A survey on indoor environmental condition and energy consumption in a care home setting

This report presents a feasibility study carried out in a Care Home in Edinburgh from December 2016 to March 2017. The aim of the study is to test a set of methods to assess room comfort and energy efficiency. The methods consist of a literature review on indoor comfort for older occupants, a survey on both objective and subjective thermal & humidity comfort in 10 selected rooms and an energy performance assessment for the building. The review suggests an idea comfort zone of 22-24C and 45%-60% for older people in care homes. The objective assessment shows that less than 1% of the time the room hygrothermal conditions were within the suggested comfort zone. The subjective assessment carried out using a questionnaire survey reveals 70% of the subjects felt “warm” and “slightly warm” on thermal site and 30% voted “slightly dry” on humidity side. The energy assessment, using standard methods, shows that the care home had a fair energy performance when compared against national benchmarks for similar buildings.