Elsevier

Journal of Building Engineering

Volume 20, November 2018, Pages 520-530
Journal of Building Engineering

Assessing physical conditions of indoor space enclosing elements in schools in relation to their indoor environmental quality

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2018.08.018Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Validated the newly developed indoor environmental quality related building condition assessment instrument.

  • New schools’ physical and IEQ conditions were superior compared to renovated and non-renovated schools.

  • Physical and IEQ conditions of renovated and non-renovated schools were similar.

  • Main envelope defects explained approximately 74% of variance in non-renovated schools’ relative humidity levels.

Abstract

Field observations conducted during indoor environmental quality studies generally capture relevant building characteristics and occupants’ discomfort coping strategies but do not capture the physical condition of indoor space enclosing elements including walls, floor, and windows despite their likelihood to influence indoor environmental quality. Hence, there is limited empirical evidence on the extent to which the conditions of building elements influence indoor environmental quality. This research investigated the usefulness of the newly developed space level condition assessment instrument for assessing the impact of building elements’ physical conditions on indoor environmental quality particularly in schools. The research involved assessing the physical condition of building elements using the instrument and conducting field measurements of indoor environmental quality parameters in 52 classrooms in new, renovated, and non-renovated schools. Variance analyses of the space level condition assessment data found the most number of statistically significant differences between new and non-renovated schools, and the least between renovated and non-renovated schools. Association analyses found theoretically relevant associations between space level condition assessment scores and indoor environmental quality field measurements, the most significant association being between the main envelope space level condition assessment score and relative humidity in non-renovated schools. Findings of this research should be of interest school divisions looking to improve the indoor environmental quality of their existing schools.

Introduction

Most indoor environmental quality (IEQ) studies include field observations during which researchers record additional IEQ related information not captured by field measurements and occupants’ satisfaction survey [e.g. [1], [2]]. These relevant information includes building characteristics (i.e. floor finish type, ceiling type, and window type) and occupants’ adaptations (i.e. window opened or closed and use of portable fan) [1], [3] that are employed to explain observed trends in field measurements and causes of occupants’ discomfort. For example, Fan et al. [2] found carbon dioxide concentrations above recommended limits in houses because doors and windows were mostly closed in winter. Additionally, De Giuli et al. [4] found closed operable windows as the main cause of students’ dissatisfaction with classrooms’ indoor air quality. Building indoor spaces are enclosed by elements including walls, floors, ceilings, and windows, hence, their physical conditions are likely to influence IEQ [5], [6]. However, physical conditions of building elements are generally not assessed during IEQ field measurements and observations [7], [8], [9]. Eweda et al. [10] defined building condition assessment (BCA) as “a process of systematically evaluating an organization's capital assets in order to project repair, renewal, or replacement needs …”. Several studies have investigated building repairs and renewals implemented to improve IEQ and reported positive impact on building occupants [11], [12], [13]. However, these studies did not account for the impact of defects on IEQ prior to the repairs and renewals. Exploring the link between defects of building elements and indoor environmental conditions would likely contribute to assessing the effectiveness of IEQ-related renovations and aid strategic building maintenance decision making.

Most of the existing BCA instruments including public housing assessment system (PHAS) [14] and BUILDER™ [15] were conceptualized with physical safety and cost as their primary objectives. For example, a blocked fire escape is considered to be more important than cracked window glazing in the PHAS [14]. Therefore, their defect severities and criticalities would not logically be most suitable for IEQ-related BCA. Considering the potential health benefits of IEQ enhancements [16] to occupants of existing buildings, the importance of IEQ-related BCA cannot be over emphasized. The goal of this research was to assess the usefulness of IEQ-related BCA for determining the likely impact of key building elements’ physical conditions on IEQ performance. This research therefore proposes a new BCA instrument, space level condition assessment (SLCA), developed based on existing BCA's but with IEQ enhancement as primary objective. The SLCA conceptualized based on classroom environments in schools, was deployed in 10 schools consisting of new, renovated, and non-renovated school. IEQ field measurements were also conducted in the 10 schools. Assessing the usefulness of the SLCA involved analyzing the differences in SLCA scores and IEQ field measurements between new, renovated, and non-renovated schools. The proposed BCA instrument is intended to provide a quick and cost-effective means of conducting IEQ-related BCA for multiple school buildings. Findings of this research should be of interest to school divisions and managers looking to renovate existing schools or develop a maintenance plan focused on IEQ enhancement. Additionally, findings of this study would interest designers and engineers working on remodeling existing schools or planning new school projects. Finally, this research will be of interest to researchers investigating IEQ in schools or other building types.

Section snippets

Background

There is growing interest in the IEQ literature about the impact of renovations on buildings’ IEQ performance; however, most of these studies focused on homes and offices [17]. For homes, Wells et al. [18] conducted a post-renovation study of homes following deep energy retrofitting and energy star retrofitting and found that relative humidity, air temperature, and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations were within recommended ranges or below the minimum threshold. In another post-renovation study

Methods

This research is part of a two-staged study conducted in collaboration with the Government of Manitoba Public School Finance Board and two school divisions in Manitoba, Canada. The first stage involved developing IEQ satisfaction and well-being surveys for teachers in schools, and IEQ-related BCA instrument for schools [24]. The second stage involved deploying, refining, and validating these surveys [25] along with field measurements of IEQ parameters and IEQ-related BCA. This paper focused on

Results

This subsection presents the results of the SLCA and IEQ field measurements for the four main factors of IEQ: thermal comfort, IAQ, acoustics, and lighting.

Discussions

The analysis identified several statistically significant differences in SLCA scores across the three strata of schools. Firstly, four statistically significant differences were found between new and renovated schools for level 4 SLCA components related to IAQ, acoustics, and lighting. Secondly, seven statistically significant differences were found between new and non-renovated schools for level 4 SLCA components related to thermal comfort, IAQ, acoustics, and lighting. Lastly, one

Conclusions

This research investigated the usefulness of IEQ-related BCA using the newly developed SLCA in new, renovated and non-renovated schools, attesting to its merits for IEQ-related BCA. The SLCA was developed using a predefined list of defects to minimize ambiguity when interpreting findings and would thus be a useful guide to school divisions when planning and prioritizing IEQ-related maintenance for their schools. Additionally, the SLCA provides building condition information hitherto not

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Government of Manitoba Public School Finance Board, the two school divisions, and the 32 schools for agreeing to participate in this research and facilitating access to the schools and the data collection. The authors are also grateful to Md Anamul Hasan, Joshua Boateng Akom, and Katia Cavalcanti Parpinelli for their assistance with data collection. This research was funded by a Discovery Grant (RGPIN 418532-2012) from the Natural Sciences and Engineering

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