interaction with the building environment, such as movement, clothing change and metabolic rate adjustment. An investigation into the existence of di-urnal variation in tolerance is discussed, and a case is made for using thermal satisfaction over neutral or no change preference is made.
