The effect of indoor air temperature on thermal comfort of pupils in naturally ventilated schools in Abuja,Nigeria

Abstract

The effect of indoor air temperature on thermal comfort of pupils in naturally ventilated public primary schools in Abuja, Nigeria.

Charles Yakubu Makun Department of Architecture, Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria1. Email: ycmakun@yahoo.com and charles.makun@futminna.edu.ng ABSTRACT The effect of indoor air temperature on the thermal comfort of a sample of pupils from 6 naturally ventilated primary schools in Abuja, Nigeria has been reported in this paper. The schools are from the 6 districts of Abuja, approximately 207 primary six pupils aged 9-12 were used as samples. The study involved series of field surveys in which the thermal comfort of the samples was evaluated at two different temperature levels of 25.4 and 37.5 0C. Also, during the field experiments there was spot measurements of some indoor environmental variables. The field experiments were conducted in early March 2017(dry season), March corresponds to one of the peak months with the highest out door air temperatures in Nigeria. The data (thermal sensation votes) from the field experiments were analysed using descriptive analysis of the Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD) and the t-test. Results from the descriptive PPD analysis and t-tests showed that the indoor air of temperature of 37.50C affected the thermal comfort of the samples. In sum, result from this study shows that high indoor air temperature in classrooms can be detrimental to the thermal comfort of children that are presumed to be acclimatised to the tropical climate of Nigeria. The practical implication of the results from this study is that, the current naturally ventilated classrooms procured for Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme in Nigeria cannot moderate the indoor air temperature to suit the thermal of comfort of school children, particularly in areas with similar climate as Abuja, Nigeria. The results, limitations and key contributions from this study has been discussed. Keywords: Thermal comfort; effect; pupils; indoor air temperature, Universal Basic Education (UBE).