A Holistic Investigation of the Relationships Between Indoor Environmental Quality, Occupant Behaviour and Comfort in Residential Buildings

Abstract

Residential buildings play a critical role in occupant comfort, which is influenced by factors such as indoor environmental quality (IEQ), behaviour, and preferences. Despite extensive research on occupant comfort in buildings, comprehensive studies in residential buildings, where people spend over 65% of their time, are relatively scarce. This study addresses gaps by introducing a structured and holistic framework for studying the relationships between IEQ, occupant behaviour, and comfort in residential buildings. Key advancements of the framework include the integration of subjective and objective data collection methods, the extension of data collection to capture long-term trends, and the simultaneous consideration of multiple IEQ parameters, occupant behaviours, and comfort dimensions from diverse perspectives. By applying the framework in two high-performance residential buildings in Canada, the study found that participants’ comfort votes generally aligned with IEQ conditions. Air temperature, humidity, and CO₂ levels emerged as key environmental contributors to thermal and IAQ comfort. Windows and ceiling fans usage was closely linked to comfort, with ceiling fans often maintaining thermal comfort effectively. Bayesian mixture regression models showed seasonal shifts in preferences for IEQ parameters, highlighting an aspect that has been underexplored in previous research. This research provides valuable methodological insights, particularly emphasizing the importance of integrating objective monitoring data with subjective comfort feedback to better contextualize and interpret comfort, adaptive behaviours, and environmental conditions. The data analysis and discussion demonstrated the value of combining both subjective and objective long-term data. These findings offer a starting point for future research into the complex relationships between IEQ, occupant behaviour, and comfort in residential environments.