Hong Kong is a densely populated city in which the service sector dominates. The significant outdoor noise pollution and subtropical climate severely restrict the opportunity for office premises to be naturally ventilated. The high energy consumption for space cooling and the demand for improved indoor thermal comfort conditions stimulated a large-scale survey of thermal comfort conditions in Hong Kong office premises. The neutral temperatures and preferred temperatures are found to be lower than those found in other studies in the tropics, with 60% of the surveyed subjects preferring a change of the thermal conditions in summer. The outcome provides for a better notion of thermal comfort, which can be imposed on design criteria. The results also add weight to the concern about the validity in the field of the traditional chamber test data presented by ASHRAE Standard 55-1992. It further suggests the potential for adopting an adaptive control algorithm for thermal comfort.

Units: SI