No abstract

Taken as a whole, the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is a concept that deals not only with thermal conditions, but it also goes much further, because it includes indoor air quality (IAQ), illuminance or acoustic comfort. Among the different categories of buildings, schools are one of the most important in society especially because future generations are spending more than 6 h/day and ensuring them a healthy and comfortable environment must be top priority. The purposes of this research were to better understand school children’s IEQ preferences and needs in classrooms and to compare these among rural versus urban respondents. To reach this goal, a simple yet complete survey was proposed and, along with measurements, multiple conclusions were made. The methodology proposed was to reach a large sample of respondents to give more credibility and precision to the analysis. The results are based on the responses of 790 occupants both from urban and rural environments. Lack of ventilation, cooling, low or too high temperatures during winter/summer periods and a misappropriate sizing or piloting of the heating system are some of the issues found during the survey. The paper tackles several issues at once, helping to paint a more holistic image of the problems encountered in school classrooms. Optimal thermal comfort is not met during the cold season in any of the schools under investigation. The old rural schools were found to be the worst performing buildings compared to urban schools where due to recent investments in refurbishment the winter thermal comfort was enhanced. During the study, it was observed that one of the major IAQ problems consisted in elevated levels of CO2 or particulate matter especially for the schools situated in the city. Noise was reported as an issue only for the schools situated next to national roads while visual comfort was found to be acceptable for more than 94% of respondents from all regions.

The current study was realized in three schools located in regional Romania. The results of this article draw upon the diversity of school’s typologies analyzed: new, existing refurbished and old. The analysis was carried using answers given by 138 children to a survey that covered questions related to their learning environment and health problems. Children were asked to rank the perceived quality of several indoor environment parameters (IAQ, outdoor air quality, illumination, noise), the stressful and friendly nature of the schools, and their overall satisfaction. The survey was accompanied by experimental measurements of air temperature, humidity, noise and illuminance levels, CO2 concentration and dust particles. The most prevalent symptoms experienced at school were sneezes (34.1%), fatigue (18.9%), runny nose (14.5%), stuffed/blocked nose (11.6%), and headache (8.7%). Out of the five main health symptoms reported at school, the majority has been recorded in the renovated school.